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Common Core State Standard
SL.CCS.1/2/3/4 Grades 6-12: An essay of a current news event is provided for discussion to encourage participation, but also inspire the use of evidence to support logical claims using the main ideas of the article. Students must analyze background information provided about a current event within the news, draw out the main ideas and key details, and review different opinions on the issue. Then, students should present their own claims using facts and analysis for support. FOR THE WEEK OF SEP. 26, 2005 Can't our technology stop a hurricane?![]() ![]() Have your students search through newspaper ads for materials they could use to build their own Rube Goldberg contraption to fend off hurricanes. Assign or let them decide how much money they could "spend" to build their hurricane deflectors. Then have them describe how they would build the device and explain why it would work.
![]() Ask students to check out newspaper stories about the 120-mile long traffic jam created when hundreds of thousands of people tried to evacuate Houston. Have them write a report based on those stories about what mistakes they think were made and ask them to offer suggestions about how such a mass evacuation could be better planned and executed.
![]() Have students follow newspaper reports about the congressional committee inquiries into what went wrong in the federal response to Katrina. Ask them to write to their congressmen or congresswomen and their U.S. senators and request copies of the testimony gathered by the committees and evaluate how effective the inquiries were, as well as how effective local, state and federal governments performed in an emergency.
With the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes doubling over the past 35 years, it is not surprising that yet another major storm, this one named Rita, has struck the United States. Rita was the 17th named storm this hurricane season, the earliest ever that so many named storms have been recorded. One scientist says that the frequency of hurricanes probably is cyclical, but raised the possibility that the severity of the storms may be caused by global warming. Global warming, caused by fossil fuel use, raises the temperature of the oceansi surface water and the temperature of the ocean surface enflames hurricanes, increasing their power. The debate over global warming's role in the increasing number of major storms also raises the questions: Can we do anything about these monstrous storms and, if so, what? Front Page Talking Points is written by
Alan Stamm for NIEonline.com, Copyright 2024
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