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Themes:
Women's History Month, Ethics +
Dear %%NAME%%,
Welcome to this month's issue of ProQuest Teachable Moments. This issue focuses on a myriad of topics, including Women's History Month, cultural differences, ethics, health, and much more.
Our monthly enewsletter delivers a set of hands-on learning activities that encourage students to conduct quality research and produce meaningful results to increase their knowledge and understanding of everything from basic math to literature to history and beyond. Keep in mind that these activities are not duplicated in our other monthly newsletters, which also contain ready-made lessons.
Have an idea or feedback concerning this newsletter? Send email to tim.mclain @ il.proquest.com today.
SIRS® Researcher
Universal Healthcare: Necessary?
Grades 6-12
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Many of the variety of themes for March target health, fitness, and disease prevention and control. Here is a sampling: National Nutrition Month; Mental Retardation Awareness; National Kidney Month; Workplace Safety and Health; Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month; Kidney Month: Multiple Sclerosis Education and Awareness Month; and Save Your Vision Month.
Health has become a major issue for all Americans today. Many of the candidates for public office are supporting various types of universal health care plans to ensure all Americans, and especially children, have access to preventive health care options. We know that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Yet, more than 46 million Americans have no access to an ounce of preventive health care even though they do have guaranteed access to a pound of cure through hospital emergency wards. So, Americans are paying for universal health care of the most expensive kind with their tax dollars that reimburse hospitals for this last option type of “health insurance.”
Activity: Leading Issues provides teachers and students with the resources to better understand the importance of universal health care insurance for all Americans and what the major obstacles are to implementing that solution.
- Click the “More issues” link on the Pro vs. Con Leading Issues section.
- Click the link for “Health Care Reform.”
- Click the myAnalysis tab to access the steps to analyze and synthesize the issue.
Note the essential questions listed in step four. Addressing these questions, and others that teachers may want to add, are there to ensure that students will be able to form a reasoned opinion supporting either side of the issue. SIRS editors create these essential questions to provide support for integration of critical thinking skills in every Leading Issues research activity.
Note the links in step five to models for reporting or presenting student research on this issue. These four unique student and teacher project guides correlate directly to the Leading Issues resources and essential questions so it’s easy for teachers to choose and support a variety of ways for student to express what they have learned, and easy for students to understand what they have to do and how to do it.
- Guide to Writing a Research Paper
- Guide to Writing a Mini-Research Paper (teacher and student versions)
- Guide to Creating a PowerPoint Presentation
- Guide to Creating a Mini-Debate (teacher and student versions)
Find out more about SIRS Researcher and SIRS Leading Issues at our K-12 website.
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eLibrary®
Women’s History Month: Needed?
Grades 4-12
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National Women's History Month is celebrated in March. Looking back in history at the role of women in society, it is clear how the effort of women’s rights leaders has slowly lead to the dramatic changes in equity women enjoy today.
In the early nineteenth century, women were considered second-class citizens whose existence was limited to the interior life of the home and care of the children. Women were considered sub-sets of their husbands, and after marriage they did not have the right to own property, maintain their wages, or sign a contract, much less vote.
It was expected that women be obedient wives, never to hold a thought or opinion independent of their husbands. It was considered improper for women to travel alone or to speak in public. This belief in women's inferiority to men was further reinforced by organized religion which preached strict and well-defined sex roles.
Activity: Students should select at least three issues common to Women’s History and the struggle for equity for their reports: voting, health, reproductive rights, marriage rights, contractual right, employment rights, equal pay rights, etc.
ProQuest has created a BookCart of learning resources for students to use to research Women’s History Month: Title: “Women--History and Rights.” You can copy this BookCart to your local site (as well as 500 other models) using the following procedures. See the Appendix of
this guide for recommended model formats for mini-research reports.
The BookCart includes examples of Essential Questions for Critical Thinking. These questions provide teachers with strategies that require students to use critical thinking to reach conclusions and synthesize and express original thought about the topic/issue.
Essential questions require more than facts and simple answers, so that they are the key to building essential language arts and information literacy skills. Teachers are encouraged to create their own questions as well as those listed below.
- Why have women been treated as second-class citizens throughout us and world history?
- How have women contributed to social, economic, and political progress both before and after suffrage?
- What is the most important issue regarding gender equity that women have today and why?
