Japanese-American internment: Statesman-Journal web special

June 29, 2007

Looking for good sources on Japanese internment?

Editor & Publisher highlights the web version of a special series on Japanese internment during World War II, put together by the Statesman-Journal in Salem, Oregon. The series is featured in “Pauline’s Picks,” a feature by Pauline Millard showing off the best use of the web by old-line print publications.

Beyond Barbed Wire, photo by Salem Statesman-Journal

The Statesman-Journal’s web piece is “Beyond Barbed Wire,” featuring timelines, maps of the Tule Lake internment facility (closest to Oregon), stories about Japanese Americans in Oregon, especially in Salem, photos, video interviews, and a significant collection of original documents perfectly suited for document-based studies.

Texas kids test particularly badly in this part of U.S. history. Several districts ask U.S. history teachers and other social studies groups to shore up student knowledge in the area to overcome gaps pointed out in testing in the past three years, on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). In teacher training, I’ve noted a lot of Texas social studies teachers are a bit shaky on the history.

The Korematsu decision was drummed into my conscious working on civil rights issues at the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, and complemented by Constitutional Law (thank you, Mary Cheh) and other courses I was taking at the same time at George Washington University. It helped that Utah has a significant Japanese population and had “hosted” one of the internment camps; one of my tasks was to be sure committee Chairman Orrin Hatch was up on issues and concerns when he met with Japanese descendants in his constituencies in Utah. Hatch was a cosponsor of the bills to study the internment, and then to apologize to Japanese Americans affected, and pay reparations.
The internment was also a sore spot with my father, G. Paul Darrell, who witnessed the rounding up of American citizens in California. Many of those arrested were his friends, business associates and acquaintances. Those events formed a standard against which he measured almost all other claims of civil rights violations.

Because children were imprisoned with their parents, because a lot of teenagers were imprisoned, this chunk of American history strikes particular sympathetic chords with students of any conscience.  Dorothea Lange’s having photographed some of the events and places, as well as Ansel Adams and others, also leaves a rich pictorial history.

(I found this thanks to the RSS feed of headlines from Editor & Publisher at the Scholars & Rogues site.)

4 Comments | Bill of Rights, Citizenship, Civil Rights, DBQ sources, Education, Freedom - Political, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Historic documents, History video sources, Japanese American internment, Justice, Newspapers, Supreme Court cases, TAKS, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, TEKS, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Maps of lost worlds: Caddoland

June 29, 2007

Caddoland collage, UT-Austin, Texas Beyond History (Click on thumbnail for a larger view of this Caddoland Collage)

Caddos, Anadarkoes, Tawaconies, Southern Delawares — so many Native American tribes disappear from U.S. history books, and from U.S. history. These histories should be better preserved and better taught.

Texas history texts mention the Caddo Tribe, but largely ignore what must have been a significant cultural empire, if not an empire that left large stone monuments. Teaching this material in Texas history classes frustrates me, and probably others. Student projects on the Caddos are frequently limited in what they cover, generally come up with the same three or four factoids and illustrations.

The Caddo Tribe lived in an area spanning five modern states, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and eventually Missouri. Here is an interactive map that offers more information and useful photos of Caddoland than I have found in any other source: The Caddo Map Tool.

Basic map of Caddoland

This is just an image of the tool — click on the image above and it will link to the actual site. One of the things that excites me about this map is its interactive features, especially the map that carries links to photos that show just what the local environment looks like.

Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Archaeology, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Lesson plans, Maps, On-line education, On-line learning, Place Names, Prehistory, Student projects, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, Texas, Texas history, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Hey, Britain! Duck! It’s another armada!

June 28, 2007

Gordon Brown may face a situation Tony Blair didn’t imagine: An invasion of ducks.

Plastic cuck similar to floating armada members - Times of London photo

Plastic ducks. An armada of ducks.

Quack! Quack!

Or, maybe more appropriately, “Rubber Ducky, you’re the one!”

Geography fans everywhere are salivating. History fans already recognize the ducks bear no resemblance to the Spanish Armada, but may be interested anyway.

