Amsco Extra!

2011-08-15T13:05:00.000-04:00

Do We Really Speak the Same Language?

I was talking to my friend Eva the other day, and I realized that sometimes it feels like we speak completely different languages although we both speak Spanish. E is from Barcelona and I am from Argentina. The interactions with my friend made me think of the differences between the Spanish spoken in Argentina and in Spain, and how distressing it could be for Spanish students visiting Argentina, for example if they learned Castilian Spanish, or the other way around. Below are a few distinctions that come to mind.

Grammar: Tú or Vos?

If you are an English native speaker, and you are planning to travel to Argentina, and to make use of your almost perfect Spanish, you will need to learn how to use the second informal pronoun vos instead of tú. Vos is more or less the equivalent to thee in English. Conjugating vos is actually simpler than tú since there are no irregular verbs to deal with other than ser, which changes to sos instead of eres. For instance:

Volver: tú vuelves –> vos volvés

Dormir: tú duermes –> vos dormís

Ser: tú eres –> vos sos

In Argentina, people utilize vos all across the country. It is perhaps the difference most noticeable to foreigners hearing it for the first time. Argentineans will not be surprised by your use of tú. If you really want to fit in though, you should practice using vos. This country is the only one in the Spanish-speaking world that uses vos to replace tú.

Accent: To lisp or not to lisp, that is the question

Unlike Spaniards, Argentineans do not lisp. Instead, they use the /s/ sound for the z, s, ce and ci combinations. For instance, in Spain casa, cazar, vencer, and decir are pronounced with a /th/ sound while in Argentina they use the /s/ sound.

Daily words: Words that you may need to know to get by in Argentina if you studied Castilian Spanish.

· Strawberry – It’s frutilla, not fresa.

· Peach – It’s durazno, not melocotón.

· Juice – It’s jugo. It’s definitely not zumo. And even that wouldn’t be with a lisp.

· Computer – It’s computadora. Much easier to use than an ordenador.

· Potato – It’s papa, and it is not your daddy, it’s a potato. Spaniards would say patata.

· Nightclub – It’s boliche. Discoteca sounds lame and old-fashioned.

· Sandwich – It’s sándwich. In Spain, it´s torta.

· Cake – It´s torta in Argentina and not pastel. If you ask for pastel, you will probably end up getting a fried empanada or a dish similar to meatloaf.

Isn’t this too confusing? I understand. I am so lucky I did not have to study Spanish as a second language.

An Omen

2011-08-04T08:50:00.002-04:00

Hey, kids. A few days ago, I saw a TV commercial about a “Back to School” sale. Uh-oh, it’s that time of the year again, I thought. It’s time for students to start planning for the next academic year. And I don’t mean what clothes, shoes, and accessories you’re planning to wear. Remember all the vocabulary you learned in your foreign-language class? How about those pesky grammar rules? If you answered “yes,” congratulations! If you answered “no,” you need to get to work; but don’t worry: there are plenty of Amsco books to help you review and get ready for this year’s challenges.

Amsco foreign-languages workbooks aim to provide students with a concise and systematic review of the essential elements of the target language. Abundant and varied communicative exercises help students master each grammar topic. These workbooks are designed so that each chapter is complete in itself. The chapters may be used in any order, according to the student’s individual needs. Explanations are clear and concise, and are followed by numerous examples. There is a great variety of exercises that provide both communicative and written practice.

Check out some our offerings: Spanish First Year, Spanish Two Years, Spanish Three Years, Spanish Four Years, French First Year, French Two Years, French Three Years, French Four Years, Italian First Year, and Italian Two and Three Years. There are many more. I’m sure you will find something that suits you. Good luck!

¿La Nada?

2011-07-18T13:00:00.004-04:00

Please do not think that I have been transferred from Amsco’s science department to the foreign language department. Earth science has a number of Spanish terms in its lexicon: El Niño, La Niña, and now La Nada. Yes, I checked with Florencia, Amsco’s Spanish editor, and “nada” does mean “nothing.” The next question is: What does “nothing” have to do with Earth science?

