Media Blitz!

Advertising Web Page Simulation: Glen Canyon Dam

Overview

Objectives

Grade Level/Subject Area

Materials:

Instructional Strategies:

  1. Divide students into cooperative groups or partnered teams. Explain that they will be acting as an advertising company and their job will be creating a convincing web site for their client's point of view.
  2. Students may name their "company."
  3. Assign each group either  For Glen Canyon Dam or Against Glen Canyon Dam

(There can be more than one group researching each side)

  1. Review the student handout that explains the scenario for the assignment.

Sample Student Handout

Imagine you work for an advertising company and hired to publicize Glen Canyon Dam.  Your job now is to create an effective webpage to support your client's cause, whether it is for or against the dam. Both sides (for or against) will be assessed on the same criteria.

Criteria: Your page must be comprehensive, and include all sides of the issue.  After all, you don't want your competitors to win the next contract.  Remember, your report, charts, graphs and maps (which will be included as hyperlinks) are of your creation.  Do not simply link to someone else's information.  Constructing your own web page information shows your client that you took the time to research their cause.

An annotated bibliography for each team is required.

Aspects that must be included:

Resources for your team: 

Visit Cline Library…NAU Special Collections has a wealth of information in the library archives… Political aspects:  Edward Abbey, political protests, interview with the Bureau of Reclamation.

Online resources:

Glen Canyon Resources from NAU Special Collections website//archive.library.nau.edu/cdm/glencanyon/

  1. When the projects are complete, have groups present them to the class. Allow students to view the web pages, and give their comments and critiques. Or if your class chose another mode of presentation, arrange your room for a debate or poster presentation. 
  1. You may want to create an evaluation form for the class to use. Students may assess other group members on participation using a cooperative group assessment form to decide if their classmates' presentations were persuasive and informative.

Assessment:

Upon completing this assignment,students will be able to:

This lesson correlates to the following Arizona Social Studies Standards for grades 9 – 12:

1SS-P2. Demonstrate knowledge of research sources and apply appropriate research methods, including framing open-ended questions, gathering pertinent information, and evaluating the evidence and point of view contained within primary and secondary sources.

PO 1. Identify community resources that preserve historical information--such as libraries, museums, historical societies, a courthouse, the world wide web, family records, elders--and explain how to access this knowledge

PO 2. Identify an author's argument, viewpoint, or perspective in an historical account

PO 3. Distinguish "facts" from author's opinions, and evaluate an author's implicit and explicit philosophical assumptions, beliefs, or biases about a subject

PO 4. Compare and contrast different accounts of the same event, including hypothesizing reasons for differences and similarities, authors' use of evidence, and distinctions between sound generalizations and misleading oversimplifications

1SS-P18. Apply the skills of historical analysis to current social, political, geographic, and economic issues facing the United States, with emphasis on:

PO 1. impact of changing technology on America's living patterns, popular culture, and the environment, including the impact of automobiles, dams, and air-conditioning to Arizona's development

3SS-P3. Analyze how economic, political, cultural, and social processes interact to shape patterns and characteristics of human populations, interdependence, and cooperation and conflict, with emphasis on:

 

PO 1. the interpretation of charts and graphics of population growth and demographics, including birth and death rates, population growth rates, doubling time and life expectancy

PO 4. how differing points of view and self-interests play a role in conflict over territory and resources, including the impact of culture, politics, strategic locations, and resources

PO 6. function and change in the size, structure, and arrangement of urban and suburban areas, including the growth of Arizona cities

PO 7. interrelationships among settlement, migration, population-distribution patterns, landforms, climates, and patterns of vegetation

3SS-P4. Analyze the interactions between human activities and the natural world in different regions, including changes in the meaning, use, distribution, and importance of natural resources, with emphasis on:

 

PO 1. how the Earth's natural systems affect humans, including how climatic and seasonal changes impact different regions of the globe

PO 2. how humans perceive, react to, and prepare for natural hazards

PO 3. how changes in the natural environment can increase or diminish its capacity to support human activity

PO 4. ways technology has affected the definition and use of, as well as access to, resources and expanded human capacity to modify the natural environment

PO 5. the diversity and productivity of ecosystems

PO 6. policies and programs for resource use and management, including the trade-off between environmental quality and economic growth in the twentieth century