Plastic duck toys, survivors from an original lot of about 30,000 knocked off a container ship in the north Pacific in 1992, could be drifting onto the shores of the British Isles this summer. A reward is offered for the first one found and reported to a scientist who has tracked the ducks from their accident, through currents in four of the world’s five oceans, to landfalls in North America, South America, Southeast Asia, Indonesia — and through the Arctic.

The Times of London carried a story today: Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments | DBQ sources, Economics, Geography - Physical, Historic documents, History, Natural history, Research, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Sweep of Civilizations: BBC interactive map

June 28, 2007

The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) puts genius into their website — very often, it seems to me.

Go see this interactive map. It shows where civilizations or religions held sway, at a point in history you decide — and then projects forward to show how the group’s influence waxed and waned. Or plot two different groups, side-by-side.

Snapshot of Civilisations is a multi-dimensional picture of human history, where you’re in charge of the timeline.

It uses web technology to reveal the sweep of historical forces and the rise and fall of great empires and ideas over 5000 years in a way that no book could ever do.

And it does it your way. You can customise Civilisations to show you the things that interest you. The best way to understand Civilisations is to have a go.

Great bauble for world geography and world history courses — what sort of a warm-up exercise could you make with this, projecting it from your computer? What sort of homework could be made from this, for the kids to access on their own?

Gee, while you’re there, teachers: Take a look at the interactive quizzes on world religions — this could be a unit all to itself.  Hook up your computer, take the quizzes as a class, on that rainy day when you were supposed to go out to look at the school’s garden and you need a ten-minute, cultural filler that sticks to the state standards.  And look at this multifaith calendar.  You can use it for your daily “this day in history” feature; it’s useful for students doing projects on various religions.  Use some imagination.

Leave a Comment » | Classroom technology, Communism, Education, Freedom - Political, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, History video sources, Immigration, Maps, Religion, Technology, Technology in the classroom, TEKS | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

NY Times special on evolution – run, get it!

June 26, 2007

Evolution is the subject of a special edition of the Science section of the New York Times today. The section features articles by most of the best of the stable of science writing contributors the paper has, covering up to the latest developments in the field of evolution.

It’s available on-line, too, for a week or so — free subscription required. Or, Times Select customers will be able to access the stuff so long as they subscribe.

Since the section covers the best of science, there is nothing on intelligent design or other forms of creationism. The aim of the editors is the best of science, not “balance” in presenting opposing views even if vapid.

So, for $1.00, biology teachers can get a dozen weeks’ of enrichment material for this fall’s classes.

Run, don’t walk — your local Starbuck’s should have the paper, if your local newsstand doesn’t. It’s worth it just for the lead article featuring evo-devo, if that’s all you read.

Leave a Comment » | Accuracy, Charles Darwin, Darwin, Evolution, Geography - Physical, Intelligent Design, Natural history, Public health, Research, Science, Science and faith | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Charles Lindberg, first Iwo Jima flag raising

June 26, 2007

1st flag raising on Iwo Jima, photo by Sgt Lou Lowery, Leatherneck Magazine

First raising of the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. Photo by Sgt. Lou Lowery, Leatherneck Magazine

This photo doesn’t look like the Joe Rosenthal photo that won the Pulitzer Prize, and then inspired the book and movie, Flags of Our Fathers?

It’s not the same photo. Different photographer. Different group of Marines.

This is the first flag raising on Mt. Suribachi, the highest point of the island that was known then as Iwo Jima. This shows the mean of Easy Company, including Charles Lindberg of Grand Forks, North Dakota, raising a flag they carried on a pipe they found. The photo was taken by Sgt. Lou Lowery of Leatherneck Magazine.

Charles Lindberg, one of the Marines in the photo, died this week. He was 86 years old.

In addition carrying a name made famous by that other guy, the pilot, few people believed him when he said his company raised the flag first on Iwo. He wasn’t in the Rosenthal photo. But Lindberg told the truth.

From his obituary on the Associated Press wire (in The Washington Post):

Three of the men in the first raising never saw their photos. They were among the more than 6,800 U.S. servicemen killed in the five-week battle for the island.

By Mr. Lindberg’s account, his commander ordered the first flag replaced and safeguarded because he worried someone would take it as a souvenir. Mr. Lindberg was back in combat when six men raised the second, larger flag about four hours later.

