Gifted Social Studies Weekly Update

Week of 1/20-1/24

Breaking News

8th Grade Field Trips

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!

Middle School Model UN General Assembly

Friday, April 3, 2020

Eighth Grade students will travel to the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, on

Wednesday, April 22, 2020.

What If? Conference

Cortex Innovation Lab

Friday, April 24, 2020

Classroom Happenings

8th Grade Classes

DEMOCRACY-Principles and Framework of the U.S. Constitution

Students are examining what democracy had looked like throughout history.

Guiding questions are:

How do people perceive democracy differently?

How has the definition of citizenship changed over time in the United States?

How might one’s definition of citizenship affect his/her/their definition of democracy; how are the two concepts linked?

CAREER INTEREST SURVEY

Our wonderful counselors helped students complete a career interest inventory and introduced them to the ICAP.

MODEL UN

Students were introduced to Middle School Model UN for the 2019-2020 School Year! Students received delegate handbooks.

7th Grade Classes

Preserving History: We continued our preliminary research and finalized topics. We will only be working on this project two or three days a week. Some work will have to be done outside of class. For more information, this is the link for the document I sent home about this project on January 14.

Government: We won’t go deep into the Constitution and Government in 7th grade. The goal is for them to learn some basic principles to help them understand how the legislature works, what impeachment means, and how the President is elected.

This week we started by exploring the roles of the three branches of government and how they work together to make laws. They especially enjoy playing on www.iCivics.org which has many simulation games about government. During the last two weeks they’ve played "Branches of Power” where they develop and pass constitutional laws from the perspective of all three branches.

We also started learning about how the Constitution lays out the process of and reasons for impeachment. Next week we’ll apply that information to the current impeachment proceedings. It’s hard to talk about politics with 7th graders, and it becomes more complicated by our current polarized political climate. So everyone is comfortable with the conversation, we’ll use strategies to stay focused on the topic and respectful of people with differing opinions.

As always, let me know if you have questions or something I need to know. The easiest way to reach me is by email.