Thursday 9- 27: why are they moving there? part two

Now that you have some data to work with, there are two things that I'd like you to do with this information:

A) Try to identify some trends. For example, which region or regions have experienced the most growth in population? Which have seen a lot of people leave (relatively speaking)?

B) Are there some regions that don't seem to have changed very much?

C) Most importantly, try to postulate at least three possible reasons WHY this happening. People are on the move in America... what motivates them? Why are they doing this?

D) Add all this above information to the document you have already been working on

cheers,
Mr. L

Tuesday 9- 25: why are they moving there

Hello there, wonderful humyns!

Yesterday, you began looking at the top 20 cities in America throughout the 20th century. I had you compile a list of each decade's top 20, with each city listed by its rank, plus how many people lived there, plus the region of the country where his city exists.

Today, I want you to do the following:

A) Many if not most of the cities listed don't stay on that list the whole 100 years. So for each city on the list, I want you to find the highest population count they had while still on the list, and the year that they hit this "high count"

B) Make each city's "high count" RED and BOLD text

C) For each year, count up the number of top 20 cities for each region

D) Make a list of how many cities are in each region for each year  For example,
in 1900, there were
4 cities in the "Northeast" region
6 in the "Great Lakes"
6 in the "Mid Atlantic"
1 in the "Southeast"
1 in the "Southwest"
1  in the "Pacific"
1 in the "Central Plains"

E) Once you have done this, we will start to analyze

cheers,
Mr. L

Monday 9-24 : give the people what they want!

In cities that is.... our last look at American population today will involve looking at the top cities in the USA. Specifically, I want you to look at the top 20 cities by population from the years 1900 to 2000.

Impossible you say? In the hands of a lesser mortal, that'd be a yes....but I am, after all, ME.

Just go here

http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/twps0027.html

This page contains a great deal more information than you need, but you're looking for begins underneath where it says:

"DETAILED TABLES"

Each decade from 1790 on lists the top 100 cities. If you're feeling motivated, you can map out all 100, but I'm only looking for the top 20 beginning at year 1900, which can located from link "13"

For each year, list the top 20 cities, together with their population, as well as which region they are a part of, using this regional map found here:

http://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/usa-maps/united-states-regional-maps.html

When you are done, try to draw some conclusions about the movement of population in America based on what you have learned.

Be sure to upload these findings to your folder at Box.com

cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday 9-20: why does the population move?

For today's second look at Population, we will take a brief look at how (and why) population -- meaning people -- moves from place to place. We'll start with a simple exercise: migration patterns inside the United States.

Here's what to do:

A) goto this website
http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html

It contains an interactive migration map for The United States. Each state is broken up into counties. You can either click on one of the counties, or enter in the name of a city or county in the textbox

B) Either way, when you select a county, it will give you red and blue lines.

C) The red lines represent people leaving that place you selected; the blue lines stand for people coming into the place you chose
D) You also get a bar graph telling you how many people moved in or out in a given year

Now, what you need to do with that map -->  pick at least 20 different counties, being careful to distribute them among many different states and various regions of the country -- east coast, west coast, south, midwest, etc etc

Try to identify trends...where are people moving to? Where are they leaving from? Can you identify some possible reasons why this might be happening?

Please create (and upload to Box.com) a file named after yourself plus the phrase "American migrations". Include all your findings

cheers,
Mr. L



S  

Thursday 9-20 : better population questions, part one

Two days ago, you were asked to:

A) complete your first webquest (about population)

B) Upload to Box.com the answers you found in that webquest

C) Create at least two new questions that are BETTER than the questions you found

(This means each of you, as INDIVIDUALS was supposed to create 2 "better questions")


What you are about to do will build on those two questions. Here is the first part of what you need to do:

1) Locate at least three good websites per question that help to answer each question

2) Email me those questions and their related websites. Please put your name  and "new questions" in the subject line

cheers,
Mr. L 

Tuesday September 18: next level through a "webquest"

For the second part of today's class, we will begin looking at our the next unit of study, namely, population.
We will begin with a simple "webquest" which is a series of guided questions about one particular topic, all of which has information online at various websites.

When you start this webquest, bear two things in mind

A) All of the questions you answer must become part of a computer file, which you will be handing in to me via Box.com

B) These are not necessarily the best questions in the world. I am expecting you to come up with at least two that are better.

