1. Notes for CultureGrams Users
2. Did You Know?
3. Holiday Focus/Upcoming World Holidays
4. Teaching Idea: Graphing Regional Statistics
5. Caribbean Quiz
6. Recipes from the Caribbean
7. In the News: Record-breaking Hurricane Season
8. Email Service Information & Forwarding Tool

World Conflicts Today

If you teach high school, make sure to take advantage of the great teachers’ resources available from our newest product--World Conflicts Today.

Click here to sign up for a free trial of World Conflicts Today if you’re not yet familiar with it. (You’ll find it under the History and Politics section.)

For each of the seven protracted contemporary conflicts the product explains, a resources section provides easy-to-access, succinct overviews of the key individuals and groups involved. Statistics tables and glossaries can be used for empirical comparisons and vocabulary building. Finally, the Classroom Ideas section offers review questions, research prompts, and activities. Check it out!

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• Columbus visited Saint Kitts and Nevis on his second Caribbean voyage, in 1493.
• The Dominican Republic has the highest mountain peak in the Caribbean.
• Jamaica is only 51 miles (82 kilometers) across at its widest point.
• Havana, Cuba, used to be the gathering point for Spanish treasure fleets.
• The movie The Swiss Family Robinson was filmed in Tobago. The island is also thought to be the setting of Daniel Defoe’s book Robinson Crusoe.

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Some Upcoming World Holidays

Bolivia – All Saints’ Day – November 1
A day for families to clean and decorate ancestral graves and enjoy a picnic.

Mexico – Día de los Muertos – Nov 1–2
Day of the dead. Families gather to celebrate life while they honor the dead.

Tunisia – Second Revolution – November 7
The Day that Ben Ali assumed power from Habib Bourguiba in 1987.

Estonia – Mardi Day – November 10
Days for children to paint their faces, dress up in old clothes, and go to their neighbor’s houses. They knock, sing special national songs, and sometimes dance, asking to be let in out of the cold. They are given candy and fruit.

Belize – Garifuna Settlement Day – November 19
Marks the arrival of the Garifuna to Belize. They originally came from Saint Vincent and settled in Honduras before migrating to Belize.

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Analysis and Probability Standard (grades 6–8):

Students should formulate questions, design studies, and collect data about a characteristic shared by two populations or different characteristics within one population. Students then select, create, and use appropriate graphical representations of data, including histograms, box plots, and scatterplots.

• CultureGrams World Edition: Country Data Tables
  

1. Discuss which statistics are used to measure a nation’s demographics and economy and why. (You might talk about infant mortality, literacy, and life expectancy rates along with Real GDP per capita.) Explain the types of deductions that can be made from these statistics; for example, high infant mortality rates might indicate that a country’s pregnant women receive poor health care. Also mention that some statistics can be misleading. For instance, some oil-rich nations have high Real GDPs per capita, but most of their population is poor due to highly unequal wealth distributions. For the most part, however, these types of statistics provide a valuable way of comparing countries and regions.
   
   
2. After choosing a pair of statistics to focus on (for example, literacy and life expectancy), use the Country Data Tables to look up these statistics for five countries in the Caribbean and some of the world’s other major regions (Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Asia, Oceania, etc.)
   
   
3. Create averages from the statistics found in the five CultureGrams for each region. From these averages, have the students draw three histograms. The first should be a comparison of, for example, regional literacy rates; the second, regional life expectancy; and the third, a combination of both statistical averages.
   
   
4. Compare and contrast the first two histograms. Are they similar? Discuss the third histogram. Does there seem to be any correlation between the two statistics you analyzed? If so, what might be the cause of such a relationship? Might it be mostly coincidental, and if so, what other factors might affects literacy, life expectation, or the statistics you chose? For a more in-depth comparison, create a scatterplot of all the country statistics, identify and eliminate countries that are extreme outliers, and recalculate the regional averages.

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1. This country, called “Little England” or “Island in the Sun,” is the easternmost island in the Caribbean archipelago.
2. In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived on the island Hispaniola, which this country shares with Haiti.
3. The United States’s detainment camp at Guantánamo Bay is located in which country?
4. The political and religious Rastafarian movement originated here.
5. Jean Bertrand-Aristide, who was overthrown in February 2004, was the president of which nation?

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Main Dish from the Bahamas
Chicken Souse

Ingredients:

1 3-pound chicken, cut into small pieces
1 quart water
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 carrots, thinly sliced
1 red or green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
Hot sauce, to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. Place chicken in large uncovered pot and cover with water. Add remaining ingredients.
2. Heat to a boil. Cover and reduce heat.
3. Simmer 1 hour or until chicken is cooked.
4. Serve with noodles or grits.

Side Dish from the Dominican Republic
Mangu (Mashed Green Plantains)

Ingredients:

6 green plantains
4 cups water, salted
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons butter
1/3 cup oil
1 onion, thinly sliced (optional)


Directions:

1. Peel the plantains. Boil them in 4 cups of salted water for 25 to 30 minutes, until they are soft. Put them on a plate, and mash them with a fork.
2. Add the salt and a little bit of boiling water to make them softer. Add either butter or oil or both. Stir well.
3. Serve immediately, garnished with fried onions.

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Related Country Reports

Mexico
Haiti
Jamaica
Cuba
Dominican Republic

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