Students will gain a deeper understanding of the Cold War by delving into major social studies topics in this project-based examination. The volume presents a series of broad questions touching on major themes in the social studies curriculum. Each question is accompanied by several paragraphs examining that question in the context of the Cold War, as well as a detailed project that prompts readers to think critically and present their findings or opinions in a particular format, such as a poster with side-by-side comparisons, a persuasive essay, or a class presentation.

This project-based examination of World War II explores the topic through answering major questions that define this period in history. Learners will tackle challenges and questions through an extended process of investigation and contextualization, guided by historical facts and events that help students refine their research and focus their projects. Placing WWII in a real-world context will lend authenticity to their understanding of the war's depth and significance. Students will retain autonomy over their process, reflect on what they've learned, and share their process with peers and teachers. The result of each project is an actual product students will present to their peers.

The idea of the Roaring '20s conjures up images of speakeasies, women with short, saucy hairdos, and hot jazz. Readers will learn about the historical events that define this decade, including the devastating war that preceded it. An explanation about project-based learning will help readers understand how it can help them research their topic in unique and interesting ways. Constructive suggestions offer ideas for projects, while encouraging readers to take their studies in new and interesting directions.

Controlled investigations, the classic sort of science experiment that involved controlled and dependent variables, have been the source of much scientific knowledge over the years. Learners will engage with science through controlled investigations using Project-Based Learning, or PBL, a student-centered pedagogy that involves active and inquiry-based learning. Each project asks student groups to consider an essential question to form a hypothesis and use technology, research, and experimentation to prove or disprove the hypothesis. Sidebars give learners context for what they're learning in each chapter, and a comprehensive list of useful, PBL-friendly tools is provided for reference.

Discover the astonishing true story of Project Acoustic Kitty, a top-secret CIA experiment during the Cold War that sought to turn cats into undercover spies. This eBook delves deep into this bizarre and ambitious espionage mission's origins, technology, and unexpected challenges. Learn about the intersection of biology and intelligence, the ethical dilemmas faced, and the legacy left by one of the most unusual projects in espionage history. Perfect for readers fascinated by Cold War espionage, secret CIA operations, and strange historical experiments. Explore the untold story of feline spies and Cold War intrigue.

For sixteen long months, the U.S. Navy was helpless! Admiral Nathan Summerfield and his entire Project Houdini exploration team had gone into the Bermuda Triangle and never came out. All contact had been broken. The navy could find no way to recover them. Project Houdini had won the battle but had lost their war against the unknown. Or had they? More dead than alive, journalist Alan Maxwell was extracted from icy Atlantic waters. Only a humble Mae West jacket had sustained this shattered sole survivor in testament of the incredible truth. A strange and dangerous truth that certain forces within the navy tried again and again to suppress. In an effort to keep the lid on former naval officer Alan Maxwells account of the terrible secret that the Project Houdini team had discovered, the projects new director, egocentric Admiral Scott, and his henchman, Captain Sadowski, had the reporter subjected to a high-tech brainwashing technique. They then, in order to maintain anonymity, had him moved from one hospital to another. Only newspaper editor Harry Konenbergs stubborn belief in his veteran reporter defied the odds and kept this remarkable story from being systematically sucked into an all-consuming national security vacuum.

The Closed World offers a radically new alternative to the canonical histories of computers and cognitive science. Arguing that we can make sense of computers as tools only when we simultaneously grasp their roles as metaphors and political icons, Paul Edwards shows how Cold War social and cultural contexts shaped emerging computer technology--and were transformed, in turn, by information machines. The Closed World explores three apparently disparate histories--the history of American global power, the history of computing machines, and the history of subjectivity in science and culture--through the lens of the American political imagination. In the process, it reveals intimate links between the military projects of the Cold War, the evolution of digital computers, and the origins of cybernetics, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence. Edwards begins by describing the emergence of a "closed-world discourse" of global surveillance and control through high-technology military power. The Cold War political goal of "containment" led to the SAGE continental air defense system, Rand Corporation studies of nuclear strategy, and the advanced technologies of the Vietnam War. These and other centralized, computerized military command and control projects--for containing world-scale conflicts--helped closed-world discourse dominate Cold War political decisions. Their apotheosis was the Reagan-era plan for a " Star Wars" space-based ballistic missile defense. Edwards then shows how these military projects helped computers become axial metaphors in psychological theory. Analyzing the Macy Conferences on cybernetics, the Harvard Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, and the early history of artificial intelligence, he describes the formation of a "cyborg discourse." By constructing both human minds and artificial intelligences as information machines, cyborg discourse assisted in integrating people into the hyper-complex technological systems of the closed world. Finally, Edwards explores the cyborg as political identity in science fiction--from the disembodied, panoptic AI of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to the mechanical robots of Star Wars and the engineered biological androids of Blade Runner--where Information Age culture and subjectivity were both reflected and constructed. Inside Technology series