PolyToday: Location, location, location

This morning, Katie Schuhl's Greco-Roman History 12th-grade students participated in a competition to help them understand the interactions of Greek city-states in the Archaic and Classical periods (700-300 BC). Groups received a city, which they then researched to find out about that city's symbols, geography, governmental structure, and claims to fame. They presented the case for why their city was the best to a panel of five faculty judges. The judges then voted on which city-state they would have most liked to live in based on the arguments. Hoping to even out the inherent bias most people have toward certain cities, the names for the debate were City A, City B, City C, and City D in place of their real names: Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, and Athens. Says Mrs. Schuhl, "The city-state competition is a great way to develop students' skills in debate and use of evidence and to create for them a broader picture of Greece beyond simply the Parthenon or the movie '300.'"
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