These questions which you create should go at the bottom of the document you are creating in order to answer the other questions.

Ready, set 

GO HERE TO START

Tuesday September 18: our first webquest

For the second part of today's class, we will begin looking at our the next unit of study, namely, population.
We will begin with a simple "webquest" which is a series of guided questions about one particular topic, all of which has information online at various websites.

When you start this webquest, bear two things in mind

A) All of the questions you answer must become part of a computer file, which you will be handing in to me via Box.com

B) These are not necessarily the best questions in the world. I am expecting you to come up with at least two that are better.

These questions which you create should go at the bottom of the document you are creating in order to answer the other questions.

Ready, set 

GO HERE TO START

Tues September 18: How BIG is McDonald's, the thrilling conclusion

Yesterday, you began an investigation into just how big McDonald's is, just in terms of land area. You were asked to create a document that answered three questions about this exact subject. You were also asked
 Now here's what I would like to do with the information you found


A) GO HERE



B) You will notice that you have been instructed to leave a comment with the results you found, including the websites you used and the calculations you made to find out how big McDonald's is, PLUS the number of countries that McDonald is bigger than

C)  This is the button you click to leave that comment

D) Make sure that everyone involved with finding this information is credited. Make sure you enter in ALL the information you found

When we're all finished with this, we will move on to today's main topic

cheers,
Mr. L

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 17: OUR FIRST WEB INVESTIGATION

Greetings from the Grandmaster Flash of all teaching type instructors!

Today, we will begin with (I hope) a web based experiment. Since we now seem to have a working web connection, I would like you to investigate and find the answers to the following questions:

A) How much land does McDonalds own just at their restaurant locations alone?

B) Additionally, how much land does McDonald's own for other purposes, such as cattle ranches for their burgers and tater farms for their french fries?

C) If you put A and B together, is the total bigger than the size of some small countries? If so, which ones are smaller than the McDonald's empire?

You may of course work together, but you MUST produce some sort of document that shows the facts you've collected, the EXACT website addresses where you got this information, the NAMES of everyone who collaborated on this document.

AND, TURN IN THE DOCUMENT...fer cryin' out loud, I can't grade it if I can't see it!

cheers,
Mr. L


PS If you like this research idea, then it was all my doing. If not, then its Jared's fault :-)  (KIDDING!!!!)

PPS For the size of all the nations on Earth, try the "CIA World factbook"; that might prove useful

Thursday September 13: Adding detail to your cities

Once we have finished the first Case study discussion, I want you to do the following

A) Continue to add new elements to your cities that you did not have already

B) Make sure I know which items are the new ones

C) Make sure this new stuff is uploaded to Box.com

cheers,

Mr. L

PS -- The discussion you had earlier today is available HERE

Thursday September 13: Big Mac Attack !

Today, the first part of the class will be devoted to a discussion of our very first "Case Study"
 -- The Big Mac Attack

The other stuff we do today will be determined by how long the case study goes on :-)

cheers,
Mr. L

Tues September 11, part two

Greetings once again!

In this part of the class, I would like all of you to participate in helping each other by  sharing some of the questions you have created in a collaborative fashion.  I will have one of you type these questions into a document that you will all be able to access from Box.com.

The link to that folder is

HERE

Hopefully, this will be of help in forming even more questions, giving you some new ideas, and perhaps sharpening some of the answers you already have.

cheers,
Mr. L

PS YOUR list of questions must be uploaded to me at your folder on Box.com

Tuesday September 11: continuing onward from yesterday, part one

Greetings, one and all!

Today, we will spend the bulk of the class working with our first "case study". We began this process yesterday, but let's be honest, forty minutes is not really a lot of time. Hopefully, you received the email I sent out last night, reminding you that you might want to download the material we used, so that you can either print it out or have it on your computer.

Ok, let's get crackin'.... time permitting, there is a second part to this that I would like to do.

cheers,
Mr. L

Monday September 10: Your first Case Study, step 1

Greetings, and welcome back!

Today will be dedicated to two distinct but equally important tasks. Here is the first task:

Your textbook contains many unique and interesting case studies. We will commence with reading the first case study, which begins on page 4, "The Big Mac Attack". Naturally, you may make use of the textbooks here in the class, but presumably, you will also need some time outside of class as well.

