Shortly before he passed away, Sir Ken Robinson called Andrew Park – Founder of We Are Cognitive – to arrange a gift for his beloved community…A new animation, based on what proved to be his last public talk, ‘My Thoughts for The Call to Unite’. Watch this fantastic video from this great teacher, writer, researcher, adviser, speaker, and thinker.
“The Out of Eden Walk is not one person’s journey. It is a unifying voyage that belongs to humanity.” – Out of Eden Walk Coalition (LINK).
Watch Paul’s newest video which gives an excellent overview of his journey and it’s many connections. If you enjoy storytelling, travel, and photography, as well as topics that focus on global connections, the environment, mass migration, climate change, and people to people connections, then you will find Paul’s journey amazing. In a time when news seems worse then ever, check out Paul’s journey and join his coalition of followers through his blog, National Geographic articles, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter feed. I have enjoyed doing the Out of Eden Learn project with students in Chennai and Lusaka.
A new eco-friendly industry is taking root in Assam. With India joining a global environmental movement to restrict single-use plastics, and with Indian restaurants increasingly purging their inventories of plastic straws—the villain of disposable, plastic trash that is washing, at a rate of some eight million tons a year, into the world’s rivers and oceans—the search is on for less polluting alternatives. Enter wild bamboo: The versatile grass that grows abundantly across much of the country and is both organic and sustainable. Click HERE to read Paul Salopek’s latest story, Straw Man.
I only recently saw this ad and it’s nearly two years old. I remember seeing the original ad on CNN about eight years ago when I lived in Kuwait. What a magical place, and I am grateful that my family got to spend six years there. We certainly need to return some day to explore places we did not see.
Iraq gets almost all of its water from two rivers: The Tigris and the Euphrates. Both begin in Turkey and make their way down the entire length of the country, before emptying into the Persian Gulf. The problem is – they are drying up. Watch this excellent video from Vox Atlas to learn more about why the history of the great rivers in this region and the problems that their citizens are currently facing as their rivers dry up.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is the most ambitious infrastructure project in modern history. It spans over 60 countries and will cost over a trillion dollars. The plan is to make it easier for the world to trade with China, by funding roads, railways, pipelines, and other infrastructure projects in Asia and Africa. China is loaning trillions of dollars to any country that’s willing to participate and it’s been a big hit with the less democratic countries in the region. This makes the BRI a risky plan as well. But China is pushing forward because its goals are not strictly economic, they’re also geopolitical. This video is a fascinating one and a nice connection to lessons related to trade and globalization.
“Governments draw borders. Governments manage borders. But humans live inside them. From the North Pole to the northern shore of Africa to the Himalayas of Nepal, the lines we’ve used to apportion the planet play a decisive role in the past, present, and future of billions.” – Vox Borders series.
A friend and former colleagued shared a video by Johnny Harris, who is the creator for Vox Borders. I was not familiar with his work or this video series on the human impact of lines on a map. It’s terrific!!! Migration, maps, and borders are topics I am very passionate about, and I think that you will like these videos and photos. I have selected a few to show you here. I will share more on my website.
Greetings from Mexico City! It has been a while since I last posted on my blog. The end of the school year kept me quite busy. School ended a little over a week ago. Our family spent five days in New York State with my family and we arrived in Mexico City last night to spend two weeks with my wife’s family. I have missed some “Ted-Ed Tuesday” posts so I am going to make up for them here. Since I am in Mexico, I will share two Mexico-related videos, one from Ted-Ed on Frida Kahlo, an artist I really admire, and the another video from The British Museum on the Day of the Dead celebration and festivals in Mexico. Both are excellent!
Video by Ted-Ed
From Ted-Ed: Learn about the life and art of Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo, who explored disability, relationships and Mexican culture in her work. In 1925, Frida Kahlo was on her way home from school in Mexico City when the bus she was riding collided with a streetcar. She suffered near-fatal injuries and her disability became a major theme in her paintings. Over the course of her life, she would establish herself as the creator and muse behind extraordinary pieces of art.
Video from The British Museum (2015)
From the British Museum: In 2015 the British Museum celebrated the Days of the Dead in a four-day festival full of color, music, storytelling and art. This beautiful documentary introduces the history and evolution of the Mexican Day of the Dead, from its pagan beginnings to the multi-faceted ceremony it is today.
What if Anne Frank hadn’t kept a diary? What if no one could listen to Martin Luther King’s Mountaintop speech? What if the camera hadn’t been rolling during the first moon landing? Actively listening to the voices of the past and the people who matter to us is important, and StoryCorps wants you to lend your voice to history, too. Here’s how. Click the link to learn more about this really interesting Ted-Ed video that makes me connections to the work of National Geographic and Out of Eden Walk journalist, Paul Salopek. His walk is about practicing slow journalism and talking to people he meets every day on the trail and hearing their story.
If you could ask any person from the present or past to tell you their story, who would it be? What three questions would you ask them to get the conversation started?
If you could ask any person from the present or past to tell you their story, who would it be? What three questions would you ask them to get the conversation started?
Africa is a continent with 54 different countries. The largest black continent in the world and homes to more than 1 billion people, hence one in seven of any human on earth is an Africa.
How many different verb tenses are there in a language like English? At first, the answer seems obvious — there’s past, present, and future. But it isn’t quite that simple. Anna Ananichuk explains how something called grammatical aspect, each of those time periods actually divides further. LINK to Ted-Ed
Think about/Discuss:
Do you think the way we speak about time in our mother-tongue influences the way we experience time? Why or why not?
