Thursday, April 25. 2019

Today's schedule is DCBA

D Block Law - Test Day...Today is your criminal law mid-unit test in Law. The unit test will cover chapters 4, 5, 7, & 8 of the All About Law text. The test will have: True/False questions; Multiple Choice questions; Matching questions; and 5 Short Answer questions. Since you had a few days to prepare I am certain that you will do extra well on this test. No lawyer works in isolation and today neither will you, you may collaborate with colleagues on the test. You'll have as much time as you need for the test however it should only take 45-50 minutes to complete.

C Block Criminology - 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...Not only are media constructions (made by humans) but that the receiving audience interprets the meaning of the message themselves.

  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.

2. Audiences negotiate meaning - The meaning of any media product is not created solely by its producers but is, instead, a collaboration between them and the audience – which means that different audiences can take away different meanings from the same product. Media literacy encourages us to understand how individual factors, such as age, gender, race and social status affect our interpretations of media.

 3. Media have commercial implications - Most media production is a business and must, therefore, make a profit. In addition, media industries belong to a powerful network of corporations that exert influence on content and distribution. Questions of ownership and control are central – a relatively small number of individuals control what we watch, read and hear in the media. Even in cases where media content is not made for profit – such as YouTube videos and Facebook posts -- the ways in which content is distributed are nearly always run with profit in mind.

4. Media have social and political implications - Media convey ideological messages about values, power and authority. In media literacy, what or who is absent may be more important than what or who is included. These messages may be the result of conscious decisions, but more often they are the result of unconscious biases and unquestioned assumptions – and they can have a significant influence on what we think and believe. As a result, media have great influence on politics and on forming social change. TV news coverage and advertising can greatly influence the election of a national leader on the basis of image; representations of world issues, both in journalism and fiction, can affect how much attention they receive; and society's views towards different groups can be directly influenced by how – and how often – they appear in media

5. Each medium has a unique aesthetic form - The content of media depends in part on the nature of the medium. This includes the technical, commercial and storytelling demands of each medium: for instance, the interactive nature of video games leads to different forms of storytelling – and different demands on media creators – that are found in film and TV.

So, I'll ask you to work in partners - groups of two (dyads) on commercial advertisements that I'll give you today. I'll ask you to practice the skills of critical analysis of the message and the medium. Together as a class we'll look at each commercial and try to consider the message that it sends to people.

B Block Human Geography - 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 briefly look at the Quebec, Scotland and Catalan nationalist movements then we'll focus on Sri Lanka


Next we'll look at Sri Lanka and the conflict between the Tamil minority and Sinhalese majority. For help ThoughtCo. has a nice piece on the Civil War as does Al Jazeera as does A World Without Genocide.

A Block Physical Geography -Today we'll look at the composition and vertical structure of the atmosphere focusing on the bottom two layers (Troposphere and Stratosphere) through this we'll complete the Atmosphere in the Vertical activity along with a few questions on the atmosphere. The atmosphere can be divided into layers based on the atmospheric pressure and temperature profiles (the way these quantities change with height). Atmospheric temperature drops steadily from its value at the surface, about 290K (63°F; 17°C), until it reaches a minimum of around 220K (–64°F;–53°C) at 6 mi (10 km) above the surface. The atmosphere has 4 layers: the troposphere that we live in near the surface of the earth; the stratosphere that houses the ozone layer; the mesosphere, a colder and lower density layer with about 0.1% of the atmosphere; and the thermosphere, the top layer, where the air is hot but very thin.

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

The Weather Network