Thursday, March 5, 2015

Friday, March 6. 2015

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

B Block Social Studies 11 - Today is your Government of Canada unit final test/quiz and if you prepared for it I am certain you will do well. You have 40 minutes to complete this test/quiz. Your first order of business is to relax, there are no trick questions on the test/quiz and the questions are fairly straightforward in nature. If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask me during the test/quiz.

Our focus after the test/quiz today is understanding the culture of Canada at the turn of the century. We start by looking at the Laurier Era in Canadian history (Check out the "Get Briefed" website to see some information about the Laurier Era in Canada). I want you to think about what life was like, here in the Comox Valley, 100 years ago in 1915 (when the city of Courtenay was incorporated). How big was the community? Where did people live? What did people do? What were manners like? What were the values of society? Look at the Courtenay and District Museum and Archives to see pictures and check out the Chicago Tribune


For work, I'll need you to define the following concepts: prejudice, stereotyping, ethnocentricism, xenophobia, and racism. This will help with the questions on assimilation of aboriginal culture, restrictions on Asian immigration, and fear over the changes to Canadian culture - which are questions 1-4 on page 13 (look through pages 9-12 in the Counterpoints textbook)

For Residential Schools and Assimilation see:
CBC News Residential Schools
CBC A History of Residential Schools in Canada
Residential Schools at Surviving the Past
For Asian Immigration restrictions see:
Canada In the Making: Asian Immigration

C Block Geography 12 - Yesterday we looked at earthquakes and the seismic gap concept (focusing on Izmit Turkey in 1999). Today....Oh today we look at Tsunamis and the west coast of North America. We'll watch sections of the Discovery Channel documentary "America's Tsunami: Are we Next?" You will have two questions to work on tonight in your week four package:

How do Tsunami’s work? from p.11 & Why can tsunamis cause such damage and devastation? What are some characteristics of the wave that factor into how much damage it could cause? How do coastal or shoreline features factor into the extent of damage? What role could a warning system play? How effective would a warning system be for the west coast of Vancouver Island? Why?

You can find more information at:
PBS documentary "The Wave that Shook the World"
PEP Tsunami Preparedness website

From Canadian Geographic...

After shock
The devastation of last year's Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami in Southeast Asia offers vital lessons for the west coast of North America
By Jodi Di Menna and Steven Fick

In the year since a massive earthquake and tsunami rocked the Indian Ocean, the question "What if it happens here?" has gained urgency in western North America. The geology of the Cascadia subduction zone off the Pacific coast is so strikingly similar to that of Sumatra that scientists in British Columbia have used data from last year's disaster to refine models of how a megathrust earthquake — on the order of magnitude 9.0 — would affect the province's coast.

"The Sumatran earthquake was the type closest to what we expect in Cascadia," says John Cassidy, a seismologist at Natural Resources Canada in Sidney, B.C. "We set out to learn as much as we could from what occurred in Sumatra so that we could be better prepared when our big one happens."

Geological deposits and coastal First Nations lore indicate that large earthquakes have hit the West Coast every 200 to 800 years, and since the last one shook the region 305 years ago (the article is 10 years old so it is 315 now), scientists believe Cascadia could be ready to rupture at any time. In fact, in September (2005), Vancouver Island slid to the west about the width of a pencil, an event that occurs every 14 months and increases pressure along the fault line. "This slipping motion means we're one step closer to a big earthquake," says Cassidy.

The Sumatran experience gave scientists an idea of what to expect when it does happen. Using information gathered from that event, Cassidy and his colleagues plotted the same pattern of aftershocks and crustal deformation onto a map of the North American coast .

Predictions by computer models were largely confirmed by the Sumatran events, but in some cases, there were unexpected variations. Shaking was stronger than expected and felt farther inland, and the tsunami flooded higher up on shore and with more variation from place to place than scientists had anticipated.

These insights will eventually make their way into building codes and engineering designs in earthquake- and tsunami-prone areas, but more immediately, the Sumatran disaster has led authorities to adjust their reaction strategies by adding warning systems and by increasing public awareness.

"Educating people to be better prepared is the most important aspect," says Cassidy. "The Boxing Day images were a graphic reminder of what can and likely will happen in the future. The key is to use the information and learn from it."

D Block Criminology 12 - Today we'll watch the Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit episode "Closure" This episode deals with the short and long-term effects of a sexual assault on a victim.

From TV.com "Benson does her best to help a rape victim who is able to describe her attack in perfect detail, yet unable to properly identify her attacker when push comes to shove. When the detectives revisit the case a few months later, they find the woman even less willing to talk about what happened, as she claims she has moved on."

I want you to think hard during this episode and pay careful attention to what happens with Harper's character. What are the short and long term impacts on victims of Crime? Use Harper in the Law & Order episode you watched today and Chapter 3 pages 51-4 in CRIM textbook to help. This will form the basis of your blog entry on Monday.

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