Rosenthal’s photo of the second flag-raising became one of the most enduring images of the war and the model for the U.S. Marine Corps memorial in Washington.

Rosenthal, who died last year, always denied accusations that he staged the photo, and he never claimed it depicted the first raising of a flag over the island.

Mr. Lindberg was shot through the arm March 1 and evacuated. After his discharge in 1946, Mr. Lindberg went home to Grand Forks, N.D. He moved to Richfield, Minn., in 1951 and became an electrician.

If you’re over 45, if you read James Brady’s Flags of Our Fathers, if you saw the Clint Eastwood movie version, or if you’re a fan of Johnny Cash’s Ballad of Ira Hayes, you know the stories of heroism and sorrow and tragedy that accompany Joe Rosenthal’s photo. As so often happens in history, there is a back story, a bit of a correction — and it has some of the same bittersweet flavors.

Lindberg was 24 years old when his company landed on Iwo Jima. That was 62 years ago. Those who were eyewitnesses are mostly gone. We need to seek out those few remaining, brave survivors, and let them tell what they remember, what they saw, how they felt and how they feel.  Of the twelve men who raised the two flags, Lindberg was the last survivor.  Three of the men from each group died in battle action after raising the flags.

Here’s to the memory of Charles Lindberg, a good American, a good soldier. Thank you, Mr. Lindberg.

Charles Lindberg in 1999, holding a copy of Sgt. Lou Lowery's photo of the first Iwo Jima flag raising Charles Lindberg holding the photo taken by Sgt. Lou Lowery of Leatherneck Magazine, of the first U.S. flag raising on Iwo Jima, by Easy Company. Lindberg is the soldier standing in back, on the right of the photo. Lowery’s photo was taken about four hours before the second flag raising, captured by Joe Rosenthal, which photo won the Pulitzer Prize. This photo of Lindberg, left, is from 1999, by Associated Press photographer Jackie Lorentz.

Lindberg’s citation for the Silver Star is below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

16 Comments | Accuracy, Famous Battles, Flag ceremony, Freedom - Political, Geography - Physical, Heroes, History, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

In a world of electronics, why we still learn the map and compass

June 22, 2007

Why do we bother to teach map reading still, since “everyone” has a GPS?

Wholly apart from plotting the Sweet Tea Line, there is this: Batteries die. Wonderful post at the secret life of a teacher.

While you’re there, gander at his proposals for Alaska’s death-defying fishercrabmen, and a response, and a redirect. When I read it, I thought it had to be the result of a classroom exercise. What could your kids design, if you gave them a dangerous situation somewhere in the world affecting some culture, and asked them to come up with a solution?

2 Comments | Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Lesson plans, Student projects, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Applied geography: The Sweet Tea Line

June 20, 2007

Here is a great exercise in applied geography: “The Sweet Tea Line” at Neatorama, with a link to Eight Over Five with a wonderful set of interactive maps — though, if you go to the Eight Over Five site, you don’t find any link to this particular map (can anyone explain?).

One of the maps of the Sweet Tea Line from 8 over 5 One of the maps from Eight Over Five, using data to determine the Sweet Tea Line.

What about regional variations in food, language, customs or commerce in your state? I remember discovering that “regular coffee” in western Massachusetts meant coffee with a lot of cream and sugar. Not so at Boston’s Logan Airport. Where is the line? What about the lines of where a soft drink is “a pop,” versus “a soda pop,” versus “a coke,” versus “a soda?” Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments | America's founding, Brain learning, Civil War, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, George Washington, History, Lesson plans, Maps | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

“Mister! Let’s watch a movie!”

June 13, 2007

Especially near the end of the school year, every teacher gets requests to “show a movie.” My collection of videos on specific history events is not what they have in mind. Short subjects related to the course don’t qualify, either.

The kids want an escape from classwork. I just can’t justify it.

But there have been times that I wondered whether a movie wouldn’t be appropriate to explain some part of history or economics. For example, in one economics class, the entire group was stumped by the concept of a “run on the bank,” of the sort that prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to declare the “bank holiday” in March 1933. I wished at that moment that I had a copy of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” to show both the economic conditions that prevailed in much of America at the time, and to show what a run on a bank looks like.

