This unique book combines state-specific facts and 30 fun-to-do hands-on projects. The Government Projects Book includes making a three branches state government tree and adding leaves of each branch's functions, designing a simple census questionnaire, staging a mock classroom election, holding a meeting with Robert's Rules of Order and more! Kids will have a blast and build essential knowledge skills including research, reading, writing, science and math. Great for students in K-8 grades and for displaying in the classroom, library or home.
Grades K-8. Features 30 projects for kids to complete-and includes actual state facts. Each project is quick, easy, and inexpensive! Projects include: designing a simple census questionnaire; creating a replica of the state flag; staging a mock classroom election; pretending to be mayor for a day; and more! Students will have a blast creating projects. Most projects use ordinary, easy-to-access materials. 32 pages.
Exploring Mississippi through Project-Based Leaning includes 50 well-thought-out projects designed for grades 3-5. In assigning your students projects that dig into MississippiÕs geography, history, government, economy, current events, and famous people, you will deepen their appreciation and understanding of Mississippi while simultaneously improving their analytical skills and ability to recognize patterns and big-picture themes. Project-based learning today is much different than the craft-heavy classroom activities popular in the past. Inquiry, planning, research, collaboration, and analysis are key components of project-based learning activities today. However, that doesnÕt mean creativity, individual expression, and fun are out. They definitely arenÕt! Each project is designed to help students gain important knowledge and skills that are derived from standards and key concepts at the heart of academic subject areas. Students are asked to analyze and solve problems, to gather and interpret data, to develop and evaluate solutions, to support their answers with evidence, to think critically in a sustained way, and to use their newfound knowledge to formulate new questions worthy of exploring. While some projects are more complex and take longer than others, they all are set up in the same structure. Each begins with the central project-driving questions, proceeds through research and supportive questions, has the student choose a presentation option, and ends with a broader-view inquiry. Rubrics for reflection and assessments are included, too. This consistent framework will make it easier for you assign projects and for your students to follow along and consistently meet expectations. Encourage your students to take charge of their projects as much as possible. As a teacher, you can act as a facilitator and guide. The projects are structured such that students can often work through the process on their own or through cooperation with their classmates.
The authors of Mississippi Government and Politics go beyond the stereotyped view of the Magnolia State to consider the dramatic social, economic, and political changes taking place there in recent years. Yet the past is inextricably bound up with the present, as Dale Krane and Stephen D. Shaffer make clear in developing their central theme: the ongoing clash in Mississippi between traditionalists intent on preserving the status quo and progressives who have grown up with the civil rights movement. Based in part on public opinion polls measuring the attitudes of Mississippians over a decade, Mississippi Government and Politics presents a vivid social history and analysis of the state's executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Krane and Shaffer have contributed chapters on the culture of Mississippi, the origins and evolution of its ruling class, and efforts to modernize the economy and to bring more blacks and poor whites into the power structure. Krane writes about the struggle over public policy, or "who gets what, " and the highly ambivalent attitude of Mississippians toward the federal government. Shaffer addresses the shifting allegiances of political parties in the state and the role of interest groups in effecting change. The contributors include leading political scientists and public administrators. Tip H. Allen, Jr., looks at the century-old, much-amended constitution, and Douglas G. Feig considers the dominance of the legislature and the winds of change blowing through it. Thomas H. Handy describes the traditionally weak governorship. Diane E. Wall threads her way through the antiquated judicial system. Edward J. Clynch sizes up tax Policy, and Gerald Gabris delves intothe dynamics of local government. The result is the most comprehensive and authoritative book on Mississippi political culture in many years.
This unique book combines state-specific facts and 30 fun-to-do hands-on projects. The Symbols Projects Book includes creating a model of the state bird, counting popcorn to visualize state population, creating state borders using craft materials, making a scrapbook of unique state facts and more! Kids will have a blast and build essential knowledge skills including research, reading, writing, science and math. Great for students in K-8 grades and for displaying in the classroom, library or home.
Recipient of the 2018 Special Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and Recipient of a 2018 Heritage Award for Education from the Mississippi Heritage Trust The perfect book for every Mississippian who cares about the state, this is a mammoth collaboration in which thirty subject editors suggested topics, over seven hundred scholars wrote entries, and countless individuals made suggestions. The volume will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about Mississippi and the people who call it home. The book will be especially helpful to students, teachers, and scholars researching, writing about, or otherwise discovering the state, past and present. The volume contains entries on every county, every governor, and numerous musicians, writers, artists, and activists. Each entry provides an authoritative but accessible introduction to the topic discussed. The Mississippi Encyclopedia also features long essays on agriculture, archaeology, the civil rights movement, the Civil War, drama, education, the environment, ethnicity, fiction, folklife, foodways, geography, industry and industrial workers, law, medicine, music, myths and representations, Native Americans, nonfiction, poetry, politics and government, the press, religion, social and economic history, sports, and visual art. It includes solid, clear information in a single volume, offering with clarity and scholarship a breadth of topics unavailable anywhere else. This book also includes many surprises readers can only find by browsing.
Chaos and Compromise: The Evolution of the Mississippi Budgeting Process takes the topic of budgeting and makes it exciting, and not just for political junkies. Instead of focusing on numbers, this book looks at the policymakers responsible for the budget. Brian A. Pugh provides a historical perspective on the decisions and actions of legislators and governors going back more than a century. Pugh reviews how Mississippi’s budget making evolved and sifts legislation and litigation as well as those legislators and governors responsible for developing this process. Pugh explains in detail the significant actions taken by the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government that affected Mississippi’s procedures. Significant legislation covered includes the passage of Senate Bill 356, which gave the governor the authority to prepare and submit a budget recommendation in 1918; the passage of the Administrative Reorganization Act of 1984; the passage of the Budget Reform Act of 1992; and the passage of the Financial and Operational Responses That Invigorate Future Years Act (FORTIFY) during the First Extraordinary Session of 2017. The first two chapters provide a historical perspective and give the reader an understanding of how legislation and litigation contributed. The book also covers interventions by the courts, which led to the unprecedented separation of powers case Alexander v. State of Mississippi by and Through Allain (1983). In addition to discussing important laws and legislators, Pugh takes a detailed look at six of Mississippi’s recent governors—Bill Allain, Ray Mabus, Kirk Fordice, Ronnie Musgrove, Haley Barbour, and Phil Bryant—to examine their methods for getting the legislature to include their ideas in the often anguished process of making a budget.
