Performance Task

Part 1 & 2 - Two Questions & Lifeboat & Marking Sheet

Day 57 & 58 - Generations X, Y and Z

Defining Youth Culture

Fill out the following chart listing some of the aspects of the hippie generation culture of the 1960s and today’s youth culture.  

Norms	Hippies	Today’s Youth
Music	Psychedelic Rock Rock Beatles Stones The WHO Zep	Pop Hip-hop / rap EDM Classic Rock Alternative / Indie Country
Language	Far Out Flower Power Make Love Not War Groovy Power to the People	Inventive Slang Curse Text text text text text text text "Lazy" habits
Dress	Tie dyed Tassles Fringes Bell bottoms Leather Vests	Swag Retro / Vintage Organic Colourful / high waisted Low riding falling down pants Boxers
Behaviour/ Customs	Psychedelia / Pot Free love Counter-culture	Pot Not caring Raves For a cause . . .
Values/Beliefs	Personal Freedom Down with the man! Peace not war	Education Human Rights Social Justice

Who are these generations below (left column)?

And what influenced them?

	Major Events	Music	Media (TV, Movies, Games)	Fashion	Politics
Baby Boom 1947 - 1966
Generation X 1967 - 1978
Generation Y 1978 - 1992
Generation Z 1993 - present

Today we are having a look at Demographics - the study of populations and trends in populations.

We will follow this up with the following thinking handout:

Generation X, Y, Z & Beyond

Assignments & Discussions

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 Assignment 1  -  Demographics

Take a look at the following world demographic trends:

·         Infant Mortality Rates have declined.

·         Fertility has declined.

·         There have been large increases in urbanization.

·         There have been large increases in literacy.

In your assigned group from above. . . 

.     1. List TWO major question that an anthropologist, a psychologist and a sociologist might ask regarding your particular social change.

2.    List the agents of change (what caused the change) and the impediments to change for each.

3.    Predict the possible effects of these changes on individuals, society and Canadian culture.

4.    Outline two appropriate social science research methods for examining each social change.

5.    Explain the challenges (for example, possible bias, ethical concern) that a social scientist would face in examining each social change with the research methods you recommended.

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 Discussion on Demographics

Then be prepared to discuss your answers to the questions above and be prepared to comment on the ideas of your classmates.

Day 50 - You & Change . . . It's Harder Than You Think. Insiders vs. Outsiders

Human Rights With a Twist - Baltimore

Dan Ariely's Ted Talk on... 
"How Equal Do We Really Want The World To Be?"

As a reminder here are some previous ideas . . .

Forces that Help or Hinder Societal and Cultural Change:

1. Worldview

2. Anomie

3. Alienation

4. Conformity

5. Charismatic Leadership

6. Subjective Validity

7. Pluralism

8. Dominant Paradigm

9. Traditional Cultural Values

Some Cultural Universals:

          Food, Shelter, Clothing (Basics)
   Sports & Recreation
   Entertainment
   Marriage
   Medicine / Healing
   Celebrations / Holidays
   Music and the Arts
   Education
   Religion & Beliefs
   Government / Leadership
   Gender Roles / Division of Labour
   Raising Children
   Communication
   Rites of Passage

Your Values are reflected in each of these.

Insiders vs. Outsiders - You Be The Changer - Link to Project  -  Link to Marksheet

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Day 46 - Cultural Universals

Cultural universals are parts of culture that:

a) meet the basic needs of people

b) and are found in most cultures. 


Some CULTURAL UNIVERSALS

Food, Shelter, Clothing (Basics)

Sports & Recreation

Entertainment

Marriage

Medicine / Healing

Celebrations / Holidays

Music and the Arts

Education

Religion & Beliefs

Government / Leadership

Gender Roles / Division of Labour

Raising Children

Values

Communication

Rites of Passage

Day 43 & 44 - Awesome Sub-Cultures at School Adventure !!

Sub-cultures at school handout

Sub-cultures at school marksheet

  How many subcultures are there at Acton High School?

