Political participation includes voting and any other activity that shapes, affects or involves the political field. Though most people find political participation to be admirable, only about half of eligible U.S. voters participated in the last presidential election. When people choose to participate, it's often influenced by: Idealism, or the pursuit of a higher goal or idea. Civic responsibility, or a social obligation to participate, Self-interest, meaning the person benefits in some way
When people choose not to participate, it's often due to:
Contentment, meaning the person is satisfied with the status quo
Apathy, meaning the person doesn't care enough about the issues to make the effort to vote. Alienation, meaning the person feels that his or her vote doesn't matter. Sometimes people also cite institutional barriers, which are policies, procedures or situations that keep groups of people from accomplishing a particular task. Some of these include: Difficulty with registration, Difficulty with absentee voting,Weekday voting.

During today's Spanish class, we continued watching a movie in Spanish and talking about it.

In today's class, we continued our discussion on evolution, including talking about natural variation and artificial selection, selective breeding, descent with modification, speciation, and more. Bella took notes that followed along with the material.

Today, we reviewed the rhetorical devices of ethos, pathos and logos. Bella completed categorizing her list of reasons for Venice to go to war with the Turks over Cyprus. She used this list to write her press release from the Duke of Venice's office.

The Supreme Court has been responsible for many landmark decisions that cover an array of topics. Today we reviewed landmark cases that involve specific articles of the Constitution. We discussed the cases of: Marbury v. Madison, Gibbons v. Ogden, and McCulloch v. Maryland. These cases concerned specific articles of the Constitution and the conflicts that different levels of government might have with one another.
Marbury v. Madison established the concept of judicial review and affirmed the U.S. Constitution as the law of the land. Gibbons v. Ogden stated that a federal law supersedes a state law. McCulloch v. Maryland added that the federal government can do things even if they are not specifically mentioned as powers in the Constitution. While these cases may be hard to remember separately, Marbury v. Madison is where all major Supreme Court decisions start, as it set the precedent for all major decisions that would follow. The other two cases concern the powers of Congress found in Article I and whose laws are second in
importance to the Constitution.

In today's class, we continued our discussion on evolution, including talking about Darwin's theory of natural selection, survival of the fittest, alleles and allelic frequency, adaptation, mimicry, and more. Bella took notes that followed along with the material.

Review Algebra 2 tests

Review of Algebra 2 tests

Review of Algebra 2 Tests

Today, I introduced appositives and appositive phrases. She completed an IXL grammar exercise on identifying appositives and appositive phrases. For literature, I introduced the three persuasive components of rhetoric: ethos, pathos and logos. I showed her a short video illustrating each, and she took notes. She incorporated these elements into her press release from the Duke of Venice advocating for war against the Turks.