Friday, December 12, 2008

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

B- Earth and Space Science 11 - Today we are going to the library to work on our major project for the year. Since there is a junior advisory class in the library, to start the class we'll gather in the classroom and finish up any work from yesterday's class. You will need to hand in the Seasons Lab along with the Atmosphere worksheets an questions from page 445 in the text.
Now let's have a chat about the major project. I'll remind you that you were to have a check in / milepost on Monday (December 15th). I will postpone that milepost until the second week in January, but if you'd like to hand in something for me to look at that will be fine. For your major project you were to:

Over the course of this term, take 15 photographs, showing class themes. There must be one picture from each of the large course topics below:

• Minerals
• Rocks
• Geologic Resources
• Plate Tectonics
• Earthquakes
• Volcanoes
• Rivers
• Glaciers
• Oceans
• Weathering
• Weather
• Climate
• Biogeography
• Sun
• Planets

Each photo will be accompanied by five typed sections that are clearly differentiated and set off by a heading. The headings that will appear in your project are "Background, Relation to Class, Research, Relation to my Life, and Reference(s)"

• “Background” Heading: The first paragraph (a sentence really) contains the date, location, and the topic observed.
  
• “Relation to Class” Heading: The second paragraph, a minimum of four sentences in length, relates your photo to lecture and class based assignments. How exactly does this photo relate to what you learned in class? To show that you are incorporating class content, highlight in bold a term or concept discussed in class or observed in the field. Take accurate, organized, and neat notes in order to achieve this requirement. Be sure to include the date of lecture or assignment from which you learned this material.
  
• Relation to My Life” Heading: This paragraph, a minimum of three sentences in length, relates your photo to your life. How have you or a member of your family been impacted by the phenomenon photographed? Write an interesting, creative paragraph without being trite. Don’t display a picture if it can’t in some way relate to your life.
• Research” Heading: The third paragraph, a minimum of five sentences in length, uses references consulted outside of class or the on line texts to describe the photo. Be sure to cite every reference. For example, say you paraphrased the following statement from a journal article, written by Jon Smith (who is affiliated with NASA) in 2006: “Carbon dioxide emissions have increased 30% in the last one hundred years.” You need to cite Smith at the end of this paraphrased sentence. “Carbon dioxide emissions have increased 30% in the last one hundred years.” (Smith, 2006)
• “Reference” Heading: The final section of every page completely cites any reference used in the Heading above. In the example above, Smith would be correctly cited using MLA format. Use MLA generator at http://www.palomar.edu/dsps/actc/mla/or on our library site (reference to noodlebib)

So really all you have to do is take pictures, say how they're related to what you learned in the class, and find an on line article that can help describe the topic in some way. Sounds simple right? It is! This is a major project and counts for a large portion of your grade...I would hate to see you omit something that could really help your marks! Try to catch up over Christmas if you can.

A - Law 12 - Today we'll quickly take a look at negligence defenses, motor vehicle negligence, professional negligence, and occupiers' liability. After we will watch an episode of Law & Order "Corpus Delicti" (legal term - the body of the crime - meaning it's hard but not impossible to convict someone without a body). We will try to see whether or not a civil case exists as a result of the events in the episode.

D - Geography 12 - Today we will finish the DVD "Inside Hurricane Katrina" and have a discussion about the fall out and long lasting effects of the disaster. When we are done, we will look at global climate classifications and you'll need to work through questions 1 & 4 from page 325 in your Geosystems text. Next Monday (December 15th) you'll have a unit final.

C - Introduction to Law 9/10 - Today we will watch a Law & Order episode "Hot Pursuit". We will try to make sense of the potential crimes (who committed them and did they possess the Actus Reus and the Mens Rea?) In the time that remains you can work on your crime scene reconstruction - investigation activity.

Pau Hana!