- Who was/are the most important contributors to gender equity in both the U.S. and the world and why?
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eLibrary® Elementary
Crafts: Educational Tools?
Grades 3-7
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March is National Crafts Month. All kids love Arts and Crafts activities, and usually they’re fun for teachers too. Here are some tips for managing arts and crafts activities to get the most educational value for your students courtesy of Amazing Moms.
- Encourage all art projects as a process, not product activity. What may be a mess to you, could be a new planet, zoo or the next NASA spacecraft to your student. Allow children to explore on their own. This develops creativity but teaches problem solving, spatial relationships as well as cause and effect--skills they'll need later for math and other academics.
- Refrain from showing examples of a completed project. Especially, any that may have been completed by an adult. Provide the supplies and instructions, they'll do the rest.
- Resist asking "What is it?" Instead try "Tell me about it."
- Avoid automatic praise such as "that's beautiful" or "very good". Asking your young artist how they feel about their creation and the experience of making it will build confidence and language arts skills.
Activity: eLibrary Elementary has resources and links to websites that provide a gallery of arts and crafts activities for every season. You can use two methods of getting resources for your students to use for the arts and crafts activities:
- Click the Topics tab > Arts & Crafts.
- Click Art Projects & Activities > Art Projects > Crafts.
- Browse and make your selection -- look for seasonal activities.
Another great source of crafts activities resources can be found in the special BookCart created to support Elementary teachers -- the title is “Arts and Crafts Projects.” To find and copy this BookCart designed for teachers instead of students, click the ProQuest Carts tab and then click the folder “Elementary BookCarts.” This is only one of more than 100 that are available for you to copy to your Local Carts collection.
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CultureGrams™
Foods: Different worldwide?
Grades 5-10
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Use National Nutrition Month (March) as a springboard into having a food fair that explores the cuisine of several Russian-speaking countries. (You may use countries where other languages are spoken, if desired.)
Organize the class into groups of two or three students. Assign each group one of the following countries from the CultureGrams World Edition: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
Instruct the students to read the Eating and Diet sections of their country’s CultureGrams report. using the Online Edition, have the groups look up recipes from their countries. Then have students prepare a brief introduction -- in Russian -- to the country (i.e. where it is, whether Russian is the official language, etc.) and to the food they will make (describing ingredients, flavor, etc.).
They should also prepare to demonstrate basic dining etiquette as found in the Eating section of the CultureGrams report they read. As homework, assign the students to prepare one or two dishes and to make a poster with the name of the country displayed.
In class the next day, arrange the desks around the classroom so they make small booths. Have students set up their poster and dish(es). Then, have group members take turns touring their classmates’ booths and trying small portions of food. Students manning the booth should give their introduction to the country, food, and dining etiquette.
After sampling the food, visitors to the booth should offer reactions to the food in Russian. After all students have had time to visit each booth, meet back together as a class and discuss similarities and differences they noticed in regard to ingredients and etiquette. Have students either respond in a discussion or in a brief write-up.
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eLibrary® Science
Women Scientists: Accomplishments?
Grades 5-12
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We celebrate Women in History Month during March. Many famous scientists of the past have been women, even though women generally had to struggle for the education that would prepare them for scientific fame.
Even today, our education system generally doesn’t encourage girls to study science, but more often leads them to consider language and the arts as more acceptable. Many gender equity groups are now active in trying to make careers in science and technology more attractive to girls so that they can elect the high school science courses necessary to pursue these types of careers.
Activity: eLibrary Science has a unique feature that provides the biographies of famous scientists, many of them are women.
- Click the feature: Famous Scientists.
- Note the listing is in alphabetical order.
- Click Apgar, Virginia (1909-1974).
- Note the links to related information about the scientist.
Assign each student to research the name of a different women scientist from this listing. Each student should provide a two-minute oral report summary of the scientist that would include answering these essential questions for critical thinking:
- How did this woman scientist’s background affect the focus of her research?
- How did this woman get the opportunity for a science education?
- What discoveries did this scientist make?
- How were the discoveries accepted by the scientist’s community?
- How did these discoveries help other scientists to create/discover new benefits to society or lead to new discoveries?
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ProQuest® Historical Newspapers
Women’s Rights Movement: Leaders?