If you can’t imagine life without chocolate, you’re lucky you weren’t born before the 16th century. Until then, chocolate only existed as a bitter, foamy drink in Mesoamerica. So how did we get from a bitter beverage to the chocolate bars of today? Deanna Pucciarelli traces the fascinating and often cruel history of chocolate.LINK to Ted-Ed.
Think about/Discuss:
Chocolate is made into cakes, cookies, candy and ice creams. What are the chemical properties of chocolate that enable the product to be transformed into so many other items?
I have rediscovered how awesome Ted-Ed videos are and I have decided to share one or two each week on Tuesday (hence my hashtag). Check out the Ted-Ed website (LINK) to see more cool videos. Most videos average about 4 – 5 minutes in length, and you could watch them in the car on the way to school. Learn something new, hear some fun facts, and enjoy.
Since their emergence over 200,000 years ago, modern humans have established communities all over the planet. But they didn’t do it alone. Whatever corner of the globe you find humans in today, you’re likely to find another species as well: dogs. So how did one of our oldest rivals, the wolf, evolve into man’s best friend? Learn about humanity’s first domesticated animal.
The average person experiences dozens of individual itches each day. We’ve all experienced the annoyance of an inconvenient itch — but have you ever pondered why we itch in the first place? Is there actually an evolutionary purpose to the itch, or is it simply there to annoy us? Emma Bryce digs deep into the skin to find out.
This reminds me of my former Korean students at AISC who loved BTS (Well, not all of them!). We had lots of fun last year talking about K-Pop, and I learned more about this band. BTS performed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night.
The Onion also featured a funny picture about a new member joining the band. Haha! :>) :>) :>)
Korean Pop Group BTS Shakes Up Lineup By Adding Really Old Guy
Jimmy Kimmel Asks People If Homo Sapiens Should Be Saved, And The Answers Show The Level Of Stupidity. Click HERE to see read this article and some of the excerpts from these people. Funny…well, not so funny.
Senna’s family struggles to survive in a bleak Peruvian mining town. Her father has dreams for her and insists she go to school. There, she discovers the transformative power of poetry. Her passion and talent seem to ensure she’ll have a better future, and be the success her father dreamed she’d be. Peruvian writer, Marie Arana, shares her experiences with Girl Rising and what it was like getting to know Senna and the community of La Rinconada.
In grade 10 Individuals and Societies (Social Studies/History), students are learning about poverty and the causes of it. The Girl Rising channel on Youtube features excellent videos from around the world. You can find them HERE.
Explorer Paul Salopek is a writer and journalist. He is currently walking across the world for a decade-long storytelling project called the Out of Eden Walk. Paul has earned most of America’s top print media awards, including Pulitzers for his reporting on human genetics and the civil war in Congo. Join him from Kolkata, India 5 years into his walk around the world!
There will be a LIVE Question and Answer session with Paul Salopek from Kolkata, India at 12:00pm Eastern Time (Google the time in your country) on Friday, November 16th. Here is the LINKto watch it live (you can ask questions in the sidebar) or to watch it later.
For our last activity of the school year in 6th grade Social Studies, we returned to Out of Eden Learn and to Learning Journey #1 (Documenting the Everyday). Here are the directions below and a few examples of videos made. More products will be added soon:
There are aspects of our everyday life that might be very interesting to other people but which might seem very “normal” to us. There may also be parts of our everyday lives that we usually don’t find time to notice. This is your chance to notice some new things and to share your observations with other people. Choose to focus on one of the following:
PLACE: Document everyday life in a place that you know.
PROCESS: Document how people in your community do something as part of their everyday lives. For example, you could focus on how a type of food or drink is prepared, how an object is made or repaired, or how someone goes about another kind of daily task or activity.
Incredible India! We are engaged in research for our final project, Diverse Places – Moving On! You have been comparing two places, one of them being India or more specifically, Chennai. I have lived in India for six years. Prior to moving here, I saw this first advertisement on TV and it sparked a lot of curiosity about life here. The second advertisement on this playlist is ‘incredible’ too. I have been fortunate to have travelled to many amazing places in India. What are some examples of geographic and cultural features that you see when you watch these two videos?
Students this week are interviewing an adult who lives or works in Chennai. This person could be someone they have never spoken to before, or someone they already know. Among questions students will create, they need to ask the person for a story or memory about Chennai, for example: How did they come to be in this place? How have they seen the area change over the years? What are some of their memories about the area? Do any particular events in the area stand out in their mind? Students will write up the highlights of their conversation (or a Q & A). Alternatively, they can upload an audio file retelling their story in their own words.
In class this week, Mr. Martin modeled an interview with Ms. Priya (B, F, and H blocks) and Ms. Lakshmi (D block). Students also had an opportunity to ask a wide range of questions (yes/no, open-ended, and follow-up questions). Students will edit their work in class on next Monday and Tuesday and post their work on Out of Eden Learn.
Reminder: Please submit your summative essay to Mr. Martin for our most recent unit, if you have not already done so. Thanks!
This playlist features videos that show the gradual change from migration to our earliest villages and the development of agriculture. Our current question that we are focusing on is: Was the development of agriculture good for humans? Explain. I hope you find these videos helpful. If you find other helpful resources, please share them with me, and I will add them to our class site.
"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style."
- Maya Angelou
Photos by Barathi Dasan
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