(CNN Student News) -- June 1, 2009



Quick Guide



A Look Back - Take a drive back in time as another American icon's wheels come off.



Cybersecurity Concerns - Plug into the reasons why President Obama has cybersecurity concerns.



Reusable Lessons - Step onto the campus of a school that's a model of sustainability.



Transcript



THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.



CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: I'm Carl Azuz and this is CNN Student News! It is the first day of June and our last week before summer break. Thank you very much for joining us.



First Up: A Look Back



AZUZ: First up, a major move for the country's largest automaker as General Motors is expected to file for bankruptcy today. This comes one month after Chrysler, another of the so-called "Big Three" U.S. car companies, did the very same thing. Under the terms of General Motors' bankruptcy, the company will be reorganized and essentially taken over by the government. Thirty years ago, GM made up more than 40 percent of U.S. auto sales. Today, that number is 19 percent. The company's reported more than $90 billion in losses since 2005. As the bankruptcy process begins, Christine Romans looks back at the history of GM and the American car.



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CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Henry Ford started at the beginning of the last century with four wheels and a running board; 1908 was the birth of American car culture. That same year, General Motors was formed in Flint, Michigan. It wasn't until 1925 when the "Big Three" was complete with the formation of Chrysler Corporation.



JOHN DAVIS, HOST, MOTORWEEK: When the Big Three emerged, they not only emerged as rivals that really gave Americans much better automobiles at the time, but they also cemented the American automobile as a world standard.



ROMANS: "As goes General Motors, so goes the nation." That phrase defined America's economic power for much of the last century.



PETER MORICI, ECONOMIST, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: So many folks were either employed at General Motors or the other two major car makers, making steel and all the other components that go into cars. It just meant that if the automobile companies were prospering, the country was prospering, too.



ROMANS: Today, there are 74,000 rank-and-file GM workers in the U.S. But in its heyday, GM was the largest industrial company in the world; a technology leader. By 1979, 600,000 people worked for GM. Those good jobs helped build America's middle class.



DAVIS: It also allowed us to migrate out from the cities to have the quarter lot in a suburb, to basically get away from a lot of the congestion of the metropolitan areas.



ROMANS: General Moters was the company that revolutionized what we drove, how we thought about our cars, and how we paid for them. GM invented auto loans and the model year. It was the first to hire designers instead of engineers to create new car concepts; think big fins and chrome of the 1950s and 60s. And everything changed. Ford adopted flashy fins with the Ford Fairlane, as did Chrysler with the popular Desoto. Automobiles from the Big Three put their stamp on popular culture, from music to movies to television. What's considered to be the first rock and roll song ever recorded was "Rocket 88" by Ike Turner, about a GM product. The Pontiac GTO, considered by many to be the first true muscle car, was showcased in a song by Ronnie and the Daytonas.



RONNIE AND THE DAYTONAS, "LITTLE GTO": Little GTO, you really....



ROMANS: The Corvette on Route 66. The 1948 Ford in the iconic movie "Grease."



FROM "GREASE": Go grease lighting, go grease lighting...



ROMANS: The TransAm in Smokey and the Bandit, and Archie Bunker's Old La Salle.



CARROLL O'CONNOR AND JEAN
Take a drive back where? Who is concerned with security? Who has cybersecurity concerns? What do they call the campus of the school? Who's wheels came off?
in time President Obama President Obama a model of sustainability. General Motors'
question: Take a drive back where?, answer: in time | question: Who is concerned with security?, answer: President Obama | question: Who has cybersecurity concerns?, answer: President Obama | question: What do they call the campus of the school?, answer: a model of sustainability. | question: Who's wheels came off?, answer: General Motors'