Up To Date Current Events & News Class without Bias!

Each class we will go over a variety of current events written at an age-appropriate level, approximately 5-7 stories that are important, educational, and engaging for all students (depending on the age of the class, content is tailor-made for that age and grade level).

Current events articles are presented through articles, discussion, graphs, maps, videos and more! Learners are asked if they have questions or comments but if there are not, we move quickly to the next article. 

This class explores current events related to world news, domestic issues, science,  U.S. government, technology, health, arts, business, or what's currently trending. Topics will vary week by week, depending on the headlines in the news. 

We will learn about current events with difficult vocabulary quickly taught and a quiz at the end of every article teaching concepts like inference, main idea, context clues, and geographical references. Info graphs and geographical maps will be displayed along with Socratic questions probing students to think beyond the obvious. 
 
All views will be considered but this isn't a debate class so we will continue to move forward.   
All the content is aligned with grade-level appropriate common core standards for reading informational text. 
Stories highlight both tier 2 and tier 3 words to build general literacy and subject-specific knowledge. 
No prior knowledge is required to take part in the class.

Every day we have a "vocabulary word", a "fun fact" and a 2-minute video on science, a famous monument, or a historical site. 

Example of articles:
Huge Russian Military Build-Up in Arctic Region Draws Concern
'World of Tanks' honors the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's historic spaceflight with 'To the Stars!' event
space.com
Labor of Love: 93-Year Old Vet Whittles Walking Sticks to Help Feed Less Fortunate
Drone Package Deliveries Could Soon Take Off in US
Google Workers Form Rare Big Tech Union
NASA Perseverance rover snaps epic Mars selfie with Ingenuity helicopter as guest star
How rural students have been cut off by the pandemic
Celebrating the hero behind the "Ice Bucket Challenge"

Example of fun fact:  Spider webs were used as bandages back in the day!  The silk of a spider's (🕷) web (🕸️) is coated with a chemical that has natural antiseptic and anti-fungal qualities, which can help wounds stay clean and infection-free. Spider webs also help promote blood clotting. The Greeks and Romans used spider web clusters to help heal the wounds of soldiers in battle.

Content is taken from the new source News and News, which has been rated the least biased by the leading media bias watchdog. This site uses a proprietary “Bias Meter” to quantify the political leanings of all the postings of the news aggregation site, illustrating whether the information as a whole is trending to the left or right.

We use the bias meter to keep ourselves honest and minimize bias so you get the facts, not the spin.