  An anthropologist would answer this question by identifying each of    the characteristics of a culture that we have discussed or studied in class.  This assignment gives you a chance to consider, academically, some of the subcultures we find in school.

Describe Where and When (time of day) you can pinpoint a particular subculture that has claimed an area as its territory.  The claim to the zone does not have to be permanent; it can rotate according to time of day.  

Include graphics and a name (be kind!) that can be representative of the subculture.

Write a profile or description for the subculture that you have identified.  Your profile should include the following:

Status of the individuals within each subculture: Who are the leaders?  Who are the followers?  What is the relationship between the two?

Status of the subculture within the school: How is this group perceived by others in the school?  Why do you think it is perceived in this way?

Roles within the subculture:  How does this subculture expect its members to behave?

Values:  What do members of the group think is right, good, important, or desirable?  What fashion styles do they prefer?  What music do they listen to?  What are their attitudes towards school?  Family?  Authority?  What are their ambitions and goals?

Why does the subculture exist?:  To address this you must consider that both Conformity and Alienation  likely play a role in the existence of the subculture, each of which is a powerful force of social change.

Conformity is a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group.  This change is in response to real (involving the physical presence of others) or imagined (involving the pressure of social norms / expectations) group pressure.

Alienation, as discussed in detail yesterday, is the feeling of abandonment and separation from one’s surroundings, notably groups of students in the school setting.  This leads to a sense of powerlessness, meaninglessness and isolation brought on by the lack of fit between individual needs or expectations and the social structure of school.

Day 42 - Sources of Change

Sources of Cultural Change Lecture Notes

Day 41 - Forces of Cultural Change

Today we broke into groups and you did an exercise to define several terms, explain using examples of how they have played a positive or negative role in change in society and you explained how they helped change or hindered it.

Here's the handout - Forces of Cultural Change.

Here's the list of Forces:

1. Worldview

2. Anomie

3. Alienation

4. Conformity

5. Charismatic Leadership

6. Subjective Validity

7. Pluralism

8. Dominant Paradigm

9. Traditional Cultural Values

In your assigned groups you were to do the following with the conditions listed:

1. Define it in your own words.

2. Using real world examples, explain how your condition has helped with social change somewhere in the world.  Explain how this has been a positive and/or negative for the people affected.

  3. Using real world examples, explain how your condition has acted as a barrier to social change somewhere in the world. Explain how this has been a positive and/or negative for the people affected.

Day 37, 38, 39 Intro to Culture and Anthropology Lecture

Intro to Culture and Anthro Lecture

Day 36 - Test on Intro and Psych

The Title Up There Says It All.

Day 35 - Culture and Anthropology Introduction

We spent part of the day discussing the meaning of "culture".  I gave you some ideas to ponder including the fact that throughout our history as homo erectus, homo habilis, etc. etc. up to our current form of homo sapiens, we have been a relatively week member of the natural world, meaning that there are many extremely powerful, fast, cunning and otherwise deadly creatures in our environment that could kill us easily.  Also, we have always had to search for food sources and compete with other species.

Our big advantage out there in the dangerous world has been our brain, but our brain does not work in isolation. Collectively, the knowledge and strategies that we have used for countless millennia have, in fact, given us a distinct advantage over all of the other dangers that we have faced.  This collective knowledge and those collective strategies  have enabled us to out compete all other species and to flourish.  This is what we now call "culture". 

In a simple sense culture can be thought of as a mechanism to adapt in order to find food and remain safe in hostile environments.

Of course today when we think of culture we think of the complete set of learned human behaviour patterns which we know are different from place to place and country to country.  This is what our second unit will study, Anthropology - the study of human cultures.


We started my lecture on Culture as well . . . it's posted in tomorrow's blog entry.

Day 34 - Optical Illusions and Psych. Test Review

Here's the link to the Optical Illusions presentation that we looked at today - it's a fun way to demonstrate just how adaptable our brains are and just how vulnerable our brains are to over stimulation and/or incomplete or conflicting data through our eyes.