Grades 5-10
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The celebration of Women’s History Month in March recognizes the ongoing struggle for and the progress that has been made towards gender equity for women in the U.S. and the world.
That struggle is marked by a series of historical breakthroughs in U.S. history -- possibly the most significant occurred less than 100 years ago when the 19th amendment to the Constitution -- Women’s Suffrage -- was ratified on August 26, 1920.
There have other milestones of the progress towards gender equity leading to the recent election of Nancy Pelosi as the first woman Speaker of the House and 3rd in line to the Presidency.
Activity: What are the most significant events that mark the struggle for gender equity and who were the women that lead them? Pick an event and a woman leader of that event and answer the following essential questions for critical thinking:
- What new freedoms did this action or event provide for women?
- Who was the leader(s) and what was the background that prepared her?
- Who opposed this action or event and what were the reasons?
- How did this action or event benefit from any previous equity action/event?
- How did this action or event lead to another success in the future?
Assign students to use any of the following resource links for their research and use at least 3 articles to develop an essay of 200+ words that addresses the essential questions above:
- Click the Topics tab > Civil War (c. 1861 - 1865) > Women and the Civil War
- Progressive Era (c. 880 - 1900) > Women and Progressivism
- The Roaring '20s (c. 1920 - 1929) > Societal Issues
- World War II (c. 1939 - 1945) > Women and Minorities in World War II
- Post-War America (c. 1945 - 1960) > Popular Culture and Domestic Life
- The Seventies (c. 1970 - 1979) > Feminism
- The Clinton Years (c. 1993 - 2001) > Growth of Women's Sports
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eLibrary® Curriculum Edition
Gender Equity: Mission Accomplished?
Grades 7-12
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The celebration of Women’s History Month in March recognizes the continuing struggle for and the progress being made towards gender equity for women in the U.S. and the world. It is less than 100 years ago that the 19th amendment to the Constitution -- Women’s Suffrage--empowered women with the vote.
Currently, women have used that power and their abilities to be elected to national and state offices. In November of 2006, Nancy Pelosi became the first women to serve as Speaker of the House. November of 2008 provides a dramatic possibility that a woman, Hilary Clinton, could become the first women to serve as President of the United States.
History Study Center Activity: Study Units bring together primary and secondary sources on over 500 widely-studied historical topics including Women’s History. These Study Units make research activities more focused and reduce time wasted in “surfing.” They also ensure that there are a variety of relevant and authoritative resources for students to consider for their projects and reports.
To access a variety of Study Units on women’s history: Click the History icon > Type “women’s history” in the Search box and GO.
Note these Study Units that provide a variety of topics to research: Gender history; Votes for women; Women in colonial America; American feminism; Women in America, 1919-; Women and the American Civil War; Women and the American Revolution; Women in America, 1776-1918; Women during the two World Wars.
The best strategy for teachers to use to ensure that students are motivated, focused, and use critical thinking in mini-research activities is to create engaging and essential questions. These questions require students to analyze and synthesize multiple resources in order to be able to present and express reasoned conclusions through expository and persuasive writing.
Here are some sample engaging and essential questions for teachers to consider and assign to students:
- What are some of the major breakthroughs for women’s rights over the last century?
- What factors in society helped to provide impetus for these breakthroughs?
- What attitudes by men and society helped to perpetuate gender inequity and why?
- Who are some of the famous women and events that helped progress toward gender equity?
ProQuest Learning: Literature Activity: Women authors have distinguished themselves in the U.S. during the last 150 years. Many of them have written about the lack of women’s rights and in support of these rights through novels, drama, and poetry. Use this procedure to search for information about these authors: Click the Literature icon, and type “U.S. women authors” in the Quick Search box for your search. Note the impressive number of results.
Teachers should assign each student a different author to research, but one who has a significant body of work that includes women’s issues and rights. Here are some essential questions for each student to research and present about their assigned author:
- In what time period did this author write and what was the role of women then?
- What works did this author create and how did they serve the purpose of gender equity?
- What was the theme and plot of the author’s most notable work and what was the public reaction to it?
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ProQuest® Platinum
Ethical Leaders: Endangered Species?
Grades 6-12
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March is Ethics Awareness Month. Over the last decade, most Americans have been continually shocked by ongoing scandals in business and government that involve lack of ethics: Enron, Tyco, and WorldCom in business and the bribery of federal and state legislators to enact favorable legislation for their campaign contributors.
