7th activity Due Friday

Hello 7^th graders,

We have been going over connections we have with the Roman Empire today. Remember to keep in mind that our goal is to compare and contrast modes of travel in 150 A.D. with those of use today, and assess the impact of modern technology on communication.

Please make sure to bring your pictures to class tomorrow as we will be using those images to begin working on the following activity:

Create an illustrated flow chart showing how communication and transportation technologies connect people and places all over the world.

Requirement:

-Will be graded using the assignment rubric guidelines

-You will need to have at least 6 pictures for communication and 6 for transportation.

-Colored

-heading and # written on the back of the flow chart

-flowchart is labeled

-Paragraph explaining how communication and transportation technologies connect people and places all over the world

Veteran’s Day

Hello everyone,
Here is a speech I saved from a former SJS student.

Everyone needs a hero to look up to. Whether it’s Spider Man webbing his way across town, Super Man flying in the skies above us, or an ordinary individual who is caring, bold, and brave, we depend on them in times of need.

Veterans have done a lot in order to be named our heroes. They served our country through the sacrifice of joining a branch of the armed forces, which can become rough, frightening, and in worse cases, life threatening. They are loyal to our country, through the good and bad times. Regardless of the situation, they have the strength in them to make it through, and carry on. We would not be here today, honoring our veterans with pride if they had just given up. They have done so much for us, especially here in America, where we once fought long and hard years for our freedom and independence. Must we still honor our veterans from so long ago? The answer is yes, because their sacrifice, hard work, and dedication will ultimately have a lasting affect on our society. Not all people are as courageous and humble as our veterans.

Because of veterans, we are proud to call our country’s name “Home of the Brave”. Veterans truly do have bravery, or else they would not have been known as our heroes. But being a hero has nothing to do with just flying across the skies or defeating a country. To find a hero, you must look deep into the heart of someone and find goodness. You must look deep into the heart of a veteran or current members of the armed forces, and find not only goodness, but love, care, courage, loyalty, perseverance, and friendship. Many things in our world display different figures that we look up to as our hero, We must always remember that when most of these displays are false, distorted, and just not right. To look for a true hero, we can turn and look to our veterans.

We must not always dwell on fantasy. When we need a true friend to be there, someone loyal to our land, and a hero that truly saves your day, we can certainly always look to the work of our veterans and to those who are currently serving our forces.

Mosaic projects

The mosaic is a very special historical artifact of the Byzantine
Empire and soon the world. The legacy was a powerful and simple one
so that us kids as a class can make one also. The student mosaics were made out of everyday materials. The class brought in many examples like some made of stones, tile, glass, paper, felt, and marble. In the Byzantine time they used mosaics for religious purposes. Now mosaics are used for home decorations, parties, pools, and hallways. They will continue to be used this way for 1000 years or more thanks to the very simple and powerful legacy that Emperor Justinian put for our world today.
-David
The Byzantine Empire created an extraordinary art style that has remained popular throughout the generations and still is today. This art form, called a mosaic, is a picture made by other smaller pieces of things, usually glass or quartz. In this project, we were to create a mosaic of anything we wanted. The purpose of creating our own mosaic was to better understand and appreciate the art form. We thought it was very fun and the finished products looked really cool. Although, it definitely requires a lot of patience to create the pieces, getting each piece to a respectable size, then fitting them all together into the desired shape or design.
Mosaics are very beautiful works of art, I recently saw some at a church I visited. Also looking at some really famous ones like in the Hagia Sophia, makes me really think about how much time, effort, and hard work it must have taken to produce such a magnificent and lasting impression that this kind of art has.
-Samantha

It has been three years now that Mr. Shulman has been presenting mosaics as part of our understanding of the Byzantine Empire. It is a well known fact that mosaics were an important part of Byzantine culture. Although the mosaics did not originate with the Byzantine Empire, we have learned that the Byzantines created great art and architecture. We had a marvelous turnout of mosaics this year. Mr. Shulman did us the honor of demonstrating his craft with mosaics and really got the seventh graders motivated to go above and beyond their aesthetic skills. Thank you Mr. Shulman for giving us the inspiration to keep the legacy alive.

