Nepal : Talking science & solidarity at school

Nepal | Everest

AP Photo/Tashi Sherpa

http://a.abcnews.com/

The second major earthquake within a short time in Nepal two days ago, May 12, reminds us of the importance of science in predicting earthquakes so that more lives can be saved.

Google doodle 

Inge Lehmann 127th birthday

http://www.google.com/

Thinking about it, Google’s latest doodle celebrated yesterday May 13 the birthday of Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann, who discovered the existence of an inner core in the Earth.

Coming 127 years after her birth, the doodle shows the Earth split in two with the inner core shining in the centre.

Lehmann, who died aged 104 in 1993, studied earthquakes to find that the Earth had both an inner and outer core, a revelation which redefined how the planet was studied.

Inge Lehmann

Illustration © American Museum of Natural History

http://www.amnh.org/

Some biography:

"At the turn of the twentieth century, a teenager in Østerbro, Denmark felt the ground move beneath her feet. It was her first earthquake, but it wouldn’t be her last."

More than two decades of study and observation later, Inge Lehmann’s work sent shockwaves through the scientific community. 

Lehmann's research

Illustration © American Museum of Natural History

http://www.amnh.org/

By observing earthquakes, she discovered the earth has both inner and outer cores. Her work has withstood the test of time. In fact, it’s still the foundation for seismological science today.

Education: Science & Solidarity

Inge Lehmann was a pioneer among women and scientists. Her early education was at a progressive school where boys and girls were treated exactly alike. 

This was a great contrast to the mathematical and scientific community she later encountered. Once she protested to her nephew, Niles Groes:

"You should know how many incompetent men I had to compete with—in vain."

She was given the highest honour of the American Geophysical Union, the William Bowie medal, in 1971.

She was a strong proponent of gender equality. Her pioneering spirit is an inspiration to all the young female students.

Pioneers like Inge Lehmann make this world a better place by helping us understand it from the inside out. 

But let's talk again about Nepal earthquakes. The earthquakes in Nepal have created tremendous suffering as we know. More than 1 million children need immediate assistance says Unicef.

Nepal earthquake

credits : AFP

http://www.independent.co.uk/

This is another important issue to introduce into the school curriculum : solidarity. 

"At least 940,000 children living in areas severely affected by earthquakes in Nepal are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance"

UNICEF

This crisis leaves children particularly vulnerable - limited access to safe water and sanitation will put children at great risk from waterborne diseases, while some children may have become separated from their families.

Of course the immediate focus must be on saving lives, and keep the children healthy but thousands of schools are out of action or badly affected by the two earthquakes.

Almost one million children who were enrolled in school before the earthquake could now find they have no school building to return to,” 

Tomoo Hozumi, Unicef’s representative in Nepal

In the worst hit areas this will have a terrible impact on children's education and it will be important to help children back to school as quickly as possible.

“Prolonged interruption to education can be devastating for children’s development and future prospects.”

Nepal earthquake

credits : Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

http://i.guim.co.uk/

Some thoughts :

Schools all over the world are introducing into lessons the earthquakes in Nepal and its consequences.

And solidarity to these million of chidren who have no school now, it will be an important value to talk with the students.

It is a delicate subject, there are shocking images - videos, photos - running on the internet about the victims. 

But more shocking is to know that Nepalis chiidren would love to go every day to school and they can't.

Young adolescents are supportive, they understand, and discuss in the classroom what it is going on around the world and they engaged in actions to help another kids and adolescents victims natural catastrophes such as Haiti earthquaker (2010), Katrina hurricane in USA (2005), Haiyan typhoon in Philippines and now Nepal earthquakes.

They have a conscious idea about it. They are the "net-generation" they are "wired" all day. They are supportive on social media and sometimes begin humanitarian campaigns to help people around the world.

And we have a new environmentalist generation among our students. They involved in environmental campaigns or fight bad behaviors against Earth.

There are so many values in many lessons that can be taught about natural disasters and solidarity.

Curricula: Geography; Sciences; Civics; History.

I linked a few digital resources on this post to support the theme in your lessons.

Resources:

Different digital resources are available. As educators, we can adapt and introduce them in school curricula to assist students as they seek learning opportunities around emotion-charged dates.

Of course every teacher must review the resources before introducing them, and evaluate one by one in school context.

Photography:

There are thousands of photos online (newspapers, television). These are just some I selected. It's up to every teacher make a research of the best photos adapted to the curriculum and level they are teaching.

Oif course you can ask your students to search for their personal sights about Nepal earthquakes on the internet and social media.