Here's the Psych Unit Review Sheet that I distributed as well - we'll plan the best day for our Psych Test together as a class.

The Psych Unit Test will be April 1.  Remember, the best way to study is to review your stuff several times a week - best time to start was in February, but if you haven't done that then start today!

Day 33 Darts Lab Thinking and Writing

We did a lab experiment that Psychologists would use to draw conclusions about how well your limbs and brain communicate and about how quickly your brain can adapt to changing information coming into it from your limbs and eyes (hand eye coordination).  The body's process of communication between what your body is doing and how your brain perceives and then acts upon that information is call "proprioception" .  

This is a picture of a couple of participants collecting darts from the targets for two dart throwing subjects . 

Results Chart of Entire Class Dart Throws

Below are the notes you should be using to help you complete your lab report on this experiment - they're a general outline and you should use them to help organize your ideas and get them into a useful format of writing.

These are notes for your to use to help you to write your Darts Lab Report.  It is based on the Handout, Report Writing in the Social Sciences.

Here is the published report on Buffering Effects of Religiosity on Substance Use.

Title: we are measuring ACCURACY of dart throws before, during and after a CHANGING field of vision.  The example that I used was the title of a prior study, "Buffering Effects of Religiosity on Substance Use."

Abstract: write this after the rest of the report is complete!  About 100 words.  Summary of:

Topic

Method

Results

Conclusions

Introduction: like any written work, introduce the topic to your audience to give it context.

Must include references (two in this case) to PREVIOUS studies on the same topic.  What did these previous studies conclude?  Google "proprioception studies "  to lots of results.

End the introduction with a statement of some predictions for the outcome of your study (hypothesis).

For example: you might predict that introducing prism glasses will result in a corresponding shift in accuracy in the same direction as the prism glasses, in this case approx. 11.5 degrees to the right.

Also, with practice, accuracy will improve.

Removing prism glasses will result in a corresponding shift in accuracy to the left of the target, i.e. in the opposite direction compared to when prism glasses were introduced, i.e. to the left.

Write a hypothesis using "if / then" statements.  e.g. "If prism glasses are introduced, then a corresponding loss in accuracy will result . . . . " etc.

Method:  in the first handout, "Prism Adaptation Experiment," I have listed the steps to perform for this lab.  Use it as a rough guide.  Use detail but not too much detail.

In the Method you will have several subheadings as follows:

Design: explain the tasks of each participant.  Explain the independent and dependent variables.

Independent variable: the non-changing process that you use, i.e. prism glasses @ 11.5 deg. right.

Dependent variable: the change as a result of indep. var., i.e. accuracy scores.

Participants: be specific, reference the class (HSB4U1), 27 people, (ages 16 - 18), one teachers.  Are there any characteristics that are important?  Could we generalize the results to other groups?  e.g. grade 3 class, the elderly, etc.

Apparatus & Materials: the simple list of what we used - it's good to use a graphic or two here.  Also, combine these as this is a very simple lab.  I've added a picture of the target boards in the Classes folder.

Procedure: refer to the handout with the bird on it and be specific about what everyone involved did.  A List works well here.

Results: start with a concise summary of results.

Explain how data was transformed into usable figures (in this case the graph).

In this case you need to explain each of the eight data points and the slopes of the parts of the graph.

Discussion: this is arguably the most important part of any lab report.

Start with a brief summary of results again, to refocus the audience's attention on the main points.

Explain each conclusion you make and support it with direct reference to the data.

Suggest further experimentation to do to cover the topic and any questions raised more fully.

Explain limitations and sources of potential error in your experiment, eg:

- we only studied one group of 30 adolescents.

- some people have better hand/eye coordination that others: significant because with such a small group our participants might be skewed, i.e. higher proportion of elite athletes than the general population.

- age, younger people tend to have better hand/eye coordination, thus limiting the scope of our findings to younger people.

- people stepping over the throw line

- a noisy environment

- distractions

Final paragraph stating conclusions and how further research could be conducted.