Wednesday, January 11. 2012

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

B Block Geography 12 - Today we are going to make sense of ecosystem evolution and community succession (thrown in will be the terms establishment and extinction). We'll try to understand how species co-evolve and adapt to create complex communities (self regulation and emergent properties) and then we'll look at Mount St. Helens to understand primary and secondary succession. We'll watch the last portion of the DVD "Fire Mountain: The Eruption and Rebirth of Mount St. Helens" in order to better grasp the rates of recovery for ecosystems around the volcano. The embedded video below from PBS is also a very good (specifically chapters 3 "The Blowdown Zone" and 5 "Bouncing Back") You'll need to complete questions 21 & 22 from page 662 of your Geosystems text along with a question on fire ecology and the effects of modern fire suppression. For more on ecosystem services and conservation see the National Geographic Earth Pulse website.

Watch Mt. St. Helens: Back From the Dead on PBS. See more from NOVA.

For the audio slide show of "Life Returns to the Blast Zone" click here and then launch the interactive feature.

D Block Social Studies 11 - Today we will work on the history of Quebec “nationalism” and the roots of the separatist movement (Chapter 8 pages 190-204 in the Counterpoints textbook). We'll go through pages 198 – 204 as a class and then we will watch Canada: A People’s History episode “Years of Hope and Anger” chapter 12 "October 1970". This deals with the Front de Libération de Québec (Quebec Liberation Front) whose actions culminated with the kidnapping of James Cross (who was released) and Pierre Laporte (who died while in FLQ custody) in the province of Quebec. The Canadian Prime Minister (Pierre-Eliott Trudeau) responded by imposing the War Measures Act in Quebec (suspending civil liberties). You'll need to work on questions 4 a & 5 a from page 194. The Parti-Quebecois came to power in 1976 and in 1980 held a referendum in the province of Quebec to determine if there was a desire to pull the province out of confederation (really it was a convoluted form of independence where the province would still maintain Canadian currency but be able to make its own laws). To help understand this we'll watch Canada: A People’s History “In an Uncertain World” chapters 3 “The Choice”. In the end the province voted 59% "non" and 40% "oui". Since it was somewhat close the government of Canada reopened constitutional talks and "repatriated" the constitution from Great Britain. In this, however, Quebec once again felt "betrayed" or left out. In order to understand this we'll watch the Canada A People's History "In an Uncertain World" chapter 6 “The Night of the Long Knives”. After you'll need to work on the following questions 1, 3, 4, 5, & 7a from page 200.

C Block Law 9/10 - Today we'll continue with our focus on Criminal Law in Canada; specifically looking at the physical and mental elements of a crime, the three types of criminal intent, attempts, conspiracies and the four parties to an offense. We will go through some important points in the note package I handed out to you for the course and then you'll have a few questions to work on:

1. Name and explain the two parts of a criminal offence
2. List and explain the three types of Mens Rea
3. Explain the difference between Intent and Motive in Criminal Law.
4. Name and briefly explain the kind of offence that does not require Mens Rea
5. What is the main requirement for an attempted offence? For a conspiracy?
6. Read the following sections of the Criminal Code carefully. For each offence, describe the Actus Reus and the Mens Rea:
   343. Everyone commits robbery who…assaults any person with intent to steal from them
   342. Everyone who…has in their possession a credit card that they know was obtained by the commission of an offence (ie stealing or fraud) is guilty of an offence
   131. everyone commits perjury who, with intent to mislead, makes a false statement under oath knowing the evidence is false
   209. Everyone who, with intent to defraud any person, cheats while playing a card game is guilty of an offence
7. As a joke, Jason points a gun, which he believes is not loaded, at Lana and fires. Lana dies of a gunshot wound to her head. Decide if Jason a) had the Actus Reus for the offence; and b) will be found guilty of murder (intentionally causing Lana’s death)

After this I'd like you to make a small poster (on 11x17 paper) showing the rights and obligations of an arrested person. Illustrate your poster with drawings in order to help graphically describe your rights and obligations upon arrest. We'll have time to continue this tomorrow in class.