• Unicef : Access broadcast quality b-roll and photos: http://uni.cf/1HH6SbO

Note: All reproductions of non-brand content must be credited, as follows: Photographs: “© UNICEF /photographer’s last name”; Videos: “© UNICEF video”, please credit UNICEF onscreen; Print content: “© UNICEF”. Assets not credited are not authorized. Thank you for supporting UNICEF.

Copyright to students:

• Teaching Copyright provides lessons and ideas for opening your classroom up to discussion.

Let your students express their ideas and concerns, and then guide your students toward an understanding of the boundaries of copyright law.

The video below is a nice resource to talk about copyright:

Other resources: 

• Games : Serious Game (SG) approach encourages students to explore and develop their own experience, 'live' inside, following their own path and personalizing the experience.

I wrote about two SG on this blog some time ago:

• Inside the Haiti Earthquake (Earthquake, 2013). Read more here

• Fate the World (climate change, 2011). Read my post with sugestions here

The two Serious Game might motivate students' awareness to the problems of natural disasters, solving some problems, and preparing to be active citizens.

• Social media : Twiter ; Facebook ; Google + ; Pinterest ; other.~

• Websites: 

• National Geographic | Education

Natural disasters contains a selection of content from NG Education about natural disasters. Available for teachers and students.

• Inge Lehmann | American Museum of Natural History

Discover of the Earth's Inner Core

Videos:

You have interesting and serious videos on BBC website : Nepal

As you see, talking about earthquakes without mention Inge Lehmann was impossible. She's the great scientist who make us to understand better why earthquake happens.

Hoping the Nepalis could pick up the pieces and get on with their lives, despite the challenge.

My thoughts are with the people of Nepal and neighboring countries. They need to rebuild their lives, homes, cities, and villages.

G-Souto

14.05.2015

Copyright © 2015-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com® 

Nepal : Talking science & solidarity at school by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Schools : It's Earth Day 2015 !

http://www.earthday.org/

Today, April 22 we celebrate Earth Day 2015. With my students we are in since 2006.

For 45 years, Earth Day has been bringing communities and organizations together to advocate for a healthier environment and a sustainable life. 

http://i.imgur.com/

Some information:

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life to share their concerns about each citizen’s critical role in the environment. 

Their actions led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. 

Now over one billion people in 192 countries participate in Earth Day activities, making it the largest civic observance in the world. 

Earth Day’s Global 2015 theme: "It’s Our Turn to Lead." 

This year's Earth Day is the 45th, since its inception in 1970, which was widely viewed as marking the beginning of the contemporary environmental movement. 

It is organised by the Earth Day Network, which aims to "inform and energize populations so they will act to secure a healthy future for themselves and their children".

Google Doodle Earth Day 2015

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

Google is celebrating Earth Day 2015 by creating a wonderful animated Doodle featuring a rotating Earth and creatures including an elephant and a komodo dragon.

Earth Day is a time to search for information on how to celebrate and protect our planet. And it’s a great time to find out something about ourself too.

Education: 

I've done in the past and continue to share some thoughts on teaching about Earth Day and environmental civics education in general and proposed different resources. 

Activities:

This year, start your lesson, by asking your students to take their mobile or tablet and go to Google homepage. Wow ! They will be surprised with this awesome animated doodle.

Tell your students to click on the Earth Day logo, or searching for “Earth Day quiz” and they will find one of the Internet’s favorite pastimes: a goofy quiz.

Let them take the time to answer a few questions and they too can determine, share, and learn more about which animal most closely represents each personality.

The quiz works on just about any up-to-date browsers on any mobile or desktop browsers, including the Android and iOS Google Apps. 

Google assure us it’s all 100% accurate and scientific ;-)

"We learned a lot about nature’s precious pals and interesting inhabitants in the process of making and taking this quiz and we hope you do, too!"

The Earth Day Doodle Crew

No doubt ! Google Earth Day doodle crew has done its bit to celebrate Earth Day 2015, the largest civic event in the world, with one of its trademark doodles.

It is not the first time Google has celebrated Earth Day with a doodle. You will find some they have done over the years on my blog or on the blogs for my students: Portuguese and French curricula.

But they have their own environmental blogs since 2007: Geração Verde (Green Generation) and Geração Polar (Polar explorers).

After the fun, students are ready to prepare some good actvities for a day, may be for a week. I know you have something prepared.

credits : UNESCO

Some thoughts:

Schools have an important role promoting environmental education as a civic value. So, teachers can teach and share environmental values in different moments of their lessons in cross-curricular.

