From BBC News: Nine Reasons to Celebrate America

In celebration of our 233rd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, BBC News correspondent Kevin Connolly provides his lighthearted list of reasons why America should be celebrated. This is one man’s view, focusing on technological, industrial, and social facets of America rather than political ideals.

Still, it’s rather interesting to see the view of our cousins across the pond.

To read the article, go here.

Essential Question: What type of list of reasons to celebrate America would our students compile?

World Drugs in Graphics

I really like my online BBC News. It presents a view of the world, events, and issues in a manner that is often different from our home-grown talking heads.

A June 24th 'Special Report' focused on World Drugs in Graphics and presented a good summary of the current drug-usage nation-states that has a number of excellent graphs showing the data. This could be a good source for use in current events in the social studies classroom.

It is of no surprise that the US is #1 in both use of cocaine among young people and use of cannabis among young people.

A companion article titled UN shows scale of UK cocaine use took a look at the use of cocaine - and the increasing dilution of the products being illegally sold. Again, good information for a conversation with the students.

Essential Question: How can the data provided by articles be effectively used in the classroom?

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