The Blue Moon Is Full on Halloween ? Wow ! It's magic !

 

credits: Getty Images

"The moon remains, perpetually and since antiquity, a source of cultural wonder."

It's Blue Moon on Halloween? It’s first blue moon visible in every time zone since 1944 on Halloween. 

Last week, when NASA announced that it would reveal “an exciting new discovery” about the moon. It happened to be exciting news for space scientists - water and ice on the moon are more accessible than previously thought - but not the supernatural or extraterrestrial news many yearned for.

• Let’s learn more about the moon:

Moon updates have been plentiful this year. In August, scientists reported they had flashed a laser onto a NASA spacecraft that was gliding over the moon’s surface at thousands of miles per hour in order to measure distance between our moon and planet.  

credits: Gemini Observatory

In February, two astronomers discovered a mini-moon orbiting Earth. The new mini-moon has been named 2020 SO and is heading towards Earth’s orbit on a path far slower and lower than those of its forebears. It was tracked by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii on September 17.

Now, the moon has another significant moment in store for witches and non-witches alike: On Oct. 31 — that’s Halloween — people in all time zones will be treated to a "blue hunter’s moon". 

A Blue Moon occurs on the rare occasion when there is more than one full moon during a month. (It doesn’t actually look blue.)

Astrology:

How this Saturday’s Blue Moon is an opportune moment for mend our bodies, minds, and hearts.

And after spending much of this year in a state of concern, confusion and anxiety, the Covid-19, this type healing energy may well come as welcome relief.

"Since this Moon is happening on Halloween and while the Sun is in Scorpio – a sign closely connected to the spiritual world – this Blue Moon is an obvious invitation to get super-witchy.”

 Narayana Montufar, astrologer

credits: Dominic Kesterton

via New York Times

Education:

Young skywatchers, take note: The moon will be full this Halloween night across the entire world.

This is a truly special confluence of spookiness; a Halloween full moon visible for most time zones on Earth hasn't happened since 1944, according to the Farmers' Almanac. It won't happen again until 2039.

But wait, there's more: The Oct. 31 full moon also happens to be a Blue Moon, a designation for the second full moon to occur in the same month. 

Blue moons are relatively rare as well, occurring on average just once every 2.5 years or so. We last saw one in March 2018. The next one is in August 2023.

A hunter’s moon follows a harvest moon (that was Oct. 2), and it theoretically signals a time to stockpile for winter.

The last time there was a "full pizza-pie moon" (a nontechnical term) in all time zones on All Saint’s Eve was in 1944. There was a full moon on Halloween in 2001, but it was only visible in the Central and Pacific time zones. 

The next full moon on Halloween that will be visible worldwide is expected in 2077, according to the Farmer’s Almanac.

Jon Han

New York Times 

• How to see the Halloween Blue Moon  with your kids:

The best way to begin your astronomical adventures is with the moon. It’s easy to spot and doesn’t require any fancy equipment to enjoy. 

On this Saturday, October 31, Halloween, there will be a spooky full moon — the second of the month, which is called a Blue moon.

“The moon is a really great opportunity for parents to engage their kids in the night sky because it always puts on a show no matter where you live,”. 

With their naked eyes, your kids can spot its craters and dark regions. While you watch, tell them the dark spots are remnants of ancient volcanic plains that once spewed magma across the lunar surface. 

Have them imagine what it looked like billions of years ago, an oozing, molten mess. 

Have a beautiful Halloween seeing Blue Moon! 

G-Souto

31.10.2020

Copyright © 2020G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

The Blue Moon is Full on Halloween ? Wow ! It's magic ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

sources: Space.com/ NASA/ New York Times Science 

Schools : Intl Day for Disaster Reduction : Resources : game & app

 

credits: UNESCO

https://www.facebook.com/unesco/

"The mitigation of devastation caused by disasters is therefore a global issue that determines the future, not only of our economies and environmental heritage, but also of humanity. Let us join forces in this fight – there is no time to lose."

Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO

Disasters induced by natural and technological hazards affect millions of people every year worldwide, but much of their impact can be reduced through pro-active measures and planning. 

International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2020

https://www.undrr.org/

The International Day for Disaster Reduction, held each year on 13 October,  celebrates how people and communities around the world are reducing their exposure to disasters.

The International Day for Disaster Reduction was started in 1989, after a call by the United Nations General Assembly for a day to promote a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction. 

World map

source: US Department of State - Humanitarian Information Unit

https://reliefweb.int/map/world/

This year’s International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction is all about governance. You can measure good disaster risk governance in lives saved, reduced numbers of disaster-affected people and reduced economic losses. 

