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JES & Co.

The Global Learning Resource Connection is Growing Exponentially

The Global Learning Resource Connection (GLRC) is an international collaboration of world class companies, organizations, education agencies, and nations. The GLRC is making resources correlated to learning objectives available for use in the classroom with the help from many of our Premier Sponsors and Partners including The American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Association of School Librarians, Cengage/Gale, Center for Natural language Processing, Cisco, Education Services Australia, IMS Global Learning Consortium, Library of Congress, Michigan eLibrary, Microsoft, National Education Association (NEA), National Science Foundation, Teach Engineering, Teachers Domain, and WGBH (PBS- Boston).

 

Learning Resources on Public Speaking - this Week’s Topic on the Gateway to 21st Century Skills

Every few years, a well-publicized list of the top fears cited by the public is touted on various media outlets. Public speaking nearly always tops the list, followed by lesser fears such as the fear of heights, illness, flying, and even death.

 

Learning Resources for Tsunamis - this Week’s Topic on the Gateway to 21st Century Skills

In science classes, the study of tsunamis has applications in geology, earth science, and physics. While students most often learn about tsunamis in science class, the study of this phenomenon can be applied to other subject areas as well. In schools where character education is part of the curriculum, learning about how tsunamis have affected communities in Japan and other areas can generate service learning projects and overall discussion of how people can help those touched by tragedy. In social studies, students can learn about the geographic regions affected by tsunamis, and how the local cultures have adapted to live with the threat of big waves. Students in Language Arts and English classes can write poems or descriptive essays about tsunamis, attempting to capture the power and violence of such force in words. In art classes, students can create artwork similar to tsunami-inspired pieces by artists Katsushika Hokusai and Sandra Hansen. Math classes, too, can use information about tsunamis to calculate wave height, speed, and the local times that various locations could be affected by walls of water.

 

Learning Resources for the Holocaust - this Week’s Topic on the Gateway to 21st Century Skills

Information about the Holocaust – the systematic slaughter of millions of Jews, gypsies, Poles, Soviets, gays, people with disabilities, and those resistant to supporting Nazi Germany’s policies – is often first received by students as something akin to the plot of a bad horror novel. Their initial reaction to first learning of the Final Solution is often disbelief. The sheer magnitude of the atrocities, and the barbarism with which they were committed, is unthinkable. Yet the unthinkable did occur, and one of the many legacies left by the Holocaust is that we are bound by our humanity to fight hatred and stop atrocities. All humans deserve the right to live their lives in dignity and peace, and the Holocaust has illustrated only too well what can happen when that fundamental right is challenged. The lessons posed by the Holocaust offer a broad range of learning opportunities across the curriculum, from world history, literature, religion, and science, to psychology, character education, social responsibility, and other areas. The possibilities are limitless.

 

Learning Resources for Earthquakes - this Week’s Topic on the Gateway to 21st Century Skills

The 21st century thus far has spawned some massive earthquakes around the globe; as of this writing, Japan alone has seen 19 earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 and above in the last ten years. The island nation is located in the infamous Ring of Fire, a volatile region that rims the Pacific Ocean for roughly 25,000 miles and is notably home to 452 volcanoes and 90% of our planet’s earthquakes. Japan lies on the edge of the junction to three tectonic plates – the Philippine, Pacific, and Eurasian Plates – which continuously shift and grind over and under one another.

 


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