Culture, Day 1 - Class Recap

Part of my family's culture is attending Oregon Duck football games (well, maybe not so much for my sister). This is us outside the 2011 BCS National Championship Game in Arizona.

Hi everyone,

Today, we moved on to a new unit: Culture! What an interesting topic. Culture defines who we are, yet we shape and create it every day! Here's what happened today in class (we did a lot, so be ready for a fair amount of reading):

Learning Targets:
Knowledge LT 15: I can explain how culture both reflects and shapes society.

Soundtrack: "Food" by Common and Kanye West. Selected because we talked about what we had for breakfast today, as a part of our culture. Lyrics here.

AGENDA 10/12/15:
News Brief – Marion
What is Culture?
The Lost Boys
Our Culture

Homework: Read the blog. Study for the states quiz next class! Make sure you have all of your Geography unit work turned in - progress report grades are due next Monday morning! Next news brief: Ben K.

News Brief: Marion brought in an article about this story for the news brief: Yahoo.com - Boko Haram stages suicide bombings in Cameroon, Chad. Since I still have your world maps for grading, we did not highlight Chad on our world map, but we were able to talk a lot about Boko Haram, and what is going on in that region of the world. Thanks, Marion. Ben K. was assigned to do the next news brief.

We also watched the one minute BBC World News update. Here's the link to see the latest one minute update, at any time of day (it will probably be different from what we watched in class):

BBCNews.com - One-minute World News

I also asked about the long weekend and had a good time hearing what students were up to, before we moved on.

What is Culture?: I started this section and new unit by asking what everyone had for breakfast today. The answers were:

Nothing x 7
Cereal x 8
Yogurt x 1
Bagels x 3
Pancakes x 2
Breakfast sandwich x 1
Smoothie x 3
Toast x 4
Hash Browns x 1
Fruit x 2
Oatmeal x 1
Sausage x 1

I saw this article a while ago and thought it was interesting, which is why I asked:

NYTimes.com - Rise and Shine: What Kids All Over the World Eat For Breakfast

We looked at a few of these different types of breakfast (all of which were certainly better than "nothing" as the high answer - you need to eat before school, everyone!) and identified "food" as an aspect of culture. Then, I passed out this sheet:

Google Drive - What is Culture? PowerPoint Picture Activity Worksheet

I had students guess about what culture is with the top space on the worksheet, then we brainstormed as a class all the different aspects that could go in the second box, of 10 characteristics of culture.

After that, we went through this slideshow of pictures from the National Geographic Photography: Culture website. Here are the photos we went through:

Google Drive - Culture Around the World Slideshow

I love all of these pictures because the world is such a diverse and interesting place! I enjoyed the class guesses as to what was going on in each.

The Lost Boys: Next, I showed part of a documentary on The Lost Boys of Sudan. This shows the dramatic differences between the culture in Sudan and the culture in America - something I think we do not think much about at all:

National Geographic - Lost Boys of Sudan: Cultural Differences

As a counterbalance, I showed this commercial that was made about Lopez Lomong, who was one of the "Lost Boys" and who eventually gained American citizenship, made the US Olympic Team, and carried the American flag into the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing:

I showed these videos to highlight some key aspects to American and Sudanese culture. We will continue to explore cultural similarities and differences of various different cultures during this unit.

Our Culture: We didn't have the time at the end of class to dive into this, so I gave students time to prepare for the states quiz next class, instead. Keep working at that! Next time, we will do that and continue introducing culture.