Friday, September 7. 2012

Today's schedule is once again altered for our last advisory group meeting this week. We will not meet again in advisory group for another three weeks. The schedule looks like this:

9:05 - 9:35 - Advisory Group
9:40 - 10:40 - A Block
10:45 - 11:50 - B Block
11:50 - 12:35 - Lunch
12:40 - 1:55 - C Block
2:00 - 3:15 - D Block

A Block Law 12 - Today we will finish our presentations from yesterday and then continue our Introduction to Law unit by taking down a few notes on the five functions of law and the divisions of Public (criminal, constitutional, and administrative) and Private law (tort, family, contract, property, and labour law). Lastly we'll take a look at the differences between Substantive and Procedural Law. Your assignment will be to look up the penalties for a law (in the Canadian Criminal Code) that you disagree with and explain why we should have stronger or lighter penalties for this law. Consider "Mischief"

C.C. 430. (1) Every one commits mischief who wilfully
(a) destroys or damages property;
(b) renders property dangerous, useless, inoperative or ineffective;
(c) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property; or
(d) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with any person in the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property.

Punishment

(2) Every one who commits mischief that causes actual danger to life is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.

So if you are protesting the removal of old growth trees in a location and hammer spikes into trees then you are endangering the life of fallers (who would use chainsaws and chainsaws don't mix well with metal spikes)...that means you're eligible for life in prison much the same as if you tampered with someone's break lines in their car. Is that sentence too harsh or too light? Why? that's an example of what I'd like you to consider. You may use the pocket criminal codes in class or may use the computer to check the statutes on line.

B Block Geography 12 - Today we'll work on the foundations of Geography starting with the Five Themes. In order to understand the increasingly complex and interconnected world we live in we need to find a way to make sense of information in a way that doesn't overwhelm us. The Five Themes (Location, Place, Human-Environment Interactions, Movement, and Regions) are a framework for making sense of geographic data. Today, hopefully, we'll cover the themes and then next week we'll move on to systems and spheres.

C Block Criminology 12 - Today I want you to continue with your brainstormed list of all the reasons you can think why someone would commit a crime. Yesterday we collected all of your ideas on big sheets of paper in groups and tried to categorize them into crime theory clusters. Today you'll present your ideas and after we'll begin our look at the nature vs. nurture debate by focusing on the history of psychological and sociological criminology (Power Point). For Monday, you need to create your own theory of why crime happens. Remember you need to use the brainstormed list we did in class along with the notes you take today on the history of Criminology. Use the Crime Theory Web Site found on this link. To start next week, we'll look at the difference between deviance and criminal behaviour (acts that are criminal but not deviant and deviant but not criminal) and the three views on crime (interactionist, consensus, conflict).

D Block Social Studies 11 -  OK so since we had an assembly yesterday and missed pretty much the entire class we'll work on what we didn't get to yesterday... I'll have you draw mental maps of Canada (not from the maps on the wall!) and get you to work in partners on a large scale map. You need to include as much detail about the geographic information you brainstormed yesterday which would include Canada's political geography (provinces/territories/borders/capitals) and physical geography (lakes/oceans/mountains/rivers/islands) as you can. When we finish, we'll share our maps and discuss why it is difficult to conceptualize and graphically represent our country and figure out what regionalism really means.