Minnesota Center for Social Studies Education (CSSE) - Elementary Social Studies Videos

Elementary Geography Resources Video with Transcript

miaozhen.li — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 21:13:32 +0000

Length:

5:24

Hi I’m Jess Winkelaar are from the Minnesota Center for Social Studies Education.

Welcome to the elementary geography resource video.

The purpose of this video is to share powerful resources with classroom teachers. I will walk you through three websites to highlight resources for teaching geography.

Please pause the video as needed to write down a website address or discuss an idea with your teaching team.

[A woman, Jess, stands in front of a screen titled Elementary Geography resources in yellow]

We will begin on the CSSE website MNCSSE.org

The first resource to highlight is under the “curriculum” tab at the top or if you scroll down to “popular resources” it is the first item featured.

[Jess steps out of the way to show screen changing to read mncsse.org. She then steps back into frame.]

[The screen changes to the mncsse web page. The mouse scrolls the screen up and down.]

These curriculum guides were developed by classroom teachers and they provide a grade level by benchmark by benchmark overview of the what students are asked to do, and also it has an accompanying resource list of how you can bring each benchmark to life.

[Mouse clicks on the tab called curriculum guides. Scrolls up and down the page. Then clicks back to home page.]

The next thing is below it on the homepage. It's the Doing Social Studies Video Series. This is a new series to help the elementary classroom teachers get an overview of each benchmark along with some teaching strategies of how you can bring those to life.

There’s a teacher guide to help you view these videos.

[Mouse clicks on video series tab. Scrolls up and down on the web page.]

Next, we’re going to go to a set of inquiry visuals. Geographic inquiry is a really important way of thinking and if you go to the inquiries page, and scroll to the bottom, you will find the next two resources.

[Inquiry tab at the top of the screen is clicked on. Click on a link to a visual, and then clicks on a link for a powtoons video.]

The first one is the geography visual which walks you through the geographic inquiry process from a spatial question through using geographic sources of information coming to conclusions and then sharing and communicating findings.

To support this process there’s also a Powtoon video located right next to it. This Powtoon video features to students going through the geographic inquiry process. There’s a teacher guide for you to bring this video to life for your students.

The next website that we’re going to go through two is the Minnesota Alliance for Geographic Education or MAGE. This website has a wealth of resources and also opportunities for both teachers and students so we’re going to start by highlighting a student program. So if you get to the MAGE website and go up to “student enrichment” you will find under here some really great opportunities for elementary students.

[MAGE symbol at the top, website listed below it, http://lt.umn.edu/mage/. Mouse moves around MAGE homepage and clicks on student enrichment tab at the top.]

The first one the Geographer’s Fair is an annual event that features student geography projects. And then the Minnesota State Geographic Bee is also an annual event for those students who really like to learn about the earth and its people. they can be a part of this student program.

Also on the MAGE website is you can go under “curriculum”, and we’re going to look at one specific thing called a ‘podcast’. So if you click on “podcasts” you will see this warehouse it’s an extensive list of about 100 podcasts to help bring geography to life.

It’s searchable so for example you could type sketch maps in here sketch maps are a great spatial thinking strategy starting in first grade, but to continue through all elementary years. You can listen to an elementary classroom teacher walk you through the steps sketch map process.

The final thing on this site is under the “curriculum” tab and it’s a great curriculum developed by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture called ‘Food for Thought’ so please check these amazing resources out and bring them to your classroom to get kids to be geographers.

The final website we’re going to go to is National Geographic Education. education.nationalgeographic.org is the teacher site to bring geography to life for all students.

So when you go to this home page there’s a wealth of information, but we what we are going to do is go to one item on the tab on the menu bar one tab called “mapping”.

So if you go to the “mapping” and you pull down to the second choice it’s called ‘Mapmaker Interactive’.

This is an amazing tool to help your students think spatially so it’s just really a palette. You can zoom in and out, you can mark points and you can add layers to really answer a geographic question or analyze data with a spatial component.

The final resource for you to bring geography to life are called the ‘State Tabletop Maps’. These maps are printable and they are available for not only the 50 states, they are also available for the world for the oceans. Basically you can print these out one 8 ½X11 sheet of paper at a time and tape them together, laminate them. You can bring spatial thinking and location and places across the world to life for elementary students.