Then I started wondering about all the other stuff that movie could illustrate.

I’ve never used it.

But I stumbled on this site, Teach with Movies, which features a set of lesson plans and other material to use with “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

The site claims to have lesson plans for 270 movies. There is a membership charge, but it’s a charge clearly aimed at encouraging teachers to buy: $11.99.

I had a principal who complained about showing videos — which struck me as very odd — and his complaints escalated until he passed out copies of copyright rules. In discussion, it finally became clear to me that he was opposed to running Hollywood, entertainment movies in classes. He didn’t bother to distinguish between my showing of the life of Theodore Roosevelt from PBS from “Beverly Hills Cop” — but he’s gone. I find I share his general revulsion for just slapping in a Hollywood movie to keep the kids quiet.

In the last year I’ve been asked to step in to show “Hitch” in a business communication class, and “The Money Pit” in a Spanish class. “Iron Monkey” could be related to world geography. These exercises generally are wastes of time, and of course, money.

But I also was asked to monitor a showing of “Charley” for a psychology class, and “Napoleon” for a world history class. The psychology class had several questions to pursue closely related to the course; the kids were generally lulled to sleep by Napoleon.

But why not, with careful groundwork, show “It’s a Wonderful Life” in economics, as supplement to the units on banking, the depression, the creation of the Fed, and general history?

Teach with Movies? Great idea. Have you used this site? Anybody know how well it works?

2 Comments | Economics, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History video sources, Pedagogy, Teaching, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Stranger maps: Flights of fancy

June 12, 2007

How could you use these maps in your classroom?

Aaron Kobin maps documentation

Image and film from Aaron Koblin Design|Media Arts, UCLA; “Flightpatterns”

Remember the old World Book maps of states that featured oil drilling derricks and cows in Texas, and shocks of wheat in Kansas? This is just that kind of map, updated for commerce connected with air travel, showing commerce density and direction hour by hour.

I’m thinking, one quiz would be to name the sites of most action. Another would be to calculate how many people are in the air at any given time (notice the count of the number of airplanes; you’ll have to assume about 100 people per aircraft, or more if you can find figures; notice there are no fewer than 4,000 aircraft in the air at any time over the U.S. — ponder that figure for a while, considering an average cost of more than $10 million per aircraft, the miles covered, and compare it to the maps showing the voyages of European explorers to America . . .)

What other maps can your kids make? Water flows of rivers? Train commerce? Highway commerce? Food transportation?

Geography should be an awfully fun topic to teach, and even more fun topic to learn, no?

Check out Koblin’s other work — see the crystals dissolve, science teachers?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Stranger Fruit, via Pharyngula.

3 Comments | Business, Geography - Economic, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Maps, Pedagogy, Science, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Another nail in the coffin for geology and geography texts, in print

June 11, 2007

The Physical Environment offers a text for geophysical classes, on-line. It sorta looks like it’s free. In any case, check it out.

Then look at the supporting blog.

Is there any inherent reason you can’t do that in your classroom? You could start by using this “book,” The Physical Environment.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Geography - Physical, Natural history, On-line education, On-line learning, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Explore ancient Rome, from your computer, in 3-D

June 11, 2007

Can you figure out some way to make this work in a classroom?

Science Daily reports that a team at UCLA working with a lot of others completed an 11-year project to map out Rome as it appeared when it was the commercial and political capital of the western world, three centuries into the first millennium:

“Rome Reborn 1.0″ shows almost the entire city within the 13-mile-long Aurelian Walls as it appeared in A.D. 320. At that time Rome was the multicultural capital of the western world and had reached the peak of its development with an estimated population of one million.

“Rome Reborn 1.0” is a true 3D model that runs in real time. Users can navigate through the model with complete freedom, moving up, down, left and right at will. They can enter important public buildings such as the Roman Senate House, the Colosseum, or the Temple of Venus and Rome, the ancient city’s largest place of worship.

