Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
Sparking curiosity with the Toilet Paper Timeline, then following up with the beautifully drawn Cartoon History of the Universe seemed to work pretty well to keep students interested and engaged in their work. However, in putting it all together in their presentations we needed a simple graphic organizer to point out the highlights. The History … Continue reading “Synthesizing the history of life”
Franz Lanting has a great storytelling voice and wonderful photographs that catalogue the history of life on Earth, from early organisms like stromatolites to the modern diverse forms of life (Lanting, 2007).
A couple new article relevant to our study of Earth History. Carbon Research on the high pressure and temperature conditions at the Earth’s core suggest that most of the carbon in the early Earth should have either boiled off into space or been trapped by the iron in the core. So where did all the … Continue reading “Carbon in the Ground and Free Oxygen in the Air”
The Toilet Paper Timeline of Earth History worked as well as I’d hoped. The beginning was a bit boring, it was a challenge keeping the kids focused, since nothing much happens for a very long time. It helped that we had to unroll the toilet paper back and forth across the room, so I had … Continue reading “Toilet Paper Timeline in practice”
Along the edge of Pickwick Lake are outcrops of sedimentary rock being slowly broken apart by the action of the waves on the reservoir. We stopped for lunch at Shelter #6 in Pickwick Landing State Park (see map) before finding our cabins for this immersion. Located at the eastern edge of a triangular ridge of … Continue reading “Fossils at Pickwick Landing”
Just a few days after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg considered the role of climate change: … The floods and fires that swept through our city left a path of destruction that will require years of recovery and rebuilding work. And in the short term, our subway system remains partially … Continue reading “New York Mayor on Climate”
The area around the Fulton School has just two types of geology: young, floodplain sediments; and old limestone bedrock. Missouri River Flood Plain Sediments: The flat area next to the Missouri River that would get flooded regularly if the rivers weren’t regulated) Holocene (last 10,000 years) Clays and Silts (mud) deposited when the river floods. … Continue reading “The Geology of St. Albans, Missouri”
I’ve fielded the question about if the world is going to end in 2012. My first-order answer has been to cite the poor level of success that previous predictions of apocalypse have had. NASA has had to address the problem, while C.G.P. Grey has a nice little video explaining the sources of the hysteria (he’s … Continue reading “2012: Not the End of the World”