This is a replica LEM (Lunar Excursion Module), like the one that the Apollo program used to land astronauts on the moon. Photo taken at the National Air and Space Museum Smithsonian in Washington, DC, 2010.
Dear class,
Wow, so I definitely tried to pack a TON into today, especially with the assembly shortened schedule. I am hopeful that you are here reading to catch up a bit and understand what I went through! Here's what happened today:
Learning Targets:
SS.HS.KN.ALT.09: I can identify how technological knowledge and innovation shapes a society, place, or region.
SS.HS.KN.ALT.17: I can explain the process of change and continuity in a society, place or region.
SS.HS.KN.ALT.23: I can describe the influences, impacts and resolutions of historical conflicts.
Soundtrack: “To The Moon & Back" by Savage Garden. Selected because we talked about the Space Race between the USA and USSR today in class. Lyrics here.
AGENDA 5/8/14:
News Brief
Bay of Pigs
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Space Race
News Brief: Sokong had the news brief today and selected this article to bring in: KBTX.com - Elderly Woman Shot & Killed By Hearne Police Officer. Certainly a tragic story. You have to wonder if there was any way it could have been resolved peacefully, without anyone dying.
The other part to the news brief section involved looking at a calendar for the rest of the semester (which I didn't pass out, because it is not set in stone yet) and the upcoming final project for the Cold War, which is creating a newspaper front page with three elements. I will definitely explain this in much more detail in an upcoming class, but I really wanted to be sure that everyone understood the importance of following along with what we are doing in class.
Bay of Pigs: Today's lesson was supposed to have a distinct flow to it - from this, the the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the Space Race. Basically, the Bay of Pigs fiasco was when President John F. Kennedy approved a CIA plan to let former Cubans try to invade and take back the country from Fidel Castro, in 1961. Here was the overview we watched in class (as with everything today, I asked students to follow along and take notes):
It is very important that we understand how close we were to all out war here. To look at what we were saying to each other, I guided everyone through a look at these primary source documents (just look at pages 3-6, with the questions on page 6 being what we filled out in class):
This looked at the deal we worked out with the USSR to end the crisis: we agreed to not invade Cuba (and none of our allies would, either) and also to secretly take our (or really, NATO) missiles out of Turkey, in exchange for the USSR agreeing to not invade Turkey and also to take their missiles out of Cuba.
The Space Race: Finally, we put it all together and learned about the background to the Space Race - how the USSR launched the first satellite, first dog, first man, first woman, first orbit, first spacewalk, etc, and how the US struggled to catch up at first, then eventually landed men on the moon, beating everyone to do it. Here was the PowerPoint (I apologize that some of the slides are a bit chaotic online with all the animations) I went through in class:
The other part to the news brief section involved looking at a calendar for the rest of the semester (which I didn't pass out, because it is not set in stone yet) and the upcoming final project for the Cold War, which is creating a newspaper front page with three elements. I will definitely explain this in much more detail in an upcoming class, but I really wanted to be sure that everyone understood the importance of following along with what we are doing in class.
Bay of Pigs: Today's lesson was supposed to have a distinct flow to it - from this, the the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the Space Race. Basically, the Bay of Pigs fiasco was when President John F. Kennedy approved a CIA plan to let former Cubans try to invade and take back the country from Fidel Castro, in 1961. Here was the overview we watched in class (as with everything today, I asked students to follow along and take notes):
After the film clip, I talked about the impacts of this failed invasion of Cuba: 1) Castro needed to seek protection from the Soviets, thus eventually resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and 2) President Kennedy looked like he had abandoned and betrayed the Cuban-Americans who invaded, which resulted in a very long resentment by Cuban-Americans of him and the Democratic Party that Kennedy was a part of. I pointed out that Marco Rubio, US Senator from Florida, is Cuban-American and a Republican.
Cuban Missile Crisis: Again, one of the results of the Bay of Pigs, and also related to the Space Race! Part of the Cold War between the USA and USSR was the development of rocket technology to be able to fire missiles at each other. When the United States discovered that Cuba had nuclear missile sites, being constructed with the help of the Soviets, the Cuban Missile Crisis started - 13 days of being at the very edge of nuclear war. Here's the clip we watched in class about this:
It is very important that we understand how close we were to all out war here. To look at what we were saying to each other, I guided everyone through a look at these primary source documents (just look at pages 3-6, with the questions on page 6 being what we filled out in class):
This looked at the deal we worked out with the USSR to end the crisis: we agreed to not invade Cuba (and none of our allies would, either) and also to secretly take our (or really, NATO) missiles out of Turkey, in exchange for the USSR agreeing to not invade Turkey and also to take their missiles out of Cuba.
The Space Race: Finally, we put it all together and learned about the background to the Space Race - how the USSR launched the first satellite, first dog, first man, first woman, first orbit, first spacewalk, etc, and how the US struggled to catch up at first, then eventually landed men on the moon, beating everyone to do it. Here was the PowerPoint (I apologize that some of the slides are a bit chaotic online with all the animations) I went through in class:
I know I went REALLY fast through this, and I apologize for that. It is important to me that everyone understands the content - I'm glad the blog is a resource for everyone to check in and read the recap!
To end class, I showed this video about the Space Race, which had a somewhat humorous look at what happened, with a good soundtrack:
Whew! And there you have it! A whole lot of content in one day. Thank you for your focus and effort in following along! Next class, we are going to talk about Vietnam, then we will get into the final project for the unit! Have a great weekend!
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