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Annenberg Learner Update
June 2011
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Advance excellent teaching with Annenberg Learner.
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In the Spotlight for June
Current Events
Annenberg Learner Announcements
- Remi
Award and Telly Award for Invitation to World Literature
- California's
Education and the Environment Initiative
- Print
Catalog and Social Media
Annenberg Foundation Update
Curriculum Focus: Community Service and Citizenship
Connecting Learning with Special Days
- Caribbean-American
Heritage Month
- Battle
of Little Bighorn June 25, 1876
- Babe
Ruth, who retired June 2, 1935
- First
Roller Coaster in America Opens June 16, 1884
Notable June Birthdays
- Josephine
Baker June 3, 1906
- Allen
Ginsberg June 3, 1926
- Gwendolyn
Brooks June 7, 1917
- Paul
Gauguin June 7, 1848
- Frank
Lloyd Wright June 8, 1867
- Maurice
Sendak June 10, 1928
- Harriet
Beecher Stowe June 14, 1811
- M.C.
Escher June 17, 1898
- George
Orwell June 25, 1903
Distance Learning, Licensing, and
Sales
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Egypt Wants Queen Nefertiti Back
According to History.com, the Egyptian minister for
antiquities has requested that Germany return a 3,400-year-old
preserved bust of Queen Nefertiti, housed in a museum in Berlin.
Egypt also seeks the return of four other Egyptian artifacts
currently scattered around the globe. Hear a discussion of Egyptian
art that represents rulers including Nefertiti and the Pharaoh
Akhenaten in Art Through Time, program 13, "The Body."
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Humans versus the Environment
April and May this year have seen volatile weather -- widespread and
devastating tornadoes, and the slow-rising Mississippi. Take a look
at the following resources to help your students better understand
these events.
Government
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the
government bureau that oversees the response to natural disasters. In
Democracy in America, program 8, "Bureaucracy: A
Controversial Necessity," see how FEMA was formed out
of a public need and what it means to be a bureaucrat.
Tornadoes
Learn to identify the conditions that lead to
dangerous tornadoes in the tornado chaser activity of the Weather interactive.
River Flooding
Program 19,
"Running Water I: Rivers, Erosion and Deposition," of Earth Revealed, shows
characteristics of rivers, how they form landscapes, and aspects of
flooding.
Students can gain a deeper understanding of our
dependence upon water and how water cycles from oceans, atmosphere,
and land with The Habitable Planet, unit 8, "Water Resources."
This unit also talks about how dams used to control water flow affect
the surrounding environment.
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Tree-Ring Records Can Improve El Niņo Prediction
Science Daily reported that an international team of
climate scientists discovered that tree-ring records from North
America showing how the El Niņo weather pattern can be used to
improve predictions in climate models.
Click on Interactives, Collapse: Why Do
Civilizations Fall? to find the meaning of
dendrochronology and how tree rings provide information about past
rainfall amounts. This information can be used to study how climates
of the past might have affected life on Earth.
Weather Interactive, The
Water Cycle, explains the weather phenomenon, El Niņo,
which we blame for everything from flooding to droughts to crop
shortages.
The Habitable Planet, unit 3, "Oceans," section 5, "Ocean Circulation and
Climate Cycles," includes information about El Niņo
and its sister weather event La Niņa. Watch the video for unit 3 to
see a case study of scientist, Mark Cane, who developed a widely used
El Niņo computer model.
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Annenberg Learner Announcements
Invitation to World Literature
Two-Time Award Winner
We are excited to announce that Invitation to World Literature, which takes a fresh look at ancient and modern
classics from The Odyssey to One Hundred Years
of Solitude, has won a Telly Award and a Remi Award! The Telly Awards
honor the very best local, regional, and cable television commercials
and programs, as well as the finest video and film productions, and
work created for the Web. The Remi Awards
are presented by WorldFest International Independent Film Festival,
Houston.
California's Education and the
Environment Initiative
The California EPA is spreading the word about their
Education and the Environment Initiative (EEI) Curriculum for
California K-12 teachers. With State Board of Education approval of
the EEI Curriculum last year, hundreds of California teachers are now
implementing the EEI Curriculum in their classrooms. Annenberg
Learner helped CalEPA produce discs of the curriculum for early
adopters.
