Photography: The Photography Scavenger Hunt - Week 1 Night Life

View fullsize

East Fremont in the dead of night after a cool summer rain. Photo: Trey Takahashi

In the past we have done features of weekly challenges and other sort of creative endeavors for people looking to challenge themselves and practice their own creativity. Starting this week and every subsequent week we will be featuring a weekly photography scavenger hunt. Here's how it works: Every week a new set of key words, phrases, or titles will be posted. Using those titles, people can submit their work at the e-mail link below.* Next week we will host a gallery featuring submissions and have a new list for people to try their hands at. So, what do you say shutterbugs?

Week 1: Night Life

1. Life Under the Neon Lights
2. The Style of the Streets
3. Late night coffee at the cafe
4. Nary a Rarity on the Streets of Your City
5. Loneliness or Love

*Please be sure to include any information about your photos and name for citation of your work!

Education: The Oregon Trail and Westward Migration Lesson Plans

View fullsize

 Westward Expansion can be a fascinating subject for children to learn, but one that presents and equal number of challenges. In presenting the subject matter to children ages 10-12 in Grade 6, I found the most difficult part of the lesson was reliability (something that is hard for most history subjects prior to the post-war era). As with most subject matter for children in schools, anything that is does not relate to the child or is uninteresting to causes them to fall out of the subject and drift off. With such experience and background in teaching the subject, I found a great way to incorporate some very fun and challenging elements into the unit on Westward Expansion that keeps students engaged, and  eager to learn more about the subject matter.

View fullsize

Source: Kelsey, D. M. History of Our Wild West and Stories of Pioneer Life. Chicago: Thomas & Thomas, 1902.

While many people (myself included) have played The Oregon Trail as a child as a lesson on the migration out west, this lesson plan take it a step further and introduces a background to western migration via primary sources, and provides better methods of closure than simply completing the game. In this lesson children will be able to compete for the best voyage out west based on information learned in class, and will be required to use their writing and critical thinking skills to provide background information to the events that occur along the treacherous Oregon Trail by constructing their own mock primary source documents.

Click here for the full lesson plan

-Trey Takahashi