COVID-19 and the climate emergency are telling us that we need clear vision, plans and competent, empowered institutions acting on scientific evidence for the public good.

Good national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction must be multi-sectoral, linking policies in areas such as land use, building codes, public health, education, agriculture, environmental protection, energy, water resources, poverty reduction and climate change adaptation.

Although it is impossible to completely eliminate disaster risk, countries that design policy and legislative frameworks and that prepare their institutions in line with the goal, targets and priorities for action of the Sendai Framework, have greater capacity to manage disaster risk and therefore to reduce the impact of disasters when they occur. 

• Theme 2020:"Good disaster risk governance."

"We need to see strategies that address not just single hazards like floods and storms, but those that respond to systemic risk generated by zoonotic diseases, climate shocks and environmental breakdown."

UN

This year’s theme is focused on conveying the message that "many disasters can be avoided or prevented if there are disaster risk reduction strategies in place to manage and reduce existing levels of risk and to avoid the creation of new risk".

Education:

When natural hazards strike, education is often the first service interrupted & the last resumed.

Disasters have a major impact on children, youth and education systems. Studies of disaster trends and the likely consequences of climate change suggest that each year 175 million children are likely to be affected by natural hazard related disasters alone.

 

 

Haiti earthquake, 2010

https://www.unicefusa.org/

In January 2010, some 38,000 students and 1,300 teachers and education personnel died in Haiti. The Ministry of Education offices were destroyed along with 4,000 schools – close to 80 % of educational establishments in the Port-au-Prince area. 

Sichuan earthquake, 2008

Mianzhu school, China

via AsiaNews, 2008

During the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, approximately 10,000 students were crushed in their classrooms and more than 7,000 school rooms collapsed.

To ensure everyone's #RightToEducation, UNESCO supported schools across the world to keep more than 500,000 children & education personnel safe.

It’s time to raise our game if we want to leave a more resilient planet to future generations.

Resources: 

• Game :Treme-Treme

Treme-Treme, game

https://www.treme-treme.pt/en/

The Treme-Treme game allows children to learn concepts in a fun way, appropriate  for their age (5-9 years).

This educational game promotes a playful awareness for children about the theme of seismic risk, transmits knowledge and encourages the new generations to become aware and to be prepared for hazard.

Treme-Treme, game

https//www.treme-treme.pt/en/

Languages: 

• The game is available in English and Portuguese. 
• It's free of charge through the website. 
• Treme-Treme offers the possibility to play on computer, mobile or tablet.

Treme-Treme is a game that allows children to learn concepts in a funny way, very appropriate  for their age, to be alert about tsunami and earthquakes.

Treme-Treme, game

https://www.treme-treme.pt/en/

The game promotes:

A playful awareness for children about the theme of seismic risk;

Transmits knowledge and encourage kids and young people to become aware, and to be prepared for natural disasters as earthquakes.

The game will teach kids how to act before, during and after an earthquake.

They will learn to built an emergency kit and learn to recognize the safe and dangerous spots at home, school, park, other.

• App

screenshot I-React/ app

Google Play

https://play.google.com/

I-React an app to help to be prepared and to have all the tools we need to fight against disasters. The app also includes a set of tips & quizzes on what to do before, during and after a weather-related emergency. All of this in your pocket!

I-REACT is an innovation project funded by the European Commission to aim to use social media, smartphones and wearables to improve natural disaster management.

Updated: 18 February 2020. Watch the videos and details here.

Education for Disaster Reduction (DRR) takes into account the relationships between society, environment, economy, and culture and their impacts. 

It also promotes critical thinking and problem-solving as well as social and emotional life skills that are essential to the empowerment of groups threatened or affected by disasters.

As educators, we must to give children and young students the skills to keep themselves safe. Knowing how to sniff out trouble, knowing how to avoid it or minimize, and knowing how to handle it when it comes knocking are key essential life skills.

G-Souto

13.10.2020

Copyright © 2019G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com® 

Schools : Intl Day for Disaster Reduction : Resources : game & ap by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

September in Review & International Day of the Girl Child : My Voice, Our Equal Future !

 

International Day of the Girl

credits: via The Indian Express

The International Day of the Girl Child focuses attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights.

Girls worldwide are demanding a life free from gender-based violence, access to health, skills, recognition and investment as leaders of social change.

Progress for adolescent girls has not kept pace with the realities they face today, and COVID-19 has reinforced many of these gaps. 

credits: UNESCO

https://www.facebook.com/unesco

This year, under the theme, My Voice, Our Equal Future, let’s seize the opportunity to be inspired by what adolescent girls see as the change they want, the solutions- big and small- they are leading and demanding across the globe.