So you can see there are wealth of geography resources all across these websites so please start with the Center for Social Studies Education to get your students doing some Geographic inquiry and spatial thinking to be geographers.

Video Series:

Elementary Social Studies Videos

Grade Level:

Elementary Resources

Subjects:

Geography

Elementary Economic Resources Video with Transcript

miaozhen.li — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 21:08:13 +0000

Length:

4:13

Hi I'm Jess Winkelaar from the Minnesota Center for Social Studies Education. Welcome to the elementary economic resources video. The purpose of this video is to share powerful resources with classroom teachers. I will walk you through three websites to highlight resources for teaching economics. Please pause this video as needed to write down a website address or discuss an idea with your teaching team.

[A woman, Jess, stands in front of a screen. The title of the screen reads “Elementary Economic Resources” in yellow.]

We will begin on the on the CSSE website MNCSSE.org.

[Screen changes to read mncsse.org]

The first resource on this website is a curriculum guide; it's the first thing under Popular Resources. This is a set of curriculum guides that offers a benchmark by benchmark explanation of economics and all the benchmarks along with an accompanying resource list.

Right below that is a video series called the Doing Social Studies Video Series, this is also a grade level specific benchmark by benchmark overview of what each benchmark asks students to be able to do and know and also it has suggested strategies.

[The screen changes to the website. A mouse moves across the screen locating the tabs as Jess talks about them. Page scrolls up and down.]

To get into economics we're going to start with a career video. Social Studies Career Videos are recorded by the experts in Minnesota and the elementary economics video features Professor Donald Liu and he introduces economics directly to elementary students and talks about how they might apply economic skills in future careers.

[Mouse clicks on Career videos and scrolls up and down the page.]

Getting into economic reasoning we have a visual and the visual at the very top, on the top menu bar, will lead you to this screen and what you'll do is click on the elementary economic visual and it will show you how to lead students through making economic choices.

[Screen changes to the Inquiry visuals page. Mouse clicks on one of the visuals and it opens in another screen. Visual is a circle surrounded by four colors: red, yellow, blue and green.]

This visual is accompanied by a Powtoon video which is featured right next to it, the economics video.

This features two students and they go through the economic reasoning process using a PACED grid.

This video has a guide for you as a teacher to lead your students through this decision making process.

[Screen returns to inquiry visuals page and clicks on powtoon video.]

The Minnesota Center for Social Studies Education you can link or go directly to a partner called the Minnesota Council on Economic Education.

[Screen changes and reads mcee.umn.edu]

This website features a wealth of opportunities and resources for classroom teachers. On this website we are going to start by letting you know about a professional development opportunity that's available for you to bring literature to life through economics.

And so under the professional development tab, right under “teachers”, you can see this workshop is listed. It's called ‘Using Children's Literature to Teach Economics’. This is an annual event that's a fantastic professional development opportunity.

[Screen changes to MCEE website. Mouse moves the page down to the tab.]

Going under the “teacher” tab to “resources” there are 2 items to highlight. The first one is the right on top, there are some award-winning economics lesson plans that are super accessible and really get the economic concepts and bring them to life for students.

[Mouse clicks on teacher tab at the top of the screen and then down to resources.]

If you scroll down to the bottom of the teacher resource page there's another curriculum guide that is specific for the economic benchmarks. And so this one is also to help you, as a teacher, really understand and lay out what the standards are asking students to know and be able to do when they are economists.

We're going to go to one other website called Classroom Clues. This is a great website that can take economic concepts. it's a searchable website that takes a particular concept, such as scarcity, and you can search it and it will bring up picture books, children's literature, that highlights that particular economic concept.

[Screen changes to read classroomclues.com. Transitions to home page of the website. Mouse scrolls up and down.]

So there are hundreds of picture books on the site and some of them even have some teaching ideas and strategies accompanied to them.

These economics websites give you resources as a teacher and also give your students some tools to think like economists.

[Screen changes to the original page from the beginning.]

Video Series:

Elementary Social Studies Videos

Grade Level:

Elementary Resources

Subjects:

Economics

Social Studies and Elementary Students Video with Transcript

miaozhen.li — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 20:28:43 +0000

Length:

2:45

[Black screen. White text reads “Social Studies is about people”]

Arul: It can help people understand the world more and people can learn more about other people and how they have an impact on our society today.

