Tuesday, May 31. 2011

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

C - Geography 12 - Today is a crucial day in Geography 12; we will be discussing biogeochemical cycles - specifically the carbon and nitrogen cycles. We will also be discussing the flow of energy through an ecosystem (trophic layers and food webs). It is very important that you review systems and feedback from week 1 of the course. For a great on-line text resource check out the Human Ecology textbook by Gerry Marten. For more on cycles in ecosystems check out:
Biogeochemical Cyles at Windows to the Universe
Biogeochemical Cyles at Geography 4 Kids
Biogeochemical Cyles at Michael Ritter's on line "The Physical Environment" text
Trophic Pyramids and Food Webs at Physical Geography
Food Chains and Food Webs
Build a Food Web "Chain Reaction" game
Bill Nye video "(It's the) Food Web" by Food Webby Web on the Soundtrack of Science
McGraw Hill BC Grade 7 Science textbook animation on PCB's and Bioaccumulation

D & A - Criminology 12 - Today we shift our focus and look at White Collar Crime. We will begin by learning how to identify a pyramid / ponzi scam (for more take a look at How Stuff Works). After, we'll quickly look at individual exploitation of an institutional position, influence peddling & bribery, theft and employee fraud, client fraud and corporate crime. We'll end the class with a discussion about business and corporate culture. What is it that makes a successful business person and what kind of ethical behaviour is valued by corporate culture? From the Business Ethics Forum blog site:

An outstanding in-depth article on the Value of Corporate Values can be found in an article by Reggie Van Lee, Lisa Fabish, and Nancy McGaw in this month's S+B. Based on a survey at 365 companies in 30 countries, the authors claim "increasingly, companies around the world have adopted formal statements of corporate values, and senior executives now routinely identify ethical behavior, honesty, integrity, and social concerns as top issues on their companies’ agendas". The highlights of the survey and article are:

1. A large number of companies are making their values explicit. That’s a change — quite a significant change — from corporate practices 10 years ago. The ramifications of this shift are just beginning to be understood.
2. Ethical behavior is a core component of company activities.
3. Most companies believe values influence two important strategic areas — relationships and reputation — but do not see the direct link to growth.
4. Most companies are not measuring their “ROV.”
5. Top performers consciously connect values and operations.
6. Values practices vary significantly by (continental) region.
7. The CEO’s tone really matters.

The article provides quantitative data about these 7 findings and concludes with "A commitment to corporate values may be in vogue, but the public will remain suspicious until corporations both understand and can demonstrate that they are committed to using values to create value". What we are looking at is what makes people abuse the public trust in corporations. We will look at stings, swindles, and chiselling and discuss ImClone (Martha Stewart) and Bre-X. For more on Corporations look at the website for the documentary The Corporation (which we'll watch part of tomorrow)

B - Earth & Space Science 11 - Today we'll take the class to finish up the Atmosphere / Weather worksheets 2-3 that we started yesterday. You need to finish these today as tomorrow we start astronomy and space science.