Friday, June 5, 2009

Today's schedule is C-D-Lunch-B-A

C - Criminology 12 - Today you are going to get into groups of three and make a mind map poster of organized crime groups (gangs) in Canada. You will get a handout on Organized crime (aboriginal crime groups, cartels, ethnic crime groups, and outlaw motorcycle gangs) and will need to explain the activities of each group (What do they do? How do they do it? What do they control? Where are they based in Canada?) and identify the connections amongst the groups (Are they connected? Do they get into conflict with each other?). I'll give you an example: on the handout it states that prairie-based Aboriginal gangs were working with the Hells Angels to sell drugs at street level. Here there is a connection between Aboriginal and Outlaw Biker gangs and you'd identify that on the mind map...now the question is why did the two groups work together? Organized crime by nature (according to Howard Abadinsky) is monopolistic (in other words organized crime groups want to have a monopoly over a specific geographic area for the illicit activity they wish to pursue). You will need to have your mind map poster of organized crime in Canada completed by the end of the class (Note: use the section in your text to help as well).
For more stories about organized crime (especially a particularly interesting court case in Ontario and Manitoba involving the Bandidos) see the CANOE Crime News Archive.

B- Social Studies 10 - Today we'll continue our look at the economy of British Columbia. We'll spend the first 10 to 15 minutes of class going through information about the forestry industry and then you'll have the remainder of the class to work on your economic sectors of BC poster activity that you got yesterday. If you have access to the Internet at home here are a few websites that can help you with the forest sector in BC:
Council of Forest Industries - Issues in the BC Forest Industry
BC Ministry of Forests and Range
Forests in BC @ britishcolumbia.com
Coast Forest Products Association - Statistics



A - Social Studies 11 - Today we'll begin our look at comparative living standards, but I'll remind you that your Population Activity is due today. To start we are going to compare Canada's population to Botswana. On the United Nations Human Development Index Canada ranks 3rd while Botswana ranks 126th (out of 179 countries in 2008). We'll try to make sense of why Canada ranks so high while Botswana ranks so low.

United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Human Development Report Statistics
2008 Country Rankings
CIA World Factbook Country Comparisons

You'll need to work on questions 1, 2, 3, & 4 on page 342 (Reading a Map) and 1 & 4 a & b on page 345 of the Counterpoints textbook.

Pau Hana Ohana!