In 2020, we commemorate 25 years since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

In the past 25 years, 180 million more girls have enrolled in primary and secondary education! But, no country has yet achieved gender equality.

Generation Equality was also launched in early 2020 as a multi-year, multi-partner campaign and movement for bold action on gender equality. 

Today’s more than 1.1 billion girls are poised to take on the future. Every day, girls are breaking boundaries and barriers, tackling issues like child marriage, education inequality, violence, climate justice, and inequitable access to healthcare. Girls are proving they are unstoppable.

credits: UN

https://www.un.org/en/

A clear narrative and actions related to the needs and opportunities of adolescent girls and their solutions is central to the Generation Equality mission.

As adolescent girls worldwide assert their power as change-makers, International Day of the Girl 2020 will focus on their demands to:

• Live free from gender-based violence, harmful practices, and HIV and AIDS ;
• Learn new skills towards the futures they choose ;
• Lead as a generation of activists accelerating social change.

credits: UNESCO

https://www.facebook.com/unesco

Education:

"3/4 of all primary-age children who may never set foot in school are girls. And the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to further halt the fragile progress on #GenerationEquality."

Students must understand how lucky they are because they live in countries where school education is fundamental.

So, invite them to get involved on the International Day of the Girl 2020.

Ways to involve students:

• Sharing stories of inspiring adolescent girls or girl-led organizations who are developing innovative solutions or leading efforts towards positive social change, including gender equality, in their communities and countries. Let’s amplify their leadership, actions and impact to inspire others.  

• Participating in a youth-led digital activation launching on International Day of the Girl. Young people across the world are developing a digital activism campaign, aiming to raise the diversity of girls’ voices and their vision for a reimagined future.  

And now, time to the review of the most popular posts of September.

Here are the most popular posts of the last month:

European Day of Languages : Celebrate at school or at home ! Resources & activities

Literature : Joan Aiken, the writer of supernatural thrillers and charmingly quirky children’s novels.

Women in science & Youth Skills Day ! Yes ! Day of Friendship !

Hoping you're doing well at school. Your students need you! They could understand how crucial is education during lockdown. And to be at school to learn face-to-face. Some of them were completely alone with no support to learn.

Help those students to believe in their abilities.

Perhaps you returned to the school but in some classes you must teach remotely because there is a case or two of infected COVID-29.

It's important to talk with all your students and tell them the social distance is essential, inside and outside school! And waring the masks.

Education, hope and resilience! The three most important words to share! It's a difficult time to all of us.

"We can and must be the generation to end extreme poverty, defeat injustice and inequality – and end the climate crisis."

G-Souto

26.06.2020

Copyright © 2020G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : September in Review & International Day of Girl : My Voice, Our Equal Future ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Schools : Let's celebrate John Lennon ! Resources

credits: Paul McCartney YouTube

Paul McCartney & John Lennon duet, 2022

 

“Got Back” tour 2022, when McCartney duetted with a video of John Lennon on the Beatles’ classic “I’ve Got a Feeling.”

Lennon 80

https://www.johnlennon.com/news/

"There’s a lot that can be said about John Lennon, one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Even more can be said about the individual experiences people have had growing up with his music."

Mike Dutton, doodler

Happy Birthday, John

https://www.thebeatles.com/

Imagine! 80 years! John Lennon would be 80 years-old, this day, 9 October 2020. On 8 October 2010, Google celebrated his 70th anniversary with a poetic Doodle interactive. Imagine!

John Lennon, the Beatle singer was celebrated by Google on the 8 October 2010, but Lennon was born on 9 October.

When we entered on the search engine's home page we were greeted to an illustration which has been designed in celebration of a day before what would have been the singer-songwriter's milestone. 

Google doodle John Lennon's 70th birthday
doodler: Mike Dutton

https://www.google.com/doodles/

• Google Doodle:

Clicking on the doodle, it links to a 32 second track, which plays his popular song Imagine.

As it plays the doodle generates different pictures including that of a butterfly and a flower before turning back to a black and white version of the Google logo.

Students can then click through to the YouTube version of it if they want feel the musical experience online.

Lennon was shot dead outside his apartment in New York. He was a pacifist and his theme Imagine gained even more impact after his death.

via YouTube

He was killed on 8 December 1980. December 8th 2020, forty years ago John Lennon was murdered. The world lost one of its greatest artists of all time. A tribute to present what is his masterpiece, his greatest heritage. We miss you John!

Students can read Remembering John Lennon by Paul McCartney, Ringo Star and a few words by George Harrison on The Beatles official website.

Imagine

John Lennon
graffiti
credits: unknown

His window Yoko Ono encouraged this year, 2010, all fans around the world to send videos tribute  to YouTube to celebrate the very special day.