[Arul is an elementary student with glasses, short brown hair, wearing a blue button up shirt and a black/blue/white striped tie. He is looking to the right side of the screen. His name appears in the lower left corner of the screen, along with his school name, Bailey Elementary School. He sits in a chair in front of a white wall.]

Rick: Because it helps them like learn about the world and so you know what’s happening. It’s pretty cool, too. There are a lot of things.

[Rick, another elementary student, who has dark brown hair and a light blue shirt. He sits looking to the right of the screen, like Arul. His name and name of his school, Plymouth Creek Elementary School, appear in lower left corner. He sits in a chair in front of a white wall as well.]

Matt Schultz: You know, if you can make it real to them and real to their life um, and social studies is fairly easy to do that because it’s about our life, right?

[Adult male wearing a maroon colored button-up shirt, sits looking to the left of the screen. His name and the school he teaches at, Winona Middle School, appears in the left corner. He sits in front of a white wall that has pictures hung up on it.]

[Black screen, white text reads “social studies helps students be more aware of themselves”]

Kellie Friend: Everybody needs to find their place and how they fit into this world and how they can impact their world and how they can change their world.

[Adult woman with short blonde hair and a white cardigan looks to the left of the screen. Her name and school, Turtle Lake Elementary, appear in the lower left corner. She sits in front of a white4 bulletin board with a picture of the world on it.]

Lisa Wiener: It really gives them a sense of who they are in this big world that they don’t really understand.

[Adult woman with long brown hair sits looking to the right side of the screen. He name and Raven Stream Elementary School appear at the bottom of the screen. She sits in front of paper cutouts of hands and multicolored pouches that are hung up on a white board.]

Arul: Social studies, it helps me figure out where I want to go next.

[Black screen with white text that reads “social studies helps students make informed and reasoned decisions”]

Kellie Friend: Helping kids become informed decision-makers and it starts early. It doesn’t start, it doesn’t start when they’re in high school. It starts to really, really young.

Samarth: When you’re doing social studies you really get the skill set to interact with other people.

[Elementary aged boy with glasses and short, dark brown hair. He is wearing a striped white and light blue shirt. He sits looking to the right in front of a white wall. His name and school, Kimberly Lane Elementary School, appear in the lower left corner.]

Khoi: It will help with life skills later on.

[Elementary aged boy with black hair. He is wearing a blue checkered shirt and a white sweater vest. He sits in front of a white wall looking to the right.]

[Black screen with white text reading “what if children don’t learn social studies in elementary school?”]

Matt Schultz: If we push that aside, we’re losing an opportunity for a whole generation to embrace what we are as a people.

Marie Le: If we’re not using social studies within a curriculum, then we’re not setting up our students for success later on in life.

[Adult woman with long black hair in a gold University of Minnesota sweatshirt sits in front of a black bulletin board that has paper pinned on it. She sits looking to the right of the screen. Her name and Central Park Elementary School appear on the bottom of the screen.]

Zion: If in college, someone asked me about social studies and I didn’t learn it, I would have a really hard time.

[Young elementary school girl with black braids in a yellow t-shirt sits in front of a white doorway. Her name and Immaculate Conception School appear in the lower left corner.]

[Black screen with white text that reads “why should elementary students do social studies in school?”]

Lisa Wiener: Building their background in social studies is actually making better readers.

Brooke Nordby: To help make the world a better place, I think, just, it’s a great way to teach kids how to go out and be change-makers, and that their voice can be heard and that they can be somebody that goes out into the future and does something good for our society and we need more of that.

[Adult woman with brown hair in a pink sweater sits in front of wooden bookshelves. Her name and school, Adams Spanish Immersion School, is in the lower left corner.]

Scarlett: If all the kids in the school didn’t learn social studies, I would maybe stop in, STOMP into that, um, little desk place and tell the principal that these kids should be learning about social studies. Right Now!

[Young girl with light brown hair and wearing a green and white striped shirt sits in front of bookshelves. Her name and school, Matoska International IB World School, is in the lower left screen. She is looking above where the camera would be.]

[Black screen with the Minnesota Center for Social Studies Education logo appears.]

Video Series:

Elementary Social Studies Videos

Grade Level:

Elementary Resources