B Block Legal Studies - Today we'll jump back in to our Introduction to Law unit, first by quickly reviewing yesterday's activity. Today...
- Give 10 examples of Canadian Laws - What are Canadians not allowed to do?
- Give 5 examples of Rights Canadians have - what are guaranteed to us?
- What is the difference between what is legal what is moral and what is ethical?
The Oxford Dictionary defines a crime as 'an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law'. So we may do something 'wrong' that is not a crime. Lying to a friend may be wrong but it may not be a crime. On the other hand we may do something 'right' which is a crime. So, a crime is a fact, a matter of law. It is not an opinion. As society changes, some actions which used to be criminal, for example, are no longer criminal. Likewise, some actions, such as smoking in covered public places are. Laws are made by the Government, a government we elect democratically, for the good of us all. We may not agree with the law but there are democratic opportunities to change it.
- Morality governs private, personal interactions and different social groups have differing moralities...groups tend to agree (consciously or subconsciously) on a set of rules for how they’ll behave around each other. Things that are considered immoral have personal consequences.
- Ethics governs professional interactions. Codes of professional ethics are often established by professional organizations to help guide members in performing their job functions according to sound and consistent ethical principles. Things that are unethical have professional consequences
- Law governs society as a whole, often dealing with interactions between total strangers. People in a society are subject to the laws that reflect society's collective morals and ethics (that are codified as law). Things that are illegal have personal and social consequences.
A Block Criminology - Today we'll get back into groups/pods of four and get your ideas (about why people commit crime) on a large sheet of paper. Remember there are no limits to your ideas and realistically you should have lots and lots of ideas. Try to think generally here but if you need to go to specifics (why do people steal food or cars, why to people abduct others, why do people set fires, why do people commit fraud, why do people sell drugs or sex)
After you collect all of your ideas on large sheets of paper with smelly felts, I'd like you to cluster (group) your reasons why people commit crime into categories (emotions, poverty, culture, etc...) and see what biological factors and sociological factors may contribute to crime. We'll then share your ideas together as a class and see if there are any common ideas that we may have and we'll try to see where your clusters fit in terms of Choice, Trait, Social Structure, Social Learning, and Conflict theories. I'll give you a handout to help you with crime theories and I'd like your group to see where your crime theory categorized clusters (similar categories) fit in terms of Choice, Trait, Social Structure, Social Learning, and Conflict theories. The goal of criminological theory is to help one gain an understating of crime and criminal justice.
Many disciplines factor into criminological theories, such as psychology, sociology, biology, political science, and criminal justice. Theories cover the making and the breaking of the law, criminal and deviant behavior, as well as patterns of criminal activity. Individual theories may be either macro or micro in terms of scale and scope. Theories can be used to guide policy making, and can be evaluated on a number of criteria including: clarity, scope, parsimony (concise), testability, practical usefulness, and empirical validity. Many theories have common traits, but differences among them still exist. Understanding these differences is key to understanding the often contradictory views of crime and deviance they try to explain.
D Block Physical Geography - Today, I'll give you your Introduction to Physical Geography workbook and we'll work on learning to observe as a geographer would. Why would we want to be observant and think like a geographer?
Observing as a Geographer means we'll look beyond simple observations and try to see a larger picture with connections to the wider world (think of the following three big concepts: Interactions, Interconnections, and Implications and the questions "what", "where", "why there" and "why care"). We'll practice an analysis of two photos in class and one in your week 1 handout and below. With a partner and using the Observing as a Geographer Would questions (in your week 1 package that you'll get today...maybe) to help with your analysis along with the acronym “OSAE”
O - Observe. What do you see? What's going on? Work from obvious to complex. Be precise!
S - Speculate. Why is something there or not there? Write open ended Qs and make sense of your observations.
A - Analyse. How come? What is the real reason why it's here or not here? Find answers to your questions.
E - Evaluate. In what ways could this landscape change? Consider social values here. Justify your opinions.
What do you see?...
We'll share out what we found.
Do not feel obligated to answer all these questions, but use them as a guide (to the best of your ability and knowledge) to think about the processes and systems involved in you eating your breakfast.
- What did you eat for breakfast?
- Did you make your breakfast at home or buy at a restaurant/take out establishment?
- Was your breakfast culturally or regionally specific? In other words, are Corn Flakes, scones, breakfast burritos, lattes, pop tarts, etc. consumed everywhere?
