Classroom Ideas, Current Event Connection, Main

11 Things We Learned This Week

This week, we learned …

… the secret life of urban crows. Read of the week!

Crows, like this one in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina, are smart enough to recognize human faces—and teach other crows to hate certain people.
Photograph by Dick Daniels, courtesy Wikimedia. CC BY SA 3.0

We love corvids like crows. What are some of your favorite birds?

 

… all about the most important scientist you’ve never heard of. Another great read!

Clair Patterson helped build the atomic bomb, discovered the true age of the Earth, and saved humanity by identifying toxic levels of lead in gasoline.
Photograph by Edwin L. Wisherd, National Geographic

What chemicals are associated with vehicle emissions today?

 

… the debate about where to find the origin of life—by land or by sea—is heating up.

Ocean vents like this one in the South Pacific are one of the likely places that life first developed on Earth.
Photograph courtesy Submarine ROF 2006, NOAA Vents Program. CC BY 2.0

What are hydrothermal vents?

 

… kudzu is a vine that never truly ate the South.

Kudzu creeps near a highway in Tennessee.
Photograph by Katie Ashdown, courtesy Flickr. CC BY 2.0

Is kudzu an invasive species?

 

… what it’s like to be struck by lightning.

Sparky, this bison from the Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge in Iowa, survived a lightning strike and seems pretty chill about it.
Photograph by Karen Viste-Sparkman/USFWS. CC BY 2.0

What is lightning?

 

… how World War I changed the weather. Forecasting, at least.

The U.S.S. Arizona (yes, that one) sails beyond a storm in 1918.
Photograph by Burnell Poole, National Geographic

What is forecasting?

 

… China needs to have its own agricultural revolution. Fast.

China has a goal of being self-sufficient in staple foods like rice (above) corn and wheat.
Photograph by Keith Ladzinski, National Geographic

What does China eat? Use our interactive to find out.

 

… “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is based on a true story.

He followed her to school one day. It was against the rules.
Photograph by Gilbert Grosvenor, National Geographic

Use our “picture of practice” video to help students craft their own poems from their own life experiences.

 

… what Bill Gates is reading this summer.


What are we reading this summer?

 

… how to fly executive class with this fantastic interactive map of presidential travel

Map by Digital Scholarship Lab, University of Richmond

How did travel impact the presidency of Gerald Ford?

 

… the Australian national anthem will never be “Hey Ya!”

How much do you know about the U.S. national anthem?

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