The Atlantic recently published a series of 120 images representing some of the highlights and lowlights of 2011. Each of the images has a short caption that could refresh your students’ memory about the story related to each image. I do have to warn you that some of the images may not be suitable for students under the high school level. Those images are labeled with a viewer discretion label by The Atlantic.

After reviewing some of the news stories representing by The Atlantic’s collection, take a look at The Economist’s World in 2012 features. The World in 2012 includes articles and videos of predictions on a number of issues like the Republican primaries that are sure to be important in 2012. The Economist also has a reader poll about issues for 2012. The current poll question is, “should the world pay more attention to adapting to climate change than efforts to mitigate it?”

Applications for Education
As I mentioned in a previous post, a good way to have students review the year’s important news stories is to have them create short year-in-review videos or slide shows. After reviewing the year, have students create short videos or other digital presentations in which they state their own predictions for 2012.