- Is the type of food you eat affected by economic and political processes, or is your choice of food simply based on “taste”?
- Where did the ingredients in your breakfast come from? Where was it produced and by whom? (Developed vs. developing world? Factory vs farm?)
- What are the different networks and activities that must be in place before you can eat breakfast?
- Who financed your breakfast (from the earliest stages of food production to the last moments of consumption or waste)?
- Does it matter what places your food comes from and what social conditions (like the working conditions of farmers, etc) it was produced under? Why or why not?
- Is it important – or possible – to consume locally?
We didn't get to watch the video yesterday but I did post that the average Canadian will consume more than 15 kilograms of bananas a year; Bananas account for 20% of all the Fruit import volume into Canada by commodity; The top countries we import Bananas from are in descending order Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, and Honduras; Bananas form the largest share of the worlds fruit commodity produced annually by volume (metric tons) and Canada is the 8th largest net importer of fruit (in terms of dollar value) in the world. So how do bananas (or your breakfast) connect you to the world?
After, we'll try to work on the Key Question: How do Geographers describe where things are?
Remember, Human geographers ask two simple questions: Where are people and activities found on Earth? and Why are they found there? What tool do geographers use to do this? Maps!
Okay, first let’s get this out of the way right now. I’m a cartophile. I love maps. When I was a kid I immediately took the maps out of my parent’s National Geographic subscription when the magazine arrived in the mail. I used to love the Canadian Automobile Association flip maps that my parents would get for our many road trips south into the United States. I always had an atlas in my room. And I read books about maps. Look at letters 2-3-and-4 of the word Cartography…there must be a reason why I’d point that out...Paul Hardy from ESRI (a massively influential GIS company) wrote “Cartography has been defined as the art, science, technology, and craft of making maps and is a discipline going back 30,000 years to cave paintings locating woolly mammoths”
Professor Michael Peterson from the University of Nebraska (Omaha) states that:
The purpose of a map is to show the world at a smaller scale so that we are able to get a sense of where things are located in relation to one another, and that we can have a better understanding of different patterns in geographical space. Maps are also valuable in that they are useful for gaining knowledge of patterns in geographic space and expanding our understanding of navigation. They are important to show trends in things as weather, population and growth. They are a visual source where spatial messages are transmitted from a cartographer to everyday people like you and me.
Maps don’t just help us get from place to place. They help us understand Earth and how its physical processes and features can shape human activity and vice versa. When data is organized by its locations, we can see geographic patterns that allow us to develop a better understanding of how systems work and interact with one another. But...
From City Lab’s “When Maps Lie” by Andrew Wiseman…
Maps are representations of the world where certain things are highlighted and certain things removed. This often is a good thing: if there’s a map for a specific purpose, it should only include things that are helpful (road types, names and cities on a road atlas, for example) or maybe for clarity’s sake you reduce how jagged or complicated something is, like the lines on a subway map. But it can be hard to tell when something has been manipulated or removed, so it’s important to think about the choices the cartographer could have made.
From National Geographic in an interview with Frank Jacobs…How to be a Critical Map Reader
“A map is always a bit of a lie because there is always something that is not on the map,” Jacobs says. “For instance, the typical map is flat while the world is round; there’s already one whole dimension that’s missing. When you read a map, you’re ingesting the point of view of the mapmaker. A map is not as blindly objective as a photograph; it’s an artifact that has been crafted to tell you a story”. The first step to becoming a critical map reader is to always question the intentions of the mapmaker.
The main question that you can ask with any map is, ‘Why?’ Why did someone make this? What’s the point? What’s the story and who is telling it?” Jacobs says. “Every map is an attempt to convince you of something; it’s like an argument. It’s in your best interest to know who is trying to convince you…Take any map that surprises you, that seems somehow ‘strange.’ Why does it stop you in your tracks? What is different about it? Can you relate why it attracts your attention to who made it, and to what purpose?” Jacobs says. “If cartography is the art of wrapping up a story in a map, then map reading is like a journey of discovery for that story.”
So maps are a Geographic media and all media has a bias. What you choose to put on a map shows your bias. To understand Cartography and why maps lie check out...
Next, if there's time, we'll look at the five themes of geography and take a look at our key question Why is each point on Earth unique?
Today's Fit...
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