Causes of WWI

In class Monday(11/27/06) and Tuesday (11/28) we're using chapter 24 to answer the MAIN causes of the war, the SPARK that caused in, and the reasons for the U.S. entering the war.

(Thanks to Ms. Hawes for these)

The SPARK is:
Serbian
[named] Princip
Assassinated
[the] ARchduKe
[of Austria-Hungary]
(yeah, I kinda had to fudge this one)




The MAIN reasons are:
Militarism
Alliances
Imperialism
Nationalism

And the Four Reasons for the U.S. Entering WWI Were. . .
(write a reason, the year and draw a picture to help you remember)
1 Sinking of the Lusitania, 1915 (pictured)
2 Zimmermann telegram, 1917
3 Unrestricted submarine warfare, 1917
4 Russia leaves the war, 1918
or
Allies with France and England

WWI started in Europe in 1914 but the U.S. didn’t enter the war until 1917.

Thanksgiving in Bolivia

As I've said before, my cousin Joy is in Bolivia with the Peace Corps. Here's an email from her:

From : Joy
Sent : Tuesday, November 21, 2006 7:57 PM
Subject : Thanksgiving

Hi all,
Im doing well here in Vallgrande. Most of the kids
from the orphanage are leaving to their homes for the
holidays, so it will definitely be quiet for me in
December and January (And to be quite honest, Im
looking forward to a little bit of downtime after such
a busy Fall...err...Spring). Im going to miss the
little rugrats, though.

I have my English class at the university tonight, for
which I just prepared a quiz. I started back in
September with 27 students, and now I am down to 16. A
bunch of them decided they didnt have the time or
didnt have the ganas (will) to learn English. However,
I sure like the smaller class!

Tomorrow I am headed to a small town called Buena
Vista, which is about 8 hours (by bus and taxi) from
Vallegrande. Buena Vista sits on the edge of the
mountainous and tropical Amboro National Park (Mom and
Dad, it´s a lot like Samaipata, but on the other side
of the National Park). I plan to get there tomorrow
late afternoon and hopefully will have some time to
hike before all the Turkey Day festivities start. All
of the Santa Cruz Department Peace Corps volunteers
are meeting up there at a resort where we will spend
Thanksgiving. Peace Corps provides us with turkeys and
the resort will prepare all the food! Then most of us
will be in Santa Cruz City this weekend to go to a
waterpark (!!) for the goodbye party of several
third-year volunteers. Looking forward to escaping to
the city for a few days...my service is definitely
getting to the point where Im counting down the
months.

I´m not sure if I´ll have internet before Friday.
However, please know Im thinking about everyone and
hoping the best recovery for Grandma.

Lots of love and Happy Thanksgiving,
Joy

p.s. Mom, is there anyway you can freeze some pumpkin
and pecan pie for me????

The World Wars

We have now begun studying WWI (Chapter 24) and WWII (Chapter 27) in class. We will be doing a lot of comparisons between the wars and will also pick one subject on which to specialize and do a presentation on.

Your homework for Thanksgiving weekend is to ask your parents and other relatives about WWII. What did your relatives (living or dead) do during the war? Where did they live? Do you have any pictures or other artifacts to share? (Be ready to journal your findings after the break.) If you can bring in artifacts to class, great. If not that’s fine, just don’t forget to ask to see them.

One example is Catlin’s story. She found out about her family’s connection to the war. She wrote:
History has always been a boring subject to me, but now I think I understand that history isn't just some event that happened to somebody else or took place somewhere else. It happens to real people and World War II happened to my grandfather.

When we first started working on this project, I confess, I didn't know much about World War II. When someone mentioned it to me, I would've been like "UGH. History? Yuck." But as I started reading more and more about it, my interest grew because just knowing someone who fought in a war made it more real to me.

You can read the rest by clicking here and other stories about WWII by clicking here.

Great Depression WebQuest

Go to classzone.com or just click here.
Do the crossword, take the quiz and check out the other links if you have time.

If you have extra time, you can go here:
Read letters to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, click here

Take a look at the Library of Congress’ site about it, click here

PBS: riding the rails here, the dust bowl here and more here

Questions about the Great Depression

1. What was the New Deal?
2. What was the Dust Bowl?
3. What is deficit spending and why is it good and bad?
4. What do speculation and buying on margin mean?
5. What is a sit-down strike and why was it successful?
6. What where the economic problems of the 20s that lead to the Great Depression?
7. When the stock market crashed, what sequence of events led to massive unemployment?
8. What are three New Deal programs that are still around?
9. In the 1930s, what did liberal politicians favor? Which political party? Is the same true now?
10. In the 1930s, what did conservative politicians favor? Which political party? Is the same true now?
11. What was life like during the Great Depression?
12. Which problem of the Great Depression was FDR able to improve the most?
13. What ended the Great Depression?
Your questions:

Stock Market Simulation WebQuest

1. Go to : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stockmarket/virtual.html
2. Read the introduction and then click on "Trade Traditional Stocks"
3. (You don’t need to update the Shock player. Please skip this step. You might need to register the player. If so, just make up the info.)
4. Buy stock in any combination.
5. You don’t need to spend all of your money right away and you can buy and sell as you go.
6. Hit the “two week advance” button.
7. Don’t forget to use the "news flash" option.
8. How’d you do? Remember your first gain or loss. (E.g. -7%, 12%)

If you have time, run through the simulation a few times to get the feel for buying and selling and to see if you can improve your score.

If you have more time, check out the American Experience website on FDR at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/32_f_roosevelt/

Other Stock Market resources:
http://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/estockmktcrash.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/crash/filmmore/fr.html

Bonus question:
When was the biggest stock market crash in U.S. history?

2006 Illinois Gubernatorial Election Results Activity

We'll be doing this in class 11/9 & 11/14.

Check out the polls for the elections at Pollster.com
Who did the polls project to win? By how many points?

Chart it!
Chart out the data for the 2006 Illinois Governors Race
First, the projected results from Pollster
Next, the actual Results from 11/8 (check out the Chicago Sun-Times site for results)
and finally, the class Results from 11/7 & 11/8

Chart Questions
In the actual results (from 11/8/06), who won? By how many points?

In the class results, who won? By how many points?

How do the projected and actual results compare? Why?

How do the actual and class results compare? Why?

Now that the election is over, what do you think will change in state government? What are your predictions for the future in politics?