Many Americans’ careers, pensions, and savings have been affected through unethical practices. Can we find a new class of leaders with the ethical background to avoid these problems in the future? Can we create new laws and strategies that reward ethical behavior from our leaders and reveal unethical behavior more quickly to limit the damage to the people affected?
Activity: Teachers can create a variety of assignment that deal with ethics abuse and ethics reform. Assign students either a business ethic abuse or a government ethics abuse. Students should find a specific example of an ethics violation from the results list and select at least three sources that address the essential questions listed at the end:
- Click the Topics tab search.
- Type “Ethics in government and business.”
- Scroll down to Government AND Ethics > View documents for one group of students.
- Scroll down to Ethics AND Business > View documents for the other group.
To ensure that students use critical thinking skills in creating their reports, teachers need to create engaging and essential questions. These questions motivate and demand that students analyze and synthesize several sources to help them to form a reasoned opinion on the topic/issue that they are researching.
Here are some samples that teachers can use and create more if appropriate:
- Why is this ethics abuse of significance to you and many other people?
- How did unethical behavior of leaders damage the victims of this scandal?
- Why could the leaders get away with this type of behavior for so long?
- What would you do to ensure that this type of abuse doesn’t happen again?
- Can more focus on ethical behavior education help avoid these scandals?
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SIRS® Decades
Vietnam and Iraq: Similar?
Grades 7-12
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This year marks the 40th anniversary
of large scale protests against the Vietnam War.
Many of the arguments against this unpopular war are similar to those that are being presented by groups trying to put pressure on President Bush to end the Iraq War. In fact, these protests are largely responsible for the dramatic results of the November 2006 Congressional elections in which anti-war Democrats unseated Republican opponents who were staunchly in favor of the war.
Activity: Help students see the similarities and the differences between the Vietnam era protesters and events and those of today’s anti-Iraq war protesters.
- Click the icon for the 1960s > Counterculture and the Peace Movement.
- Click the links included in the “So What” section.
- “The Case for the Draft” and “Proposal to Restore Draft Has Young People on Edge.”
Teachers must assign essential questions for critical thinking to ensure that students use the information in these links to generate reasoned opinions about the differences and similarities between Iraq protests today and those of the Vietnam era.
Here are some examples to assign students. Teachers are encouraged to produce some of their own:
- Why are both wars viewed as failures of U.S. foreign policy?
- What are the major similarities between the two wars and the protests?
- What are the major differences between the two wars and the protests?
- Would a draft have made a difference in the Iraq war?
- What are the major arguments for and against a draft in the future?
- Why not add your essential questions here?
Assign an essay of 200 words that addresses at least 3 of the questions listed above.
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SIRS Discoverer®
School Lunches: Making the Grade?
Grades 4-7
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March is National Nutrition Month. Recently, there has been much controversy about school lunches and their questionable nutrition value. In fact, many of the traditional school lunch items have been implicated in growing trend toward obesity in students and the inevitable relationship to increasing juvenile diabetes.
Some states have taken action to prohibit “junk foods” and substitute healthy choices for students. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation to ban some junk foods from California high schools, in an effort to stem child obesity.
"We are going to terminate obesity in California once and for all," the former bodybuilder and actor said. The new laws extend to high schools a ban on soft drinks already in place at primary schools. New limits on fat and sugar content have also been set for vending-machine snacks and food sold in school stores.
Activity: Students will benefit from mini-research activities that help them to learn more about why they should be substituting nutritious foods for “junk foods.”
Click the Health and Human Body icon > Food, Drink & Nutrition link. Note the related Topics/subtopics listed. Assign different students one of these subtopics to research. For each subtopic create several essential questions for critical thinking to ensure that students are motivated to express their reasoned opinion on the subtopic rather than just a collection of facts. Here is an example using the subtopic of “Dieting”:
- Which is better for losing weight, dieting through portion control or eliminating junk food?
- Why does eating junk foods lead to student obesity?
- What are main ingredients in junk food that cause students to gain weight?
- What diet would you recommend to lose weight?
Students should use at least two articles from the results list to create their written report or presentation. Teachers should encourage oral reports of two minutes so that students can learn from each other’s research, practice presentation skills, and increase their effort because of the motivation of peer-review.
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