Thursday, January 24, 2019

Which State?


Earth Science. Mostly freshmen, but there were sophomores, juniors, and seniors mixed in. I had been warned going in that they could be a handful.

The assignment was an earthquake risk map. They were to color in each state based on how many earthquakes had ever been recorded there. They were given all the data they needed to complete the map. Well, almost.

The map of the U.S. didn't label the states.

(It turns out that I actually can locate all the states on a map. This shocked me. I assume I learned it via this quiz. Because, I can tell you for certain I could not have done this when I was their age.)

This was going to be a problem. These are the kinds of students who will make a whole lot of mischief and a mess if left to their own devices. And being unable to complete the assignment would have turned the class crazy fast.

I scrambled to find a labeled map in their book. I checked the table of contents, the appendices at the end, but to no avail. I mean, the earth science book had plenty of various maps, just none of the U.S. with the states labeled.

So... I let them pull out their phones to look up maps. This class had a strict no phones policy, and these were the kinds of kiddos most likely to abuse any lessening of the rules. But there was no way I was going to give them an excuse not to work.

And the day went surprisingly well. Only a couple students abused my trust.

Then, in fifth period, I glanced at one student's desk. His earth science book was open to a map with all the states labeled.

IT HAD BEEN IN THE BOOK THE WHOLE TIME!

I did not have to allow phones.


To be fair to me, I don't look at their books often. And this map was a random natural resources thing buried in the middle of some random chapter. I probably could have found it if I had had time to flip through the book...

Still, it would have made things go so much smoother if I could have pointed that out earlier.

Sigh. At least I didn't have to let sixth period use their phones.

18 comments:

  1. That was good for 6th grade not to use their phones because I have a feeling they would have abused the right to do so and would not have worked on the assignment. I can do pretty good labeling the states on the map except for the crowded Northeast Coast where all those "tiny" states are located.

    Anytime you do the purse will be great. No rush. Even if it is longer than a month or so.

    betty

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  2. Since they didn't abuse the phones to look up the map, I think it turned out okay. But that's the way it always goes!

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    1. I was rather shocked that it wasn't more of an issue.

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  3. When I was in 5th grade (1950), we had a pull-down map with just the outlines of states. We used to fill in the names with chalk.

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    1. They never made us do that. I guess you would call that dumbing down.

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  4. At least you figured it out for the next class! That is a bonus.

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    1. At least I didn't have to allow phones for one period.

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  5. Phones make things so much easier though...

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  6. Identifying the smaller states in New England give me a problem.

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  7. You guys shouldn't have made such tiny states. Australia (which, if you take out Alaska and Hawaii from the US, is pretty much the same size) only has 6 states and 2 territories. Easy peasy *grin*

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  8. students around the globe face the same problems: read a map without the states (countries) labeled.

    Thank you for sharing interesting story from your class.

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    1. Not sure if we should be worried about this or not.

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  9. Oh my...I would have felt so good as a student, that the teacher didn’t know it was in the book. Mind you I have been screwing up on my blog with the weekly theme., we have all don’t something like this and, it seems they still did the work.

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    1. Yeah, I should have given him props for that. But we all screw up from time to time. No biggie.

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  10. Now phones is a wonderful thing and I doubt that children change much over the years and of crouse students goof off.
    Coffee is on

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  11. You do an amazing job. Don't beat yourself up. ~nods~ And be well.

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  12. LOL oops! Strange they didn't put it at the back of the book or such.

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