SHS: Students Provide Middle East Policy Suggestions to President Obama

Dana Gilland, Social Studies teacher, and Robin Stiles, library media specialist, recently completed a project focusing on the Middle East at SHS.

Students pretended to be the new Secretary of State, meeting with President Obama for only 3 minutes to convey their thoughts on the foreign policy for the Middle East. They had to include 5 out of 9 main ideas from the semester long class on the Middle East. Students had to infuse American values with what they had learned about the identity of the region and the people. They then had to come up with a foreign policy approach/strategy to handle terrorism which would not create more enemies for America.

Research was primarily done in the LMC, while the synthesis was done primarily at home or during free time before exams. To present their strategy students were required to create a digital story. Students could use any platform they were comfortable with, including PhotoStory3 and iMovie. Their presentations constituted their final exam, and the movies were presented during that time slot. Here is one sample created by Suzie.