Thematic Maps

Here are the finished products for the thematic maps. Everyone did a wonderful job with their finished products. Different cultures around the Mediterranean influenced one another through trade, travel, and wars.
These thematic maps show how exchanges made when two cultures meet. Students created a thematic map showing the cultural interaction between Persia, Rome, China, and India. Students drew symbols to represent goods, inventions, and ideas exchanged lines that show important routes arrows to show the direction of movement.

ch2less3 Byzantine Empire ppt

Hello 7th graders,
Please make sure to copy these notes by tomorrow. You may begin answering the lesson review questions.

ch2 Less 2 + Thematic map (Due 10-6-09)

Click here for the thematic map directions. (Due Thursday 10-6-10)

The Fall of the Roman Empire

Objectives:
-Discuss the role that the provinces played in strengthening and weakening the Roman Empire.
-Explain the causes and collapse of the Roman Empire.
-Explain why the Eastern Roman Empire survived and prospered.

The mystery of Written and Non written sources

The lesson on Primary, secondary, and non written sources taught us how sources can be applied to a historical event that has happened in the past. We can look at any event and give our own opinion about what may and may not have happened, but in the case of an event that happens, we turn to written and non written sources to give facts and details about an event that occurred in the past. Some people may ask why we place so much importance of primary and secondary sources.
People can barely remember what happens one week ago, so how would we remember what happened a long time ago. All these sources can describe and specify an event that could have happened a while ago or recently. Without the discovery of these resources, documenting an actual event would be hard to do, and we can make a big mess of history with any bias we may hold. Written and non-written sources could be like playing the telephone game. When playing telephone, one person whispers something in a friend's ear that they have to repeat to another friend, and so on. The message gets passes along correctly with the first few people, but the chance of someone getting it wrong increases with the number of people who repeat a message. Going back to primary sources is like going back to the first person in the telephone game because you are more like to get a more accurate source from the person who witnessed the event. Secondary sources are great to get a different perspective of the same event, but if we are not careful, we can pick up some exaggerated or biased information. Non written sources can also prove whether a point is true or not, based on the amount of information the source can give.

All in all, written and non written sources come in handy when you have something in history you want to document or save for later. We can always rely on these pieces of information to give us a glimpse into history. As the saying goes, "History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man." History tells us what happens in the past, and if we use it wisely, it will help us make a better future.

-By Stephanie

ch8-3 China and the Larger World

William of Rubruck primary source questions

Hello 7th graders,
Click on this link to download and answer the questions relating to William's primary source account with the Mongol Empire.

ch5less2 Ghana

Hello 7th graders,
I have been unsuccessful in trying to upload the Power Points at school, so here are the notes in outline form. Please make sure to have them copied by tomorrow as we should be finishing the lesson by tomorrow. The quiz will more than likely be on Friday. I will let you know tomorrow if plans change.

The Soninke
o Iron --> expanding empire
o Iron weapons were better than neighboring peoples’ stone weapons
o Result: easy to conquer other people
o Lacked salt
o Surplus of gold
o Fall of the Soninke

Ghana becomes the center of trade
o Traders with salt passed through Ghana
o Traders with gold passed through Ghana
o Both exchanged goods through Ghana

Ghana’s capital becomes divided
o Many traders were Muslim
o Rulers wanted to keep Islam separate from traditional Soninke religion
o Result --> divided the city into two sections(Muslim and Local people)

The Al Moravids
o They were from the Sahara and north Africa
o They were a threat to the Soninke

A new religion
o Arabs came to live in Ghana because of the good trade
o Trading of goods equals the trading of ideas
o By 750 Muslim Arabs had created a huge Islamic empire in the Middle East
o Traders taught the people of Ghana their Arab religion
o Government Officials and merchants change religion to Islam

Conversion to Islam
o Mandinke spread the ideas through out west Africa
o Islam stressed the brotherhood of all believers
o Encouraged trust and peaceful trade between people of different nationalities

Traditional practices
o Succession of the kings done through the mothers side practiced by Ghana (Known as matrilineal)
o Throne passes from father to son was practices by the Muslims (Patrilineal)

ch5less1

Hello class,
The PPT was not able to load up, but here are the notes that you will need. Make sure they are printed out or copied by tomorrow 12/11/09.

