Mandela - A Guide

Teaching teens about the accomplishments of Nelson Mandela and the history of South Africa can be difficult; Apartheid ended before they were born, and American schools tend to focus strongly on the Civil Rights movement that happened on our soil. Barbara Brown and Brenda Randolph at Boston University's African Studies Center have put together a strong list of resources to help teachers who are educating pre-K through Grade 12 youth about Nelson Mandela at http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/ (click the PDF link at the top of the page). In Barbara's words,
"We would like librarians, especially those who serve young people to have this resource, so that others can learn and think about this extraordinary man and his people."

Database Showcase: American Inaugurals

With the 2012 election behind us, I figured that now is the perfect time to highlight another database in the WCCLS collection.
American Inaugurals (accessed under the 'Law and Government' section) features a collection of inaugural addresses by presidents all the way back to George Washington. Mysteriously absent is George W. Bush's second address as well as Barack Obama's, but I'd imagine that those will be added with the next update. Provided alongside the addresses in HTML, PDF, E-Reader, and audio formats are brief histories of the presidents and timelines of notable events that took place during their terms in office. The database offers an excellent way for students to interact with the language of speeches and consider what they were trying to accomplish with the speech and if the words accurately portrayed the type of president that they would be. For more detailed histories of the presidents and their times, check the Biography in Context database, located under "Biographies & About" on the left side of the WCCLS Online Resources page.

Remembering 9/11 in the classroom

How is your class marking the 10th anniversary of 9/11? The August issue of School Library Journal has a great article about teaching and remembering 9/11 ten years later. It also offers an excellent list of primary resources that can help you share the immediacy of this now historic event with your students.

And, you can access full-text articles from SLJ using the database Information Science and Technology Collection, which is available for free with your Washington County Cooperative Library card!

Here's how.
The article is called "Not Fade Away: Ten Years After 9/11, How Do You Teach Kids About a Tragedy They Can't Remember?" (SLJ, August 2011). Click here to get to the full-text: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA263251257&v=2.1&u=wccls_main&it=r&p=SPJ.SP04&sw=w

You can also click to the article by starting at: http://www.wccls.org/online_resources/libraries, selecting Information Science and Technology Collection and searching by journal or title from there. Depending on your connection, you may need to have your WCCLS library card number and password handy.

Opposing Viewpoints (online)

Are you assigning a persuasive essay to your students this year? Persuasive essays are a fantastic exercise in critical thinking and synthesizing different information, but they can be tricky to research. Luckily we have a fantastic online resource to help students out.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context breaks down popular controversial issues with pro-con comparisons. There are full-text articles from reputable sources to support both sides, as well as images and videos related to the issue. There is even a handy "NEWS" area that might inspire those who just can't think of anything interesting to write about. (Not that students ever have trouble choosing a topic, of course.)

Best of all, this resource is free to anyone with a library card in Washington County. Just type in that barcode and you are on your way! It can be accessed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- even when the library isn't open. What a great resource for procrastinators and planners alike!

Ancient Rome in 3-D

Ancient Rome: it's fascinating, complex, and incredibly relevant to modern society. To teens and tweens, ancient Rome is distant, boring, and completely unapplicable to their lives. What can you do?

Google Earth and the University of Virginia's Advanced Institute for Technology have teamed up to provide a fantastic resource called Rome Reborn. The Rome Reborn project is a three-dimensional reconstruction of Rome, circa A.D. 320. Viewers can walk through the streets to see the Colosseum; visit Circus Maximus (with the Campus Martius gladiator training camp attached!); and explore the religious diversity of a city that boasted the Temple of Venus and the Temple of Heliogabalus, among others.

And as always... the best part of this resource is that it is free. So launch Rome Reborn in your classroom to give your students a virtual experience of the Rome that was! When you can "stand" in the Roman Forum, ancient orations and historical conquerors become all that more interesting.

(Federal) Budget Hero

Are you looking to engage your students with the upcoming election in a meaningful way? (It's only two weeks away!) The American Public Media group, which is a producer of public radio programming, has created a fantastic online game called Budget Hero.

In Budget Hero, students are given the chance to manage the 3.3 trillion dollar federal budget. Tax cuts, national defense, homeland security, diplomacy, healthcare, and more -- it is all part of the "playing cards" that allow students handle exactly where and why money is being spent. But players better be careful! They have to keep track how robust important indicators are, such as national health and wellness. They must also keep an eye on the national deficit, because it is all too easy to bankrupt the budget in a mere 5-10 decades. Then where would their grandchildren be?

Budget Hero is a fun, interactive, and disturbingly difficult game to play... and it's a great chance to open young (and old) eyes to the challenges and the long-term consequences of a seemingly simple idea: balancing the budget.