Yes! Because Earth Day is not about a day! Earth Day is about every day! So, educators must include environmental values in different moments of their lessons, no matter the curriculum, and provide some thoughts and digital resources, educating young people for a sustainable future and inspiring them being a good example.

http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/

Students will evolve in creative green projects  that they will share with families and friends. They will become good young environmentalists. They are already. They are the new generation who really cares about Earth.

Organizing an Earth Day event or activity is one of the best ways to engage your school community to protect the planet. 

Once you figure out your plan, let Earth Day know and Earth Day network will help you spread the word. 

http://lh3.ggpht.com/

The bigger the story we can tell on Earth Day 2015, the larger impact we will have.

Level: All levels.

Curriculum: Cross-curricular activities and projects.

Every teacher will adapt the actvities to the level they are teaching.

The Untouched - A Time-lapse Film from Shreenivasan Manievannan on Vimeo.

Resources:

Earth Day offers you a Toolkit providing resources to help you plan your own Earth Day event. 

If you need additional help or resources, don’t hesitate to send an email, info@earthday.net!

Special links to inspire your students:

Leadership Guide
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271871/Leadership%20Toolkit%202015.pdf

Climate Education Week : A week of activities
http://www.earthday.org/climateeducationweek/

A Million Acts of Green
http://www.earthday.org/takeaction/

"The Untouched - A Time-lapse Film" 
http://www.earthday.org/blog/2015/04/21/untouched

Moving photos show Native American Children Defending the Earth 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/15/tailinh-agoyo-warrior-project_n_7066438.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000044

British photographer  turns parks, village and beaches into their own little worlds.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3038191/Photographer-transforms-British-parks-beaches-planets.html


“Children are so knowledgeable [about environmental issues],”(...) “They know what’s going on and they’re more aware and more affected than adults are.”

Tailinh Agoyo, photographer


So, Happy Earth Day to you today and everyday!

G-Souto

22.04.2015

Copyright © 2015-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com® 

Schools : It's Earth Day 2015 ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Schools : Alessandro Volta : Electric Science : Resources

Alessandro Volta 

Line engraving by G. Bonatti after G. Garavaglia

credit: Getty Image

via Pavia University History Museum

The 18th century Italian physicist, chemist and electric pioneer Alessandro Volta invented the first electric battery.

Volta was born on this day, 18 February in 1745. Volta was particularly successful in his electrostatic studies: his research on electroscopes, which he modified into electrometers, were fundamental. He also invented the condensing electroscope and the perpetual electrophorus – the first induction electrostatic machine.

Google Doodle : Alessandro Volta 270th Anniversary

Mark Holmer, doodler

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

• Google Doodle:

Once again, Google surprises us. Today's Doodle honors Alessandro Volta, who invented an early form of the electric battery in 1799. 

February 18, 2015 Google Doodle pays tribute to the inventor of one of the most significant inventions till date. It celebrates the 270th birthday of the battery inventor Alessandro Volta.

"Having done my initial research I didn’t want to just settle on using Volta’s portrait for the Doodle, especially since most of the world wouldn’t recognize him. I wanted instead to represent his accomplishment."

Mark Holmer, artist doodler

A click on the Doodle shows the battery charging and Google lighting up simultaneously. Another click takes you to a Google search of Alessandro Volta's links about his life and works.

Alessandro Volta

Alessandro Volta with two of his inventions: the electric battery (left) and the electrophorus                                         © Photos.com/Thinkstock

https://www.britannica.com/

• Some biographical information:

Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was the 18th century Italian physicist, natural philosopher, chemist and electrical pioneer who invented battery in the 1800s. 

Born in 1745 in the town of Como in what is now northern Italy, Volta was the son of a nobleman. He became a professor of physics in 1774 at Como’s Royal School before going on to work on the development of the “electrophorus”, a device that produced static electricity.

Alessandro Volta

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

Volta’s invention consisted of discs of different metals, including copper and zinc, separated by cardboard that had been soaked in brine.

He was also the first person to isolate methane which further led to the discovery that methane mixed with air could be exploded with an electric spark.

Luigi Galvani

Unidentified painter

https://en.wikipedia.org/

The turning point for Volta’s development of the battery was in 1780, when his friend Luigi Galvani discovered that contacting two different metals with the muscle of a frog resulted in the generation of an electric current.

Volta concluded that it was the liquid in the frog’s leg that was important rather than the frog itself. The same effect was achieved after he replaced the leg with paper soaked in brine. 

