Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
RadioLab has an excellent podcast featuring Jay Melosh, a geophysicist who specializes in impact craters, and who advocates the hypothesis that the entire extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary (the K-T boundary) took place over a period of two hours. The asteroid impact vaporized the crust … Continue reading “Radiolab: The Extinction of the Dinosaurs”
This neat paper (Robertson et al., 2013) in the Journal of Geophysical Research makes an interesting attempt to explain the pattern of extinctions that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous: why most of the dinosaurs died out, and why ocean organisms were more severely affected than freshwater organisms by the long winter after the … Continue reading “Understanding the Extinction of the Dinosaurs (and the Survival of Mammals)”
Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn’t a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming, But I see … Continue reading “Edna St. Vincent Millay and the extinction of the dinosaurs”
There’s a nice article in the New York Times on the fact that oil, petroleum, did not come form dead dinosaurs, but rather from the microscopic plankton that died and fell to the ocean floor. The idea that oil came from the terrible lizards that children love to learn about endured for many decades. The … Continue reading “Oil does not come from dinosaurs.”
With a larger class, and quite a bit of space in the gym, I had more flexibility working on the toilet paper timeline compared to the last time. I built in a friendly race to see which group could find a set of events first, and allowed me to highlight nine different, important, series of … Continue reading “Assessment with the Toilet Paper Timeline of Earth History”
65 million years ago, an asteroid hit the Earth just off the Yucatan Penninsula, kicking up enough dust in to the atmosphere (and perhaps setting off supervolcanos) to lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Geologists mark this mass extinction event as the end of the Cretaceous period and the beginning of the Tertiary; it’s … Continue reading “Surviving the Anthropocene”
The gingham dog and the calico cat Side by side on the table sat; ‘Twas half past twelve, and (what do you think!) Nor one nor t’other had slept a wink! – From “The Duel” by Eugene Field Metaphor for the cold war? Children’s poetry can be simple yet contain intricate, layered meaning. Project Guttenberg … Continue reading “Finding meaning in children’s poetry”
Mrs. Z. donated two small books of poetry, The Best Poems Ever and Poetry Speaks (much thanks). The second comes with an audio cd, where many of the poems are read by the authors. Since some of the authors are adolescents themselves, their reading can be a little halting, but there is a nice authenticity. … Continue reading “Reading poetry in the morning”