We used google world to explore our planet.  Students learned about latitude and longitude and were tasked with finding out about several interesting places on our amazing planet.  Students learned how to read a globe and give directions using the language of the discipline.  Students mapped the location of active volcanoes around the globe while learning about the different types of volcanoes.  Students applied their knowledge of maps to city maps and learned how our street system is organized and created accurate to scale maps of various places in West Point and the surrounding area. 

For fourth term students learned about the judicial system and participated in a mock trial. Students were challenged to think like an historian.  Students were given primary and secondary sources and used reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading to determine answers to posted questions.  After discussing as a class students were randomly assigned a writing style (narrative, opinion, descriptive, persuasive, expository) and had to write one to three paragraphs articulating their conclusions using evidence from the text. Some of the subjects students explored included factory life, Hamilton vs. Jefferson, Federalists vs. Anti-federalists, the Declaration of Independance and more. 

 We used the multiple perspectives icon to study how different countries viewed post war Europe. First, we read a segment from the "Iron Curtain Speech" given by Winston Church and then read Stalin's response.  As a class we discussed the opposing view points.  We read an excerpt from the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan and then followed it by reading the reading about those plans from another country's viewpoint.  We learned about the Berlin Wall, the formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.   We concluded by studying political cartoons from various countries and discussing their perspectives.  Students were challenged to think like an historian.  Students were given primary and secondary sources and used reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading to determine who they felt was primarily responsible for the Cold War.  After discussing as a class students were randomly assigned a writing style (narrative, opinion, descriptive, persuasive, expository) and had to write one to three paragraphs articulating their conclusions using evidence from the text.