• Key terms: A. Craftspeople, B. flourish, C. fertile, D. potter, E. floodplain, F. savanna, G. Sahel
• 1.___People who are skilled at making things with their hands
• 2.___Flat land near a river that may be covered with water during a flood
• 3.___To grow or do very well
• 4.___Good for plants to grow in
• 5.___A person who makes pottery
• 6.___grassland with scattered trees and plant growth
• 7.___the shore of the desert
• Roots of a Mighty Empire
• Ancient times
• 5000 BC the Sahara was flowing with rivers green pastures and forests.
• 4000 BC rain fell less often and temperatures had risen.
• 2500 BC climate à Dry and Hot
• Change in climate
• Land became bare and bleak / desert
• Changes à people moving to
• Sahel (8 climate zones)
• Shore of the desert
• Temperatures range from dessert in the north to vegetation in the south.
• Occasional rainfall makes farming possible
• Banks of the Niger River : Semi-arid/tropical, wet and dry
• Nok 500BC-200AD
• Lived in West Africa, Present day Nigeria
• Had iron as a resource (450BC)
• Use iron instead of stone
• Used iron for spear points and farming tools
• Lives improved because of the iron
• Potters
• Used clay to build huts and craft sculptures
• The city of Jenne-Jeno 250BC – 1400AD present day Mali
• Advantages of the city’s location:
• Niger River àRich soil à farming
• Resources: abundant crops, cattle, fish
• Trade: rice, fish, baskets, pottery of salt, copper, stone, iron tools and gold jewelry
• means they were great artisans
• city was abandoned in 1400AD

Africa Unit video questions

Directions: Take notes on ways that people in Africa, like all people, are affected by their geography. Example, drilling in Nigeria, deforestation in Ghana, and habitat destruction in Uganda.

http://assignments.discoveryeducation.com/?cdPasscode=T7536-3674

Link to video questions on West and East Africa.

Abbasid Dynasty Due date 11/25/09

Hello 7th graders,
For your chapter 4 lesson 2 activity, you will need to imagine that you live in Baghdad under the Abbasids. Your product will be to write a poem (81/2" x 11" paper) describing your lives and culture. You will need to have a minimum of 3 stanzas (Each stanza needs to focus on a different aspect of Abbasid life/culture.

Your poem will need to illustrate some of the cultural achievements of the golden age, and make use of Islamic design styles discussed in the reading.

chapter 3 lesson 1

Byzantine Empire

Hello 7th graders,
We have finally come to the end of chapter 2, but our learning about the Byzantine Empire has yet to come to a full end. We have been learning about Byzantine accomplishments. As we learned in lesson 3, under Emperor Justinian’s rule, mosaic art was fully developed. Prior to discussing Justinian’s focus on mosaic art (a picture or design made from small pieces of colored material, usually quartz or glass, embedded in plaster), Mr. Shulman gave us a presentation on mosaic art by showing us some projects that he has done involving mosaics. He showed us various techniques for making mosaics out of pieces of stone or glass cut into squares or cubes. With this method, mosaic pictures can be detailed and have sharp images when designing pools, bathtubs, and even entire walls of buildings. On behalf of the 7th grade class, we’d like to say thank you Mr. Shulman for an insightful presentation on mosaics.

ch2less2 PPT

7th and 8th grade 9/11 assignment

Objectives: To help students understand that personal testimonies tell a story of an event from many different perspectives, and that the role of historians is to create an accurate public record of history.

What you should be able to do:

-Identify primary sources.

- Record a story of September 11, 2001.

-Record the impact as told through the eyes of someone who remembers it.(You need to interview at least 2 on your own and the other 2 may be taken from www.storycorps.net)

-Compare and contrast the different point of view reflected in various accounts, and recognize that individual and personal memories reflect different point of views on an event.

Materials:

-Paper/notebooks/ for recording interviews (recording optional)

-additional first hand accounts: www.storycorps.net

Questions to keep in mind when you create your chart or write your essay:

-Why is the history of the events of September 11, 2001 important to record?

-Think about who spoke the words? What is that person’s relationship to the event? When was the story recorded? Is there any bias?

Steps

Step 1 : Record the name of the person being interviewed and how you know him/her.

Step 2: Ask the following questions and any additional ones you think of:

- Why is the history of the events of September 11, 2001 important to record?

-How did you learn about the events?

-What do you recall about the events and other events related to it?

-Why is the event important for people in the future to know about these events?

-How is your life different as a result of September 11, 2001.

Step 3: Write a compare and contrast essay or create a chart comparing and contrasting your findings.

7th lesson 3 Traveling Through the Past

Hello 7th graders,
As you read the lesson, try to think of some methods historians might use to reconstruct the past. Remember that your objectives are geared towards understanding the the sources of information historians use to learn about the past, and explain how point of view affects our interpretation of historical sources. Here is the PPT guide for the reading:

7th ch1 less2