Tuesday, February 12. 2013

Today's schedule is C-AG-D-A-B
C Block Social Studies 10 - Today you are going to begin work on the Summerland topographic map (82E/12). The questions you need to work on are 2 (a&b), 3 (c&d), 4, 5 (a-e), 6, 7, 8 (a-c, omit d, e-g) on pages 50-52 of the Geographic Understandings text.

Look to the left, it's the 4th edition map from 2008 and the one in your text is the 2nd edition...what differences are there? We'll look at Summerland on Google Maps because you can see a satellite (Google Earth) view and a terrain view which has the topographic contours on it. For questions 5 & 8 consider the following agribusinesses in Summerland:
Dirty Laundry Vineyards
Sumac Ridge Estate Winery
Sonoran Estate Winery


Here are a few webpages to help:
Natural Resources Canada Toporama
Reading Topographic Maps
Mount Union College Reading Topo Maps
United States Geological Survey Reading Topo Maps
Idaho State University Interpreting Topo Maps
National Wildfire Coordinating Group Reading Topographic maps pdf
Natural Resources & Water Queensland Australia Interpreting Topo Maps pdf
How Stuff Works Reading a Topographic Map
How to Read Topographical Maps

A Block Law 9/10 - Today we'll share your own theories of why crime happens (yes I'd like to have volunteers rather than voluntolds). We'll see if there are any similarities amongst the different theories we made and try to understand just what that may mean. After I'll ask you to create an interview where you are a famous Canadian criminologist being interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos on his CBC television show. What you'll need to do is come up with some crazy, creepy or absurdly normal crime that gained huge notoriety in Canada (murder, treason, assault, embezzlement, kidnapping, criminal harassment - AKA stalking, drug trafficking, gang related activities or some minor crime perpetrated by a major Canadian celebrity - oh just imagine Justin Bieber being charged with what). After you create a crime story idea, you'll need to have five questions that George will ask you (no "what's your name" doesn't count as one). Try to come up with questions that you can reasonably answer within three to four sentences..."So what do you think motivated (person X) to commit (action Y)"?

What should this look like? A brief paragraph that introduces the crime and gives a brief biography of you is the start. Next write out the five questions George will ask you about the crime, the perpetrator, the kind of person who commits that crime, the motives of that person, an explanation of your personal crime theory and then try to answer them using your theory.

B Block Social Studies 11 - Today we'll look at the Legislative Branch of the Federal government in Canada starting with the House of Commons. You'll need to work on three questions:

1. What is "Caucus" and what does it do?
2. What is "Cabinet", what is "Cabinet Solidarity", what happens when you break "cabinet solidarity", how do you get to be a cabinet member, and identify three ministries covered in the federal cabinet?
3. What is the "Official Opposition" and what do they do?

Here are some websites to help:
Current Canadian Ministry (Cabinet)
Privy Council Office: About Cabinet
NDP Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet
Parliament Of Canada Members of the Cabinet and Opposition Critics
 After you can continue looking at the "legislative process" - creating laws in Canada.

An idea to make a new law or to change an existing law starts out as a "bill." Each bill goes through several stages to become law.

1. At first reading, the bill is considered read for the first time and is printed. There is no debate.
2. At second reading, Members debate the principle of a bill — is the idea behind it sound? Does it meet people's needs?
3. If a bill passes at second reading, it goes to a committee of the House. Committee members study the bill carefully. They hold hearings to gather information. They can ask for government officials and experts to come and answer questions. The committee can propose amendments, or changes, to the bill. When a committee has finished its study, it reports the bill back to the House. The entire House can then debate it. During report stage debate, Members can suggest other amendments to the bill.
4. Once report stage is over, the bill is called for third reading debate. Members who voted for the bill at second reading may sometimes change their minds at third reading after seeing what amendments have or have not been made to the bill.
5. After a bill has passed third reading in the House of Commons, it goes through a similar process in the Senate.
6. Once both Chambers pass the bill in the same form, it is given Royal Assent and becomes law.

You will have to draft a simplified bill that you would like to see made law, where you'll write the idea in a simple sentence or two and then use the Make It Law handout to organize your ideas. After this, you'll create a comic strip demonstrating the process of how a Bill becomes a Law in Canada for Monday.