Welcome to the NEW Current Events Online Teaching Center! Here you'll find all the information you've come to rely on from your Teacher's Guide, now in a convenient online format. Click the tabs above to access article background information, reproducible skills pages, and additional resources. The boxes at right will take you to subscriber-only content, including interactive digital editions, archives, and your teacher's guide in printable
PDF format.
The Teaching Center for each issue will be available the Wednesday before the issue date. Scroll down for previous issues.
Click here for the issue's answer key.
Please feel free to contact us at edce@weeklyreader.com with any questions, comments, or concerns.
In This Issue
Welcome to Current Events! In Issue 4, CE blasts off to explore Kepler-16b, a planet with two suns spotted by the Kepler space telescope. Time Trip looks back the telescope's namesake, Johannes Kepler.
In this issue's news debate, CE's student reporters debate whether cities should impose teen curfews.
Objectives
Main News: Students will learn about the Kepler space telescope and its recent discovery of a planet with two suns.
News Debate: Students will be able to conduct an informed debate about teen curfew laws.
Standards
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARD
Main News: Integrate technical information expressed in words as they are used in a specific scientific context.
SOCIAL STUDIES (NCSS)
Main News: Science, technology, and society
News Debate: Power, authority, and governance
Language Arts (NCTE)
Main News: Students read nonfiction to build a better understanding of the world.
News Debate: Students use spoken and written language to persuade.
Geography (NCGE)
Main News: How to apply geography to interpret and plan for the future
Social Studies Vocabulary
Nicolaus Copernicus; Isaac Newton
Skills Builders
Page 3: Comprehension Skills
Page 4: News Crossword
PREVIOUS ISSUES
Issue 1: Game Over?
Issue 2: Always Remember
Issue 3: Got Work?
In Our Galaxy, Far, Far Away
Get Talking
Tell students that science fiction sometimes precedes scientific fact. Ask them to consider what other science fiction ideas have proved to be real or inspired a real-world invention. Ask: What inventions depicted in movies or literature would you like to see become real?
Notes Behind the News
• For the past 2.5 years, the Kepler space telescope has been scanning a star field of more than 100,000 stars in the Milky Way galaxy, searching for Earth-like exoplanets. The specially designed telescope is a photometer, or a light meter. It is nearly 1 meter in diameter and has a much larger field of view than most astronomical telescopes.
• The telescope is focused on the same star field for the length of the mission, which is expected to last about 3.5 years. Kepler measures the brightness of all the stars in its field of vision every 30 minutes, detecting tiny interruptions, or “winks,” in light that take place when planets pass in front of their stars.
• The photometer must be based in space to get a good view of Earth-like planets in transit. In space, the view isn’t interrupted by changes in the weather, by the day-night cycle, or by seasonal changes. Kepler-16b was the 21st exoplanet to be confirmed, but NASA says many more are expected to be confirmed later this fall. The exoplanets discovered so far fall into three categories: gas giants, hot super-Earths in short period orbits, and ice giants. However, Kepler’s main goal is to look for terrestrial planets that may be capable of supporting life.
Doing More
• Ask students to write a short story, a one-act play, or a movie script outline inspired by NASA’s Kepler mission.
• NASA’s Kepler Web site offers activities and tools, including downloadable Kepler Star Wheels showing sky positions of the exoplanets identified to date. Find them online at www.kepler.nasa.gov/education/activities. Visit www.kepler.nasa.gov for more background on the Kepler mission.
Night Fight
Get Talking
Ask: What is a curfew? Do your parents impose a curfew on you? Does the government have a right to impose curfews? Why or why not?
Notes Behind the News
• The first juvenile curfew law was passed in 1880 in Omaha, Neb. The largest city with a youth curfew is Chicago, which passed its law in 1955. Five years later, 60 of the 110 U.S. cities with a population of more than 100,000 had juvenile curfews. By 1990, the number had increased to 150 out of 200. In 2000 there were 337 U.S. cities with curfews. Since then, that number has increased to more than 500.
• No other country in the world enforces regular curfews for youths. Outside the United States, curfews are invoked only during national emergencies, when they apply to all ages.
• Researchers have found it difficult to measure whether juvenile curfews are effective. According to a 2003 paper from the American Academy of Political and Social Science, several studies showed no change in crime rates after curfews were instituted. However, most of those studies looked at overall crime rates rather than just juvenile rates. Those that did measure juvenile crime rates looked only at arrests, which do not represent all criminal activity.
• Many curfew laws also provide juvenile delinquents with access to counseling, social services, mentor programs, and recreational activities.
Doing More
• Have students discuss in groups the reasons why teens might commit crimes such as robberies. Have each group identify three underlying factors that might lead to juvenile crime and present them to the class. Then brainstorm as a class how those factors might be addressed by the government, law enforcement, the media, or teens’ families.
• Have students role-play different citizens’ possible points of view on teen curfews. Use this lesson plan from the American Bar Association: www.apps.americanbar.org/publiced/constitutionday/Teencurfew.pdf
Teaching Centers and Issue Dates, 2011-2012
Senior Managing Editor: Clara Colbert
Editor: Maggie Mead
Senior Associate Editor: Rebecca Zissou
Senior Group Art Director: Jeff Talbot
Art Director: Ed Klopper
Manager, Copy Editing: Kim Paras
Senior Copy Editor: Sarah Chassé
Copy Editor: Troy Reynolds
Manager, Photo Department: Julie Alissi
Production Designer: Richard Gore
Operations Manager, Manufacuring: Christine DiLauro
Vice President, Operations: Marcia Smith
Senior Vice President, Editorial: Ira Wolfman
Contact Us
