Thursday, November 15, 2012


I was looking websites to use for teaching social studies. I found one that gives links to live video safe webcams around the world. There are over 15,000 webcams on this website from airports to national parks. Being able to view a different part of the of the world is important to teaching social studies since the student are able to see firsthand different cultures then their own without leaving the classroom. Many students may have the means to travel to different parts of the world, so by connecting the students to video will make the students realize that they belong to something much bigger than just their home state or country and this will help then become global citizens. 

                The teacher can use this website when teaching about geography and cultures. The teacher can play the webcam of a location that they are learning about for the students. The teacher can also play the webcam when the class has free time, this will make them feel that they have a connection with the whole world.

I am currentry writing a paper on the importance of civic eduction in schools for my delicate balence class. Here is a section of it.
Civic Education is important because it encourages responsibility, active citizen involvement and, informed decision making. One way these skills are used is in the voting process. Being an informed citizen means that he or she knows the civic content and can contribute to society by making informed decisions. In the article Informed Voting is a Citizens Civic Duty journalist Don Powers explains that “voting in our republic is both a duty and a right. The right is that of participation in the republic, and the duty is to be an informed elector and citizen who actually votes” (Powers). It is the citizen’s duty to vote to preserve democracy.    According to the National Alliance for Civic Education’s article The Importance of Civic Education a study was performed on 90000 fourteen year olds and showed that the major predictor of intentions of voting was civic knowledge (National Alliance for Civic Education). Another study was preformed that yielded results adults that showed adults who had more knowledge of politics no matter their interest level were more likely to vote than non-educated adults (National Alliance for Civic Education). It can be seen that being informed is a key predictor to voting.