Tech enhancements to four Social Studies disciplines
Justice Sandra Day O’connor said, “The practice of democracy is not passed down through the gene pool. It must be taught and learned anew by each generation of citizens.”
Social Studies teachers address four main disciplines: geography, economics, civics, and history. Bringing them to life for students often involves the integration of online resources like Google Earth, Nextgen Personal Financial (NGPF), icivics and New Visions.
Many history teachers integrate geography at the beginning of a unit so the content being studied can be framed in the context of where it happened. Geography determines the characteristics of places and how they connect to other regions and people. Teachers utilize maps, satellite images, and photographs to help portray the relationships between places with different environmental and cultural features. One engaging tech activity emphasizing geography is Google Earth, which allows students to explore 20 levels of zoom from space views down to the street level. Google Tour Builder utilizes these images to help teachers facilitate interactive projects for students with complex digital images. Students organize still pictures with captions alongside 3D virtual tours of both indoor historic buildings and outdoor battle grounds to build their own tours.
Physical characteristics of regions are connected to cultures. When humans interact with the environment, it affects settlement and movement as well as how ideas are dispersed. Often a relationship develops between the natural environment and economic growth in a region.
Effective economic decisions involve analysis of the cost and benefits for individuals, businesses, and governments as they use resources. Basic indicators of economic performance can be linked to political issues.
Next Generation Personal Financial (NGPF) offers free online resources with over a dozen units, with multiple lessons in each, as well as hundreds of activities and videos. Assessments have already been designed with 10 and 25 question quizzes available on each unit. Courses can be teacher led, used for group activities or even as an individualized semester long program. Additional features include question of the day and case studies as well as online games that help bring lessons to life.
The study of civics and government explores how people govern themselves by balancing the rights of citizens, government, and the media. Problems in society revolve around individual rights, civic virtues, and democratic principles.
Students learn a lot by playing online educational games on icivics. Using cartoon graphics, Immigration Nation is a fast-paced matching game that helps students understand the requirements for citizenship. Do I Have a Right? is another game set in a law office where players use legal tools to analyze the rights of clients and hire new lawyers to upgrade their firm.
Students are encouraged to exercise democratic principles in classroom, school and community settings. They are challenged to determine effectiveness of public policies and consider multiple points of view when making decisions about political issues. Historical thinking is a process of chronological reasoning that addresses causes, connections, significance, and perspectives. Credible arguments about the past are developed based on interpretation of evidence from a variety of primary and secondary sources in diverse media formats. Students place events, ideas, and developments in context by considering the date, place, and historical significance.
Extensive free online curriculum offered by New Visions includes hyperlinked primary source documents and artifacts as well as teacher designed and tested activities that help students think like historians. This comprehensive new resource interfaces easily with Google Classroom.
Historical thinkers analyze the factors that influenced people during different eras and how their perspectives changed as new information and interpretations emerge and change over time. Classroom discussions on current events, even controversial ones, and student government opportunities help revitalizing civic learning so students can become more informed, responsible, and engaged citizens.
Whether studying US or global history, students cover geography, economics, and government. The infusion of technology rich resources like Google Earth, NGPF, icivics and New Visions enhances student engagement in social studies classes. Kristi Mccracken, author of two children’s books and a long time teacher in the South Valley, can be reached at educationallyspeaking@gmail.com.