John Lennon in New York

credits: not identified

https://www.feelnumb.com/

John Lennon [1940-1980]

credits: Getty Images

John Lennon composed some of the greatest 'classics' in world music, such as Help, In my Life, Strawberry Fields Forever and Imagine.

Lennon also produced classics, on the Plastic Ono Band, alongside Yoko Ono, as Imagine, Jealous Guy and Mother, about his conflicted relationship with his mother.

The Beatles in 1962

credits: dpa/ pictures

In an interview, Lennon once spoke about the superhuman high expectations of fans: "They would expect to see God playing." 

He then wished each Beatles member individual happiness and added: "Whether collectively or not, we will see."

The official website The Beatles celebrates his 80th anniversary with the video below:

So, today October 8, marks what would have been the legendary John Lennon’s 80th birthday.

"Although gone for nearly 40 years – the same amount of time he was on Earth, the musician, songwriter and peace activist’s timeless and beloved music -  with The Beatles, his collaborations with his widow Yoko Ono Lennon and his acclaimed solo works – continues to thrill, inspire and lately resonate more than ever"

The Beatles

CD John Lennon The Hits

https://www.johnlennon.com/

"Love, heartbreak, peace, truth, lies, the media, racism, feminism, religion, mental well-being, marriage, fatherhood – he sang about it all, and one just needs to listen to his songs to know how he felt, what he cherished, what he believed in, and what he stood for."

The Beatles

The video Woman (Ultimate Mix, 2020) - John Lennon (official music video HD) is a tribute by his widow Yoko Ono on the day Lennon would be 80.

Education:

• Let's include John Lennon's message into Languages Civics and Music curriculum!

• Imagine lyrics are so beautiful to talk about some important values: peace, equality, justice, friendship, solidarity. And to play the song in the classroom.

• Woman an important theme to talk about women and equity.

• Invite students to visit and explore the two websites: John Lennon and The Beatles.

• In English curriculum as a foreign language, invite your students to work on the lyrics: pronunciation, vocabulary, values.
• 
  
• In the classroom or at the school library, display the biopic Nowhereboy. Nowhere Boy is a biopic about John Lennon's adolescence, the creation of his first band, The Quarrymen, and its evolution into The Beatles. 

• Invite your students to produce a short video in a cross-curricular project: Languages, Arts, Music, and display it at the school library, introducing the theme 'Peace'.
• 
  
• Organize an exhibition on the 80th anniversary: life, news, photos, CDs, open to all students, teachers, parents .

Resources: 

• Video: Premiered November 20, 2020

• Photos:

John Lennon's Life in Pictures

https://www.dw.com/en/imagine-lennon-would-have-turned-80/a-55203096

Nowhere Boy

Sam Taylor Johnson, 2009

https://www.imdb.com/

• Films & books:

Nowhere Boy is based on the book Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon by Julia Baird, 2007)

Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon

Julia Baird, 2007

https://www.amazon.co.uk/

A chronicle of John Lennon's first years, focused mainly in his adolescence and his relationship with his stern aunt Mimi, who raised him, and his absentee mother Julia, who re-entered his life at a crucial moment in his young life.

The 2019 romantic comedy Yesterday depicts a struggling musician who realizes he's the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate timeline where they never existed.

Empire State Building

https://www.johnlennon.com/news/

"The Empire State Building will shine its world-famous tower lights in sky blue with a white peace sign rotating in the mast tonight, Thursday, October 8, 2020, in partnership with the John Lennon Estate and Universal Music Group to celebrate John Lennon’s life and legacy ahead of what would have been his 80th birthday, Friday, October 9. The lights will illuminate at sunset (approx. 6:25 pm EDT) and stay on until 2 am EDT."

John Lennon official website

John Lennon

https://www.johnlennon.com/

"You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one " 

John Lennon, Imagine

Some of the lyrics from Imagine became a hymn for peace in the world!

The Strawberry Fields memorial dedicated to John Lennon

 in New York City's Central 

Imagine! It would be impossible to me not to spread Lennon words about peace! Yes, I'm a dreamer too!

Lennon viewed his work as one rich story, one step on the journey to Creating a better world, one ongoing, never-ending search for truth.

‘I always consider my work one piece… and I consider that my work won’t be finished until I’m dead and buried – and I hope that’s a long, long time,’ 

John Lennon, words on the last day of his life. 

‘So to me it’s part of one whole piece of work from the time I became public to now…And the eighties is like, we’ve got a new chance.’

G-Souto 

08.10.10

update 08.10.2022

Copyright © 2020G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Let's celebrate John Lennon ! Resources by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.