Tuesday, March 5. 2013

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

C Block Social Studies 10 - Today I will ask you to brainstorm two questions...What is a rebellion and Why do rebellions happen? After a brief yet I'm quite certain brilliant discussion I'd like you to define the following: Family Compact, United Empire Loyalist, Clergy Reserves, Assembly, and Governor. I'll have you work on the two questions on the "Get to the Source: The Family Compact" section on page 53 of Horizons and we'll finish by looking at Clergy and Crown Reserves in Upper Canada.

A Block Law 9/10 - Today we are going to continue your look at crime scene investigation procedures and we will begin our work on our case study project.

You will need to imagine that you are a constable in the Comox Valley R.C.M.P. detachment specializing in criminalistics and crime scene analysis. You are going to create a crime scene dossier file that you would normally put together for the Crown Counsel. You have been called out to a crime scene here in the Comox Valley and when you arrive at the scene you need to begin your narrative report. What do you need to do?

•Create a crime (ex: murder, arson, kidnapping, assault)
•Choose eight pieces of evidence (from the list below) that you would find at the crime scene and either help you solve the crime or mislead the investigators
•Create a victim, a perpetrator, two other potential subjects, & witnesses (not necessary)
•Create a dossier file that contains the following: a walk through narrative; pictures of the eight pieces of evidence (with a description, a tag number, and an explanation of where it was found); a detailed crime scene diagram/sketch with pictures of what the crime scene looked like and the identification of evidence; forensics lab sheets for each piece of evidence that describes the evidence and explains what the evidence tells you; transcripts of any interviews conducted by investigators (including potential eyewitnesses or suspects); a narrative of how you "solved" the crime so that the Crown Counsel can move forward with laying charges and proceed to trial.

Evidence to choose from: human hair, synthetic hair, carpet fibres, cotton fibres, bullet cartridges, bullet holes, finger prints, foot/shoe prints, blood stains (drip, splatter, pool), bodily fluids, skin epithelials, tube of lipstick, can of coke, apple core, piece of rope, body, accellerants, matches, money (wallet), poisons, bugs or larvae (blowflies), cigar or cigarette but, mug, tire treads, or any other trace evidence but you must approve the other evidence with me.

I will have examples for you to look at and we will also work on this next week in class.

B Block Social Studies 11 - Hey remember that election campaign assignment you were working on? Perhaps you don't remember because there are no campaign posters/flyers/social media campaign notices or anything resembling campaigns around the polling station also known as room 611! Sheesh maybe you're so complacent that you think you'll win without any effort - of course historically political parties that have acted in this manner have been severely punished at the polls...as Edmund Burke is often quoted "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it". So you have speeches in class on Thursday, but you might want to encourage people to vote for you with your glitzy and glamorous visual ad campaign - just sayin (Progressive Conservative members in the 1992 House of Commons = 156 Progressive Conservative members in the 1993 House of Commons = 2...that's a loss of 154 members; now think of members of the House of Commons as your marks...get the hint yet?)

Today we'll continue looking at other ways of influencing government. Yesterday we reviewed lobbyists and pressure groups in Canada and today I'll have you focus on civil disobedience and the mass media. I have two questions that I'd like you to answer today:

1. What is the role of the media in the political process (think news, reporting, campaigns, and advertising)?
2. What is civil disobedience? What are the three "guidelines" for practicing civil disobedience? Should the Sierra Club of Canada allow acts of civil disobedience to be done in their name in order to block the development of either the Keystone XL or Northern Gateway pipelines? Would you? How? Why or Why not?

The types of Mass Media include: Print media encompasses mass communication through printed material. It includes newspapers, magazines, booklets and brochures, house magazines, periodicals or newsletters, direct mailers, handbills or flyers, billboards, press releases, and books. Electronic media is the kind of media which requires the user to utilize an electric connection to access it. It is also known as 'Broadcast Media'. It includes television, radio, and new-age media like Internet, computers, telephones, etc. With the advent of Internet, we are now enjoying the benefits of high technology mass media, which is not only faster than the old school mass media, but also has a widespread range. Mobile phones, computers, and Internet are often referred to as the New-Age media. Internet has opened up several new opportunities for mass communication which include e-mail, websites, podcasts, e-forums, e-books, blogging, Internet TV, and many others which are booming today. Internet has also started social networking sites which have redefined mass communication all together.

American abolitionist/author/philosopher Henry David Thoreau lectured on "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in relation to Government" from which came the idea of civil disobedience. His belief was that as a citizen you do have an obligation not to commit injustice and not to give injustice your practical support. According to Thoreau, this means that if a law is unjust, and the legislative process is not designed to quickly get rid of it, then the law deserves no respect and it should be broken hence being civilly disobedient. So for us a modern day example may be the Keystone XL Pipeline project or the Embridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project. The Canadian chapter of the Sierra Club recently put an online poll on their website, to which about 1900 supporters responded. About nine in 10 felt “the climate crisis is so urgent that traditional legal campaigns are no longer sufficient.” They have chosen, however, not to practise civil disobedience. Should they?

Protestor's Guide to the Laws on Civil Disobedience
Civil Disobedience, Environmental Protest and the Rule of Law