Professional Literature

Article One: Effective Strategies for Teaching Social Studies

The author, C. Fredrick Risinger, tries to integrate the arts, music, and literature into the

social studies curriculum (2016, pg. 166). In schools, social studies teachers are lecturing simple

factual knowledge needed for students to receive a higher score on standardized tests. As

teachers spit out facts and dates for tests, the curriculum is failing to provide rich and diverse

approach of teaching social studies. The arts, music, and literature are missing in the curriculum.

Risinger provides websites that specifically focus on integrating the arts and literature into the

social studies lessons (2016, pg. 166). The author invites the readers to explore these different

educational websites that provide free lesson plans and activities for their social studies class.

Risinger gives five different websites that are useful for social studies teacher to teach

creatively. These websites are: National Humanities Center-America in Class

(http://americainclass.org), National Endowment for the Humanities-Edsitement

(https://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plans/picturing-america), iCivics (www.icivics.org/teachers),

Annenberg Learner (www.learner.org/), and Common Core Conversation

(www.commoncoreconversation.com/#sthash.QvDwql70.dpbs) (2016, pg. 166-167). These

websites not only show ways to integrate arts and literature but they also meet Common Core

and state standards for the students to meet each lesson. The article shows how Risinger took the

time to research and find the best sources for the social studies teachers to have as they teach

holistically and bring justice, critical thinking, analysis, and creativity to their students learning.

Article Two: Explicitly Linking Human Impact to Ecological Function in Secondary School

Classrooms
 The article is a research done by Yael Wyner, Jonathan Becker, and Bruce Torff. The

research tries to encourage biology teachers to combine human impacts on the environment and

ecology. The authors are comparing the old National Science Education Standards (NSES) and

the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The NSES separated the unit on ecology

and human impacts on the environment; whereas NGSS linked ecology and biodiversity to

human impacts (2014, pg. 508). Both standards emphasize the understanding of the natural

science and the importance of informed personal and civic decisions about the future of the

environment (2014, pg. 508). However, their means of achieving the goal are very different.

The authors favor the view of the NGSS and hypothesize that students will develop a

holistic view of ecology and human impacts on the environment if they learn the two units in one

semester. Therefore, they developed a method called, Ecology Disrupted, which was their

design of a class that connected human impacts with ecology (2014, pg. 509). The article goes on

to show their research design, development of student assessment by using 23-multiple choice

questions and 24 constructed-response questions, and various participants (2014, pg. 511-512).

The results showed those who were taught by the Ecology Disrupted curriculum had far

better, positive and statistically significant impact in their assessment scores. Their conclusion

showed NGSS advocacy of combining ecology and human impacts curriculum is more effective

for student learning than NSES approach of separate units (2014, pg. 512). Moreover, the

students can understand the complex integration between humanity and ecology and become

better-prepared citizens (2014, pg. 513). The authors solidify the importance of learning ecology

with the human impacts on the environment because the new curriculum will give the students a

better understanding of the world in which they live.

 Unfortunately, this research was only done once, and the authors suggest this experiment

be done again so that their results can be solidified even more. Hopefully, once this curriculum

becomes more legitimized, the schools across the United States will be more aware of the human

impacts on the environment as it connects to the ecology and biodiversity.

 Reference

Risinger, C. (2016). Effective Strategies for Teaching Social Studies. Social Education, 80(3),

166-167. Retrieved April 1, 2017.

Wyner, Y., Becker, J., & Torff, B. (2014). Explicitly Linking Human Impact to Ecological

Function in Secondary School Classrooms. The American Biology Teacher, 76(8), 508-

515. doi:10.1525/abt.2014.76.8.4