Izzit.org:Quality Articles and Discussion Questions for Current Events – Free!
A co-teacher of mine emailed today about in interesting service today provided by Izzit.org They offer a free service for teachers wanting to cover current events in their classroom. Each day they post an important article from newspapers and magazines ranging from USA Today to the Wall Street Journal. Each article contains great key questions that can be used as discussion starters. Very few online services offer such quality and relevant articles and questions, and I figured it deserved some acknowledgment- not that it needs me based on the fact that it already serves 44,000 schools and 18 million students!
Articles like these would make for perfect coverage in student blogs, podcasts and wikis. You can find the articles here.
Thanks Linda!
Thank you for mentioning our current events service on your website! We hope to get the word out to as many teachers as possible. We’d love to find out more about your ideas for using the lessons in podcasts and wikis.
Candice Mead
Current Events Coordinator
izzit.org
2002 Filmore Avenue, Suite #1
Erie, PA 16506
web: http://www.izzit.org email: currentevents@izzit.org
What izzit? We are television producers who create and distribute programs that spark curiosity and lively classroom discussions. Visit http://www.izzit.org to learn about our DVDs, current events lessons, fun games and contests.
[...] covered the incredible free current events and discussion questions provided daily by Izzit.org, but one thing we didn’t mention was [...]
I’m not sure of the excellence of the teachers guides. Looking a recent one on pay caps for executives who receive bailout money, for instance, while there are two articles w. differing views, the discussion questions have a conservative skew. My suspicions were aroused further by the fact that there is no staff page, nor a funding page, which you will find at many non-profits.
Anyone know who the funders are for this site? The staff? The The email to teachers offering a free video on how sun spots cause climate change came from Kara Glaven, who lists her title as “Teacher Support.” When I looked her up on LinkedIn, however, her title was “Marketing/Customer Service at Palmer R. Chitester Fund.”
Rob Levine’s Media Transparency profile says
The Palmer R. Chitester Fund was created…with startup money from the Bradley Foundation, to create right wing “popular” media, and lately has taken to selling educational materials based on the error-prone reporting of ABC TV’s arch-conservative correspondent John Stossel. Its Idea Channel distributes “intellectual” videotapes on conversations between mostly members of the right wing movement on topics ranging from political science to economics to history.
B.
Thanks for your input and questions regarding this post. Sounds like you did quite a bit of digging. I used to be in contact with a few of the people over at izzit. I will send this their way and see if they have a response.
Teachers should beware of the izzit.org site. Their come-on free video about solar cycles is bogus science. The premise is that changes in solar output is responsible for global warming. This can easily be disproven by going to a NASA site and seeing the measurements of solar output from satellites. The satellite data shows an 11 year cycle, but the variation is about 1% of the 1370 W/m2 average solar output. This variation changes the surface temperature of the Earth by about .01 Celcius.
This particular bogus claim comes Willie Soon of the George C. Marshall Institute. The Institute receives major funding from the oil, coal, and electric power industries.
Isn’t it interesting that it is okay to teach and promote liberal agenda in our classroom and to promote “science” that is funded by political entities. The moment that the notion of another side to the story enters the picture, everyone is up in arms! I don’t really know who to believe on the “human-caused global warming” theory, but I do want to keep an open mind and look at all sides. Much of the information we have been fed over the years doesn’t make sense when you look at the big picture. I began my science education in the early 1980’s when the newspapers were first starting to present the idea that we were causing the ice caps to melt through our activities. I completed a graduate degree and worked in the field for a few years before beginning a teaching career. It amazes me that teachers (the most over-educated professionals in our society) can so easily fall for the media hype. There are legitimate scientists on both sides of the fence. When we fail to examine all data with an open mind, we cease to do real science.
I just received an email about a free dvd from this izzit site, so in googling it I found this thread. While my private inclinations usually fall into what is defined more as “conservative” reactions, I am intrigued by previous posters, Wellington and Bent, bringing up specific and checkable issues with the site, as opposed to the generalities of Vehr’s post.
@Scott Walker: Have you not heard back from the site in response to these questions?
Gary is simply wrong. If he’s such an expert, perhaps he can explain this: http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/opinion0308.pdf
A Duke solar physicist begs to differ.
Stacy Vehrs is dead on: we have to look at different approaches. Observations like Scafetta’s are clearly superior to IPCC “concensus” models that have failed time and again to predict what has actually happened. Flat temperatures for a decade.
Before you pick on izzit, try looking in the mirror and see if you selling your students bogus science instead of a balanced perspective.
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