A great way to end the day is to go to Lessonplans.com and click on Astronomy Picture of the Day. The best time is late at night. There you will see pictures that only our generation is privileged to see. It would be more accurate to say that these images were first made available by modern technology to the generation you see setting in your classroom.
Buck-minster Fuller gave me a cartographers perspective. When I became a member of the St. Petersburg Astronomy Club, I began developing an astronomic perspective. That is what will happen to you when you start thinking about what you see at Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Jack Horkheimer : Star Gazer said, "Keep on looking up."
"An astronomy picture a day is like an apple a day." Who said that? I did.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Dancing Makes You Smarter
I began taking dance classes about 3 years ago after I watched a dance class at Bronco Bill's. I watched for a few weeks and then decided I would learn to dance. The first year was a tragedy. I'm very persistent, so failure wasn't an option. I've make remarkable progress after 3 years and hundreds of lessons. It didn't take me long to start thinking about what effect this was having on my brain/physiology and if was having an effect on my brain/physiology then it must also be having an effect on other dancers as well. So I did a Google search. Sure enough it had already been researched at Stanford University. Click the following link to read the Stanford report.
http://dance.stanford.edu/syllabi/smarter.htm
http://dance.stanford.edu/syllabi/smarter.htm
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Zachary Goes to Catholic School
It is rare that I'm given a funny education joke. I'm passing this one on to you. Perhaps you have one you will share with me.
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Little Zachary was doing very badly in math. His parents had tried everything... Tutors, mentors, flash cards, special learning centers. In short, everything they could think of to help his math. Finally, in a last ditch effort, they took Zachary down and enrolled him in the local Catholic school. After the first day, little Zachary came home with a very serious look on his face. He didn't even kiss his mother hello. Instead, he went straight to his room and started studying. Books and papers were spread out all over the room and little Zachary was hard at work. His mother was amazed. She called him down to dinner. To her shock, the minute he was done, he marched back to his room without a word and in no time, he was back hitting the books as hard as before. This went on for some time, day after day, while mother tried to understand what made all the difference. Finally, little Zachary brought home his report card. He quietly laid it on the table, went up to his room and hit the books. With great trepidation, his Mom looked at it and to her great surprise, Little Zachary got an "A" in math. She could no longer hold her curiosity. She went to his room and said, "Son, what was it? Was it the nuns?" Little Zachary looked at her and shook his head, no. "Well, then," she replied, was it the books, the discipline, the structure, the uniforms? Little Zachary looked at her and said, "Well, on the first day of school when I saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they weren't fooling around."
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Zachary Goes to Catholic School
Little Zachary was doing very badly in math. His parents had tried everything... Tutors, mentors, flash cards, special learning centers. In short, everything they could think of to help his math. Finally, in a last ditch effort, they took Zachary down and enrolled him in the local Catholic school. After the first day, little Zachary came home with a very serious look on his face. He didn't even kiss his mother hello. Instead, he went straight to his room and started studying. Books and papers were spread out all over the room and little Zachary was hard at work. His mother was amazed. She called him down to dinner. To her shock, the minute he was done, he marched back to his room without a word and in no time, he was back hitting the books as hard as before. This went on for some time, day after day, while mother tried to understand what made all the difference. Finally, little Zachary brought home his report card. He quietly laid it on the table, went up to his room and hit the books. With great trepidation, his Mom looked at it and to her great surprise, Little Zachary got an "A" in math. She could no longer hold her curiosity. She went to his room and said, "Son, what was it? Was it the nuns?" Little Zachary looked at her and shook his head, no. "Well, then," she replied, was it the books, the discipline, the structure, the uniforms? Little Zachary looked at her and said, "Well, on the first day of school when I saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they weren't fooling around."