Find out more information about the EEI curriculum,
or for specific questions, call (916) 341-6769 or send an e-mail to eei@calepa.ca.gov
Print Catalog and Social Media
To request a copy of our new Annenberg Learner
catalog, please send an email to order@learner.org. Be sure to
include a mailing address in your request. Thank you!
"Like" us on Facebook for
updates on events, highlights, and discussions about how you are
using Annenberg Learner materials.
"Follow" @AnnLearner on
Twitter for daily postings that highlight our Web site content and
special events.
Watch program previews and clips on the Annenberg Learner channel
on YouTube.
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Annenberg Foundation Update
The Annenberg Space for
Photography presents BEAUTY CULTURE,
a daring, provocative, and at times, controversial exhibition that
presents diverse viewpoints on beauty as it has evolved through the
20th and 21st centuries.
The series Art through Time: A
Global View is a complimentary
resource to the BEAUTY CULTURE exhibit. Part 13, "The Body,"
explores how the body has been used for creative expression
throughout time and cultures.
Keep up with news and information about the Annenberg
Foundation by subscribing to
one or more of the Foundation newsletters.
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Curriculum Focus: Community Service and Citizenship
June 23 is United Nations Public Service Day.
Celebrate the value and virtue of serving the community all month
(and year) long and inspire your students to become involved in their
local and global communities.
In Social Studies in Action, program 7, "Caring for the Community,"
follow along as Debbie Lerner engages her K-2 students through a
community service project, from planning and fundraising to
recruiting classmates to help.
Get college and high school students thinking about
how they can support causes close to their hearts by looking at
inspirational figures from the past. A Biography of America,
program 8, "The Reform Impulse,"
highlights the Great Awakening, the women's movement, and the
abolitionist movement, all fueled by injustices of the Industrial
Revolution.
America's History in the
Making, unit 15, "The Progressives,"
also takes a look at reform movements that sprang up in the early
1900s as a result of the growing industrial labor market. This unit
looks at how various reform movements sometimes clashed, having both
democratic and anti-democratic structures.
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Connecting Learning with Special Days
Caribbean-American Heritage
Month
Use Caribbean music to illustrate the musical elements
in Exploring the World of
Music, program 1,
"Sound, Music, and the Environment," program 5,
"Rhythm," and program 8, Texture."
Art Through Time, part 4, "Ceremony and Society,"
takes a look at ceremonies such as Carnival in the Caribbean from
sociological, cultural, and historical points of view.
Social Studies in Action:
Grades 9-12, program 24,
"Migration from Latin
America," shows students in a tenth grade class
exploring why people emigrate from their homeland. Individual groups
of students focus on different Latin American countries, including
Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic.
Battle of Little Bighorn June
25, 1876
Find out which plains tribes engaged in the Battle of
Little Bighorn using the social studies interactive United States History Map.
James Welch, who wrote "Killing Custer: The
Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains
Indians," is one of the featured authors in The Expanding Canon:
Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School, session 1.
Watch as teachers and students use the Reader Response strategy,
which emphasizes the reader's role in interpreting texts, to discuss
Welch's works.
Spring and Summer Fun: Baseball
and Roller Coasters
Summer is almost here and baseball is in the air. What
can students learn from the sport? In the spirit of Babe Ruth, who
retired June 2, 1935, let's play ball!
In American Passages, unit 14, "Becoming Visible,"
read about the role of baseball in American culture. What also made
baseball a great topic for literature in the second half of the 19th
century?
Watch a baseball-themed lesson on creating a density
curve in program 4, "Normal Distributions," of Against All Odds: Inside
Statistics. High school students learn why baseball
players today are less likely to achieve a .400 batting average.
Social Studies in Action:
A Teaching Practices Library K-12, program 14, "Understanding Stereotypes,"
helps students understand stereotyping and its impact on our lives.
Students research the Negro Baseball Leagues and write a persuasive
letter to convince publishers of why they should include information
about the leagues in publications.
