Jennifer Johnson

Villa Maria Academy

You are a 4^th grade teacher at Villa Maria Academy. You notice more and more fighting going on among the children in your class. You begin to wonder what is causing this violent behavior. Many of the students often talk about the video games they play. You realize that some of them are spending numerous hours playing these games at home. You are also aware of the fact that many of these games contain fighting and violence. There is no single explanation for the rise in youth violence. There are many different factors which could cause it, yet you can’t help but wonder, “Could these video games be leading to aggressive behavior in your students?”

You have been invited to participate in a teacher’s discussion on youth violence. Your task is to develop a proposal for reducing the occurrence of youth violence in schools. To prepare for the meeting you will research this topic on the Internet and answer the following questions:

³ What is youth violence?

³ What are some examples of violence in today’s video games?

³ What are some ways to recognize violent warning signs in others?

³ What effect can youth violence have in adulthood?

³ What are some ways schools can prevent this violence from occurring?

³ What is your opinion of the current public policy and what can be done to

improve it?

You will then prepare a Powerpoint presentation consisting of at least 6 slides which you can present at the teacher’s meeting.

Use the following guidelines for the completion of your project:

Use the 6-step Public Policy Analyst to complete the following worksheets :

Define the problem of youth violence in schools using Worksheet 1

Gather evidence for the existence of this problem using Worksheet 2

Identify causes of youth violence in schools using Worksheet 3

Evaluate the effectiveness of existing public policy solutions using Worksheet 4

Develop your own solutions that will address this social problem using Worksheet 5

Select the best solution to solve the problem of youth violence in schools using Worksheet 6

Research the sources listed below in order to answer the questions under the Task section

Create a Powerpoint presentation with at least 6 slides detailing the findings of your research

Present your findings to the class as if you were presenting at the teacher’s discussion meeting on the existence of violence among youths in schools

Websites:

Video Games & Violence

http://www.socsci.mcmaster.ca/soc/courses/stpp4C03/ClassEssay/videogames.htm

Computer Games & Violence: A Child’s Friend or Foe

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dabrent/380/webproj/sue.html

Facts about Media Violence and its Effect on the American Family

http://www.babybag.com/articles/amaviol.htm

Children Now Press Release

http://www.childrennow.org/newsroom/news-01/pr-12-11-01.cfm

Preventing Violence by Elementary School Children

http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/digest/dig149.asp

Video Games & Aggression

www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp784772.html

Video Games & Youth Violence – Examining the Facts

http://www.idsa.com/IDSAfinal.pdf

Raising Children to Resist Violence: What You Can Do

www.apa.org/pubinfo/apa-aap.html

Does Media Cause Violent Behavior

www.womengamers.com/articles/gameviolence1.html

Search Engines

www.AltaVista.com.

www.Google.com

www.AskJeeves.com

www.Yahoo.com

www.MSN.com

Your grade on this project will be based on the following rubric. Attractiveness, organization, originality, and content of your Powerpoint presentation will all be considered, as well as whether it met all the requirements of the project.

Multimedia Project: Violence & Video Games

CATEGORY	4	3	2	1
Attractiveness	Makes excellent use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. to enhance the presentation.	Makes good use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. to enhance to presentation.	Makes use of font, color, graphics, effects, etc. but occasionally these detract from the presentation content.	Use of font, color, graphics, effects etc. but these often distract from the presentation content.
Organization	Content is well organized using headings or bulleted lists to group related material.	Uses headings or bulleted lists to organize, but the overall organization of topics appears flawed.	Content is logically organized for the most part.	There was no clear or logical organizational structure, just lots of facts.
Originality	Product shows a large amount of original thought. Ideas are creative and inventive.	Product shows some original thought. Work shows new ideas and insights.	Uses other people's ideas (giving them credit), but there is little evidence of original thinking.	Uses other people's ideas, but does not give them credit.
Requirements	All requirements are met and exceeded.	All requirements are met.	One requirement was not completely met.	More than one requirement was not completely met.
Content	Covers topic in-depth with details and examples. Subject knowledge is excellent.	Includes essential knowledge about the topic. Subject knowledge appears to be good.	Includes essential information about the topic but there are 1-2 factual errors.	Content is minimal OR there are several factual errors.

Your final grade will be assigned based on the following point system:

Points Grade

18 – 20 A

15 – 17 B

10 – 15 C

9 or lower D

You have acted as public policy analyst and have helped to investigate an important problem facing us today. At the conclusion of this project you will have accomplished several tasks:

To use the Internet to gather information and do research

To use critical thinking skills to make decisions

To compile lists of useful information

To create a Powerpoint presentation based on research

To make an oral presentation

To prepare visual aids to support and clarify your findings