Volta whose skepticism of Luigi Galvani’s theory of animal electricity led him to propose that an electrical current is generated by contact between different metals.

Volta began experimenting in 1794 with metals alone and found that the animal tissue was not needed to produce a current.

Victorian posters

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

Within just weeks it inspired a wave of discoveries and inventions and ushered in a new age of electrical science.

In 1881, scientists decided that the unit of electric potential would be called the volt to recognize Volta’s great contributions to electrical science.

Volta’s theoretical and experimental work in this area resulted in his construction of the first battery. Known as the 'voltaic pile'.

Voltaic pile

Alessandro Volta

Tempio Voltiano/ Como, Italia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Apart from these inventions, Alessandro Volta was too a natural philosopher quite a traveler and a master of many languages. His proficiency in Latin, French, German and English helped him to travel across the whole of Europe.

Alessandro Volta and Napoleon Bonaparte, 1801 

Epistolario di Alessandro Volta, Vol. III, 1951, BGUC

http://www.museudaciencia.org/

Just six years later, Volta invented the first electric battery, which he would go on to showcase the year later in front of Napoleon, in Paris. The leader was so impressed that he made Volta a count and senator of the kingdom of Lombardy.

Later, the emperor of Austria made him director of the philosophical faculty at the University of Padua in 1815.

Alessandro Volta 

Line engraving by G. Bonatti after G. Garavaglia

credits: Welcome Library, London. Welcome Images

https://wellcomecollection.org/

After being made a count in 1810 by Napoleon Bonaparte, Volta retired in 1819 

at the age of 74. He decided it was time to hang up his capacitors, his voltaic piles, his electrophorus, and his administrative work at the university.

Volta lived in Como, Italy, his home city, until his death, aged 82, on March 5, 1827. 

A museum, Tempio Voltiano was later built in his memory which displayed some of the experimental equipment.

A physics lab at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California

credits: Harvey Mudd College

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/

Education:

Along the years, I included some interesting doodles of the day into school curricula. It's a different and captivate digital resource and it can surprise your students to start a lesson or to reinforce a point that we are trying to teach in our lessons.

Doodles are a funny, and sometimes, spontaneous changes that we can include into our lessons to teach about famous writers, arts, pioneers in different areas, and scientists.

Reading Volta's biography, I realize once more how sciences and humanities go together. We can be good in both, it's a matter of natural curiosity to learn more and more.

Physicists were predominantly male. However time is changing. Studies have shown that females are in science labs in college. 

 

Activities:

Here some activities that I think might involve your students. Of course you are free to propose your own ideas:

• Organize an open day (today or/and next week) at your schools with students to highlight the importance of science for the world development;
• Ask your students to visit the World Library of Science online. The World Library of Science is a free online resource for a global community. You will find a complete information and resources.

• Open discussions in the classroom to emphasize how many different ways science & technologies touch our daily lives;

• Contact school newspaper coordinator to highlight the importance of celebrating Alessandro Volta in science;

• Ask your students to write articles, news, or create comics, in the classroom about the importance of science for sustainable societies and include the best works in the school newspaper;

• Build classroom-to-classroom connections between schools via the Internet: schools websites, schools accounts on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp or Instagram to share science projects that will interest all students;

• Arrange a Science Museum visit. Museums are awesome 'live' lessons.

Levels: All levels (different activities for different ages and grades): Primary, Secondary, Vocational education. Don't forget to motivate girls to science studies.

Curricula : Science ; Cross-curricular Languages ; Sciences ; Technologies.

• Some curiosities?

Lire, Italia (nota)

https://www.numismondo.net/

In the honor of his works, Alessandro Volta's image was depicted on the Italian 10,000 lira note (no longer in circulation) with a sketch of his voltaic pile. 

Doodle graphic design

Mark Holmer, doodler

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

Mark Holmer, Google new artist/doodler (his 2nd doodle) explains the Doodle artistc process after a research on Volta and images of his inventions, until he came to the last version of Volta's doodle. 

*Note: An interesting reading for students, not only in Design curriculum.

Why not mention how the electric battery, as we know it today, is crucial to our everyday lives as mobile phones demand great things from tiny devices, continue to push the technology forward.

“What is it possible to do well, in physics particularly, if things are not reduced to degrees and measures?”

Alessandro Volta

G-Souto

18.02.2015

update : 15.02.2025

Copyright © 2015G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Alessandro Volta : electrical science : resources by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Reference : Thank you to the Museo per la Storia dell'Università di Pavia for the information of the new link.