As you know, there's not enough textbooks for both classes.... in the hands of a lesser mortal, this would be a problem, but I am, after all, ME. You may read and download at your leisure, the same document from a folder at my Box account, by clicking

HERE

As you read this case study, there are some questions which will help you to properly analyze it. I have outlined these questions below, and additionally, I have made a document which includes these questions. This document can be found, read and downloaded from:

HERE

For now, however -- since we don't have an active internet connection in this room, I will make available the questions in a "treeware" format. Additionally, I have the questions here as well:

Cheers,

Mr. L

PS If for some reason you have difficulty downloading the case study, it is also represented here:

Thursday September 6: Making your restaurants worldwide

OK, so if you're reading this, you've finished the first part of today's class, where you built yourself an edible aspect to your "perfect city"

Now for the hard part: pitching it to the rest of the class, all those other cities.

You've put some time and effort into figuring out just exactly what the inhabitants of YOUR city like to eat. You've customized a menu tailored to what your people want.

But now you want to expand...you wanna go worldwide!

So how will you convince people in other cities to "LIKE" (yeah its an FB term....deal with it) your eating establishment?

Good question. I give you the remainder of the class to figure out how to do that. Write up your solution in the same document where you described your restaurant in the first place. Be specific as o how you achieved your goal of "universal appeal". Tell me how you won 'em over.

Make me believe you :-)

cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday September 6: You built your city, now its time to eat

Greetings, superior creatures!

In previous classes, you have discussed whether people are more alike or different; whether people becoming more alike ( aka "globalization")  leads to more peaceful times, or does it in fact provoke more conflicts; AND, you have teamed up to found your own cities (city states? guess I have ancient Greece on the brain....that's what happens when you watch "The 300" for the 80th time this year)

You defined your cities in a variety of ways: physically, artistically, politically, etc etc.

Your cities "interacted" to see what points you had in common.

We typed up some terms  that have a direct link to how you imagined your cities to be, words like "site" (to do with stuff like physical climate) and "situation" (to do with what your city is next to, or in proximity)

Additionally, we looked at "regions" -- points of contact between your cities, ways in which they lived in common.

Now it's time to step it up a notch, and see how your cities will interact economically.  More specifically, each of your cities will create something that will define your city to the outside world -- meaning, all those other cities. It will be something that YOUR city makes, something that YOUR city is famous for.

I could have had you do almost any number of things -- and knowing how diabolically my mind works, I probably will at some point-- but today, the thing you will be producing is FOOD.

Food is universal -- everyone needs to eat.
BUT...food is also individual. Different people, cities and cultures produce different types of food

Here is what you will have to do:

A)  Create a  basic menu -- probably between 8 to 11 items total

B)  Create a basic description for each item... one or two complete sentences. Make 'em sound yummy!

C) Create a name, logo and marketing slogan for this restaurant. Make them catchy, and eye catching!

D) Come up with some background story about the legendary founder of your restaurant. Its usually best to have no more than one or two people fill this role. Explain how they came up with your magically delicious culinary delights

OK, let's get going!

cheers,
Mr. L

Thursday September 6: Applying those useful terms and definitions part two

Time permitting, each city group will need to do the following:

A) Look at the common characteristics that your city shares with other cities in the room. Each of these can be a region... maybe

B) For each one , define what type of region it is

C) Add these "regional labels" to each of the cities you listed at the bottom of your document from last week

Make sure that your "new improved" docuemnt about your perfect city is uploaded to your folder at Box.com

cheers,
Mr. L

Tuesday September 4: Applying those useful terms and definitions

OK chilluns, now that you know some useful new terms, its time to apply them. Here is what you need to do:
A) Create a new text file of some sort, and name it "Perfect City: showing what I know"

B) For each item which you wrote up about your city, tell me which term from today's notes that it is matched to....for example, which item has to do with "site"? Which has to do with "place name"?

Here is the complete list of terms to match up with each of you "perfect city's" characteristics

Place name
Site
Situation
Mathematical location
Absolute measurements

Please note, you must match up every item from your city's description; do not forget any of them

C) Which terms which we have written up in the notes did you NOT include in your city's description?

D) Speaking of which, your task at this point will be to include items in your city's description that DO match all the rest of the terms we have looked at

When you are done, make sure your work is saved..You must upload it to me to the blue folder you each share with me at Box.com

cheers,
Mr. L