A & D - Criminology 12 - Today we'll try to make sense of mass and serial murder. First we'll finish our discussion of sexual assault that we started on Tuesday and afterwards we'll try to make sense of homicide, mass and serial murder. We'll discuss the divisions of murder in Canada (1st and 2nd degree and manslaughter), the extent of murder in Canada, and murderous relations (acquaintance and stranger homicide) and we'll take a few notes down about those topics. After this, I'd like you to explain the types of serial and mass murderer along with the reasons why they commit these crimes. You can find the answers to this in the work of Jack Levin and James Alan Fox "Multiple Homicide: Patterns of Serial and Mass Murder". The summary of their work is on pages 234 and 235 of the textbook in the Criminological Enterprise section. For more info look at the work of John Douglas (former FBI profiler) on mindhunter.com (look in the article section and there is a great read entitled "So, you want to become a profiler...").
In order to understand mass murder and motives we will dedicate some time this week to the murders at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado a decade ago. We'll examine the Department of Justice (FBI) Critical Incident Response Group report "The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective" and the Columbine Review Commission report of Governor Bill Owens. In essence we'll look at the background of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as well as the types of behavior, personality traits, and circumstances in the family, school, and community environment that should be regarded as warning signs of school shooters.
B - Earth & Space Science 11 - Today is your surface processes unit final test. If you studied and are prepared then I'm certain you will do fine. We will mark the test together in class and then you'll have the opportunity to ask any question that you want answered about weather that has been bugging you. You could ask something like "How is it possible that it can rain in my front yard but be sunny in my back yard"? or "Is it true that you can tell the temperature by listening to crickets"?
C - Geography 12 - Today we'll continue our look at severe weather, finishing our look at the Raging Planet DVD on tornadoes from yesterday. After we finish looking at tornadoes we'll switch our focus to hurricanes. We'll look at the conditions necessary for hurricane development and then look at the Saffir-Simpson scale (wind speed, storm surge, and damage to structures). Your activity will be to track (plot out the path) of Hurricane Diana from 1984 and answer two questions (including question 18 from page 248 of your Geosystems text). For more on predicting Hurricane Landfall check out: Predicting Hurricanes and the NOAA Predicting Hurricanes site too.
While you are working on the questions I'll show you some footage of Hurricane Ike and the damage done to Galveston Island (on the Raging Planet Hurricane episode).
Raging Planet: Hurricane (2009) - Part 1 by bigcenterprises
If there's time today we'll start watching National Geographic's Inside Hurricane Katrina.
The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina is very personal to me. Although I was not directly impacted by the hurricane (I did not lose loved ones; nor did I lose property in the storm) my wife and I were married on August 5, 2005 just north of New Orleans. We spent time talking with the people of New Orleans and making friends there. We traveled the Gulf Shores road (Highway 90) through Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis, Long Beach, and Gulfport. Three weeks later after a clear warning from the director of the National Hurricane Center, Dr. Max Mayfield (someone who I met at a professional workshop five years earlier), Katrina made landfall along the border between Louisiana and Mississippi. Now it wasn't as if politicians didn't know about the potential disaster that could befall New Orleans if a major hurricane was to strike. Dr. Ivor van Heerden ran a simulation (Hurricane Pam) the previous year at Louisiana State University. His test results were provided to FEMA, state, and local officials. People knew. People in power knew. Heck, I even knew and I'm just a geography teacher living on the opposite end of the continent. The DVD asks some hard questions and I hope to begin a lively discussion with you about them.
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