As new discoveries are made, “Rome Reborn 1.0” can be easily updated to reflect the latest knowledge about the ancient city. In future releases, the “Rome Reborn” project will include other phases in the evolution of the city from the late Bronze Age in the 10th century B.C. to the Gothic Wars in the 6th century A.D. Video clips and still images of “Rome Reborn 1.0” can be viewed at http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu.

Now we need to wonder: Will it be available for classroom use?

More below the fold.

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1 Comment | Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, History video sources, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Typewriter of the Moment: Legal clip art for the classroom

June 5, 2007

Royal Typewriter, from legal clip art

Visit Clipart ETC for a great collection of clipart for students and teachers.

There you go: Legal clip art, properly attributed (though not necessarily properly footnoted — that’s another topic). How can you get more licensed clip art? See below the fold.

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4 Comments | Business Ethics, Classroom technology, Education, Ethics, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, Law, Leadership, Libraries, Maps, On-line education, Plagiarism, Teaching, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Playing with maps

May 30, 2007

Okay, geography teachers — you’ve got a whole summer to figure out how to make geography fun and the most rewarding class your kids will take next year.

By then, Delta and Dawn the whales will be out of the Sacramento River (heck, they’re probably under the Golden Gate as I write this), so this map from the Sacramento Bee won’t be anything of great interest.  I found it via Google Maps Mania, though — and that site promises to provide a barrage of wonderful and bizarre maps.  Surely there will be other maps.  How about this post about street views of major cities?  If you have a live internet connection and a projector, you can show this stuff in real time.

Or, if you’re studying global warming, you can use this map to show what disappears if the ocean rises 1 meter, or 14 meters (from the post, “50 Things You Can Do With Google Maps“) Especially if your city is near the ocean, you can have your kids print these maps out and write a story about what it’s like to watch the ocean take back the land they grew up with.  (I wish the map would allow one to drop the level of the ocean, too — a lot more what ifs, and a lot more opportunities to discuss things like the migration of humans to America 37,000 years ago . . .)

I really liked this one:  What’s on the other side of the world?  In my childhood, more than once we set out to dig a hole to China.  Of course, had we gone straight through the Earth, we’d probably have found the Indian Ocean.   It’s a silly application — just the sort of thing that gets a class talking about and playing with maps, looking at the globe, and making the associations that qualify as “critical thinking” at test time.

If you can’t make a warmup, discussion or project out of the materials you find at that site, you need a Margarita (if you’re in Texas; perhaps a beer if you’re in Ontario, Canada).

Go have fun.

1 Comment | Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Lesson plans, On-line education, On-line learning, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

American Civil War in 4 minutes

May 23, 2007

Citations get lost on the internet. Not only do people send copies of e-mails to everyone on their list, not only is there spam beyond all measure, but good stuff gets stripped of attribution. Someone sends you a good poem, or a genuinely funny story — and if you want more of the same, you’re completely at sea about where to look. Author? That information got stripped away several forwardings earlier.

“Must be Lincoln, Einstein, or Jefferson,” some wag says, and the piece is misattributed ever after.

A fellow posted this interesting film on YouTube — The Civil War in Four Minutes. One second of the film equals one week of the war. It’s a fascinating pictorial map presentation, with a lot of information packed into 240 seconds.

Who did it? Are there others like it? How do we get the rights for classroom use?

YouTube can be likened to grave robbers who invade Egyptian royal tombs — they bring important material to light, but the context is lost, and perhaps the meaning.

Can you help track down the creator of this film? This film was created for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. (Now — how can we get legal copies?)

Update, June 15, 2007: Every YouTube version of the video has been pulled — probably a copyright thing. In the interim, I’ve checked with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum to see if it is available. One person said there is discussion for making it available in the next two years. Ain’t that the way? Why not strike while the iron is hot and sell it now? Somebody, please wake me if it’s ever released.

Update, October 4, 2007: ABLPLM explains the creation of the movie. Nice shot of the screen, still not available for classrooms. Alas.

Update December 20, 2007: If that one doesn’t work, try this one for a while:

Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.idkwtf.com posted with vodpod

5 Comments | Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, History, History museums, History video sources, Juneteenth, Presidents, Technology in the classroom, Texas, War | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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