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Activities and Resources

Activities

Eye of the Storm

 

• Tell students: Imagine that you’re a television reporter covering the aftermath of the hurricanes in Haiti. What do you see around you? What are aid workers doing? What challenges do they face? What are the biggest challenges for the people in Haiti? Have students "report" their scene to the class.

 

• As a class, research and discuss Haiti's food crisis and how the hurricanes' devastation could aggravate it further.

 

Celebrate Constitution Week!
 Constitution Week runs Sept. 17-24. Included in your issue 2 bundle was the poster “Party Like It’s 1787.” It depicts Howard Chandler Christy’s famous painting “The Signing of the Constitution,” which currently hangs in the U.S. Capitol. The poster points out interesting facts about 10 of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. (Only 39 of those delegates appear in the painting. Christy didn’t include the three delegates who didn’t sign the document or the 13 who left the convention.) Have students research one of the delegates on the poster. Have them choose one interesting fact about that delegate, write it on a small sticky note, and place it on the poster. Read more about the painting, and check out an interactive version.

Looking for Smart Stuff? Click here to download issue 3's edition (PDF).

Answers to the issue 3 SmartStuff are listed on Page 2 of the Issue 3 Teacher's Guide that accompanies Current Events magazine.

 

Resources

 

EYE OF THE STORM:

• Watch what happens to a house near the shore as a hurricane grows from a tropical storm to a catastrophic Catagory 5 hurricane: www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane.

• Check out ReliefWeb, a United Nations site used by aid organizations to learn about people’s needs in struggling countries such as Haiti: www.reliefweb.int.

• Learn more about USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development: www.usaid.gov.

• Get updates from the National Hurricane Center on the latest hurricanes and learn more about hurricane forecasting: www.nhc.noaa.gov.

• Get hurricane facts, survival tips, and other hurricane information for kids from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency: www.fema.gov/kids/hurr.htm.

RENT-A-PUP:

• Read about the efforts by a Massachusetts teen activist, 14-year-old Jordan Star, who rallied his classmates to support Massachusetts' ban on renting pets.

• Read a letter to lawmakers in Massachusetts from a pet-lover who urges them to ban pet-rental companies.

• Learn about dog psychology and about dogs' pack mentality.

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