Wednesday, November 22. 2017

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

B Block Physical Geography 12 - Today we'll begin looking at Albedo, energy distribution, and the greenhouse effect. NASA has a good website (Earth Observatory Global Warming) that tries to explain the concept of climate change and global warming without a biased political viewpoint for or against the subject. Check it out. You could also look at the Hyper Physics website from the department of Physics and Astronomy at Georgia State University. We'll take a look at two sections of the National Geographic video "Six Degrees Could Change the World" (1 to 3 degree temperature changes).We will pay more attention to global warming and climate change later on in the course.

Every day we are going to start by looking at the synoptic forecast along with weather maps.
Data Streme
Envrionment Canada: Weather Office Comox

D Block Criminology 12 - Over the next two weeks we'll look at Mass Media Theories and Media Literacy. Today we'll look at the elements of Media Literacy...one key element of media literacy is that:

1. Media are constructions - Media products are created by individuals who make conscious and unconscious choices about what to include, what to leave out and how to present what is included. These decisions are based on the creators’ own point of view, which will have been shaped by their opinions, assumptions and biases – as well as media they have been exposed to. As a result of this, media products are never entirely accurate reflections of the real world – even the most objective documentary filmmaker has to decide what footage to use and what to cut, as well as where to put the camera – but we instinctively view many media products as direct representations of what is real...

So today we will present our media analysis of the advertisements that you and your partner were assigned yesterday in class. Remember I asked you to practice the skills of critical analysis of the message and the medium. After your presentations we'll go through your first handout for the course on media literacy and critical thinking.

If there's time, we'll watch Batman: The Animated Series Two Face (part 1) and if time Two Face (Part II). These episodes provide an alternate origin story to Harvey Dent / Two Face than the movie The Dark Knight. The animated series was a sort of watershed for crime serial animation in that it was styled after a "film noir" format (a gritty and dark Hollywood genre of crime dramas from the 1940's and 1950's). This episode is 25 years old (yep from 1992) and is a brilliant example of a cartoon series taking its audience seriously. It provided gripping, intelligent, and compelling episodes that did not shy away from important issues and was adept at examining crime from a criminological perspective.

C Block Human Geography 11 - Today and tomorrow our topic centers around the key question "Why Do Conflicts Arise among Ethnicities?". As with your big thinking question on religious conflict there is no easy answer to this inquiry.  In some cases, ethnicities compete in civil wars to dominate the national identity. In other cases, problems result from division of ethnicities among more than one state. Today we'll look at the Quebec, Scotland and Catalan nationalist movements, while tomorrow we'll look at Lebanon, Sri Lanka, India and the Kurds.