| Social Studies – Preparing Students for College, Career and Civic Life |  |
| Teaching & Learning
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O'Connor's iCivics offers lessons, interactive games and more:
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2009 created iCivics, a free, online, standards-based program of civics lessons and interactive games. Today, the project is being used by more than 50,000 students in all states. She offers one lesson in this article. The Washington Post/Magazine
(4/12)
- Florida students "walk" across Africa
A National Geographic program that lends giant floor maps to schools is enabling students in Lake Wales, Fla., to walk across Africa as they learn about that continent's topographical features, countries and capital cities. "It gives people a scale of this (world)," said Lake Wales High School Principal Donna Dunson. "There's a dearth of geographic knowledge in America." News Chief (Winter Haven, Fla.)
(4/10)
- How to motivate students without the use of extrinsic rewards
 If extrinsic rewards damage students' intrinsic desire to learn, what's a teacher to do to motivate students? Social studies teacher Larry Ferlazzo shares in this blog post the responses he received from two experts as well as readers when he posed the question on his blog. One expert said students must motivate themselves, while the other said his studies have shown boys are more motivated by challenges. Education Week Teacher/Classroom Q&A blog
(4/10)
| Policy Watch
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- How will New Jersey evaluate social studies teachers?
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie recently announced the availability of $2 million in grants for districts that participate in the state's evaluation program for teachers who do not teach math or language arts. The pilot program establishes how student achievement will be used to evaluate teachers in such subjects as social studies, the arts and world languages. NJSpotlight.com (New Jersey)
(4/11)
- Louisiana is set to expand school voucher programs
Louisiana is on the verge of revamping the state's education voucher system, transforming it from a small program serving fewer than 2,000 low-income students to one that will offer educational choices for more than 300,000 students in low-performing schools. Reaction to the proposed initiative is mixed, with proponents hailing it as offering parents more choices at less cost to the state and opponents claiming it will "virtually abolish public education." The Wall Street Journal
(4/11)
| Technology in the Classroom
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- 5 technologies to revolutionize teaching
Educator Nick Grantham writes in this blog post about five future technologies that he says will revolutionize the learning space and "shape the minds of our children's children." Can you imagine teaching with holographs or augmented-reality glasses or routinely evaluating students using biometrics or electroencephalography? Grantham can. Edutopia.org
(4/10)
- Report: Schools should not ban mobile technology
A recent report released by about a dozen education and technology groups cautions districts against banning mobile and social technology in schools. The report urges districts to adopt a balanced approach in which policies are based on research and data. The report also finds that the use of mobile devices should be paired with instruction in digital citizenship and acceptable use. T.H.E. Journal
(4/11)
| Social Studies & Civic Life
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- From Florida elementary to Global Classrooms
Students from Lee Elementary Magnet School in Tampa Bay, Fla., were among the youngest to take part Tuesday in the Global Classrooms program of the nonprofit United Nations Association of the United States of America. "I like it because it's invigorating," said 9-year-old Francis McRae, a fourth-grader whose mother, Danielle, said she likes it because "it makes them see outside their own little circle." Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
(4/8)
- Exploring 200 years of San Francisco's history
Anthropologists and archaeologists in San Francisco are examining and cataloging more than 500,000 artifacts recovered from an area of the city known as The Presidio. Once a fort and surrounding residential enclave, the area is rife with traces of human occupation dating from at least the early 1800s. "There's a special excitement handling these remnants of so many past lives, and a pleasure in the research we do -- research into so many people who never made it into the history books," said Liz Clevenger, curator of archaeology for the Presidio Trust. San Francisco Chronicle
(4/9)
- Geographer co-authors study on ancient Amazonian farming methods
Geographer Mitchell Power, curator of the University of Utah's Natural History Museum, is part of a team of researchers discovering how some Amazon farmers prior to the 1500s used raised wetland beds to produce their crops without slash-and-burn or other techniques that rely on fire. The results of the study on how ancient farming methods could slow the destruction of the Amazon rain forest were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. Voice of America
(4/10)
, ABC (Australia)/Discovery News
(4/10)
| NCSS Updates
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NCSS to hold an international social studies conference in Morocco
An international social studies conference is being planned for next year by NCSS in partnership with the Moroccan Center for Civic Education. The conference, which will be held in Fez, Morocco, from June 26 to 29, 2013, will focus on the theme of "Education for Democracy and the Arab World." It will feature speakers from the Middle East, expert panels, breakout sessions, tours of world heritage sites, school visits, cultural activities and networking opportunities. Follow NCSS on Facebook and on Twitter for further information.
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Predicting the outcome of the presidential election
The NCSS official journal Social Education has published details of a successful social scientific system for predicting the results of presidential elections. Developed by Allan Lichtman, professor of history at American University in Washington, D.C., and mathematician Vladimir Keilis-Borok, the system is based on 13 variables drawn from across the social sciences that have successfully predicted the popular vote winner in all recent elections. The prediction currently favors President Barack Obama in November. Download the article.
| SmartQuote
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 | Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail."
--Charles F. Kettering,
American inventor
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Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says teaching students how to be informed and active citizens in an imperative. "If we don't take every generation of young people and make sure they understand that they are an essential part of government, we won't survive," O'Connor said in this interview. 