First Roller Coaster in America Opens June 16, 1884
In Science in Focus: Force
and Motion, workshop 5,
"Keep on Rolling,"
first grade students build on their prior experience with rolling
objects as they design, build, and experiment with roller coaster
models. After watching, try out the activity in your own
classroom.
The interactive Amusement Park Physics
not only gives middle and high school students information about the
history and physics of roller coasters, it also provides students a
chance to design their own while considering both fun and safety.
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Notable June Birthdays
If we invited our June birthday celebrants (including
a singer/actor, beat poet, architect, and abolitionist) to dinner, it
would make for some interesting conversation this month.
Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926)
Allen Ginsberg, a poet from the Beat Generation, was a
major voice in the 1960s, writing prose-like poetry about living on
the fringes of society. He is one of the featured poets in American Passages, A
Literary Survey, program 15,
"Poetry of Liberation."
Gwendolyn Brooks (June 7, 1917)
American Passages, unit 14, "Becoming Visible,"
includes activities and artifacts for reading Gwendolyn Brooks's
work. Her poetry and prose offer great insight to and commentary on
African-American life, ethnicity, and identity during the 20th
century.
Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867)
In Art Through Time, program 7, "Domestic Life,"
read about how Frank Lloyd Wright was inspired by both form and
function in nature. See a photo of the stunning Fallingwater home
Wright built for the Kaufmann family in Bear Run, PA in the '30s.
American Passages provides a rich archive of
material for studying American literature. Look at the archive for
unit 10, where Wright's interest in Japanese architecture is
discussed. And see a photograph of Wright's home and studio near
Chicago for an example of how he used Orientalism in his
architecture.
Maurice Sendak (June 10, 1928)
In Arts in Every Classroom:
A Workshop for Elementary School Teachers, program 4, "Creating a Mult-Arts
Performance Piece," watch as teachers create a
performance piece based on Cirque de Soleil's "Quidam," and
then follow the lesson plan instructions to create your own
performance piece for "Where the Wild Things
Are."
More June Birthdays to Celebrate:
Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906)
American Passages, unit 10, "Rhythms in Poetry"
American Passages, unit 11, "Modernist Portraits"
Paul Gauguin (June 7, 1848)
Art Through Time, part 13, "The Body"
Harriet Beecher Stowe (June 14, 1811)
American Passages, program 7, "Slavery and Freedom"
Artifacts & Fiction:
Workshop in American Literature, workshop 3, "Social History"
M.C. Escher (June 17, 1898)
Interactives, Math in Daily Life
Teachers' Lab: The Science of Light, Funhouse Mirrors
Background
George Orwell (June 25, 1903)
Making Meaning in
Literature Grades 6-8, workshop 4, "Diversity in Texts"
Developing Writers: A
Workshop for High School Teachers, workshop 7, "Learning from
Professional Writers"
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Distance Learning, Licensing, and Sales
Consumer Alert: Please be aware of other vendors
selling Annenberg Learner materials. Buying product that is not sold
directly through Annenberg Learner is not guaranteed, nor authorized,
and cannot be returned for credit.
Reminder: Summer 2011 licenses due now.
New video: Economics U$A is in the process of being updated and will be
available for Winter 2012 licensing. Our new Neuroscience and the
Classroom: Making Connections will be available late fall 2011 for
viewing and winter 2012 for licensing.
If you would like to nominate a course to be updated
or have an idea for a new course, let us know. Send your ideas to distancelearning@learner.org.
Digital Downloads: Courseware content in (wmv)
digital file format is now available for purchase through our
shopping cart. For more information, visit our FAQ. Select
courses are now available.
FREE DL License Opportunity: License our newest
courses at no charge in place of, or in addition to, courses in the
same discipline area for one semester. This offer covers The Habitable Planet in earth sciences, Physics for the 21st
Century, Invitation to World Literature in language arts, and Art Through Time. Email distancelearning@learner.org
and request a free preview DVD that includes a series overview.
We want to welcome Linda Hellman as our newest sales
representative. Linda brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in
the K-20 educational market and is ready to assist you. Her territory
includes NY (except for NYC) and Michigan. Linda may be
contacted at:
lhellman@optonline.net
(800) 399-3240
(914) 603-3094 fax
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