In December 2010, La Niña was in full swing. The image above shows cold water (the blue and purple band) flowing across the Pacific Ocean. Under ordinary circumstances, when La Niña begins to fade, El Niño, which brings warm water, takes its place. However, by April 2011, there was no sign of El Niño, as shown in the image on the right. These images were taken by the Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 satellite, NASA JPL.

You may be asking: What has La Nada to do with me? Well, remember all those snow storms and cold weather last January and February? They may have been caused by La Nada. According to NASA climatologist Bill Patzert, “La Niña was strong in December, but back in January it pulled a disappearing act and left us with nothing—La Nada—to constrain the jet stream. Like an unruly teenager, the jet stream took advantage of the newfound freedom—and the results were disastrous.” The jet stream meandered wildly around the United States and the weather pattern became dominated by strong outbreaks of frigid polar air, producing blizzards across the West, Upper Midwest, and Northeast in the United States.

In the spring, there were many strong thunderstorms and tornados. Russell Schneider, Director of the NOAA-NWS Storm Prediction Center, explains: “First, very strong winds out of the south carrying warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico met cold jet stream winds racing in from the west. Stacking these two air masses on top of each other created the degree of instability that fuels intense thunderstorms.”

According to Patzert, “The jet stream—on steroids—acted as an atmospheric mix master, causing tornadoes to explode across Dixie and Tornado Alleys, and even into Massachusetts.”

The next time someone asks you: What’s up with the weather? You can say: “It’s nothing,” and smile sweetly.

Math and the NYS Regents Exams

2011-07-14T13:03:00.001-04:00

After the big test, students brush up on probability by playing blackjack

One common complaint against math is, "When are we going to use it?" (or what students really mean when they say that—"Is math ever relevant and exciting?") So, let's use math to find the probability of passing the New York Regents exam by guessing. It's relevant because the NY Regents exam is a high-stakes test, both for students and teachers. It's exiting because there is some controversy over the grading curve that they use. Some say that it's too easy to pass. Let's examine this question.

The New York State Algebra 1 Regents exam is required in order to receive a Regents diploma in New York. It consists of 30 multiple-choice questions and 9 open-ended questions. To pass, all you need is a raw score of as low as 30. (For example, check out the scoring chart for the January 2011 exam on this page.) Because the multiple-choice questions are worth 2 points each, all you need are 15 of them to pass. This makes for an interesting test-taking strategy—Is it possible to pass by ignoring the open-ended questions and focusing only on the multiple-choice questions?

To answer this question, we'll need some probability theory. Ironically, the necessary math is covered in the NYS Algebra 2 curriculum. In terms of probability, what we want is the probability of getting at least 15 out of the 30 questions correct by random guessing. This is just a Binomial experiment:

Each multiple-choice question is an independent event with two outcomes: correct or incorrect
The probability of answering one question correctly is 1/4, or .25.

Since there are a total of 30 questions and we want to know the probability of getting at least 15 correct, this is a Binomial experiment with 30 trials, r = 15, and p = .25.

Doing the math (which you can do on your Regents-approved TI calculator or Excel), the probability comes out to be very low, as in, about .0008. Putting this number into perspective, if 10,000 students used this strategy, we expect to see about 8 students pass the exam. Most students would fail.

So, blindly guessing all multiple-choice questions is not a viable option.

Obviously.

I mean who in their right mind would do that? Let's try a slightly different (and more realistic) strategy. What if you answer 10 questions using your knowledge of Algebra 1 (and hopefully get them right) and guess at the remaining questions? Answering 10 questions with math knowledge is reasonable, right? What's the probability of passing this way? It's now a Binomial experiment with n = 20 and r = 5. With these values, the probability of passing is now about .38. Putting this number into perspective, if 100 students (about the size of a freshman class) use this strategy, then we expect to see 38 of them pass the Regents. That's a heck of a lot of students who don't really have a grasp of Algebra. The real numbers may be worse because most students will try to answer the open-ended questions, picking up partial credit.

So, what we've shown with math is that there is some truth in what the critics say—the first-year NY Regents math is meaningless when it comes to showing whether or not students understand the material.

Irony of ironies.

In the News: Bad Plant / Good Plant

2011-07-13T17:22:00.000-04:00

Danger!

I usually write about animal topics because they interest me the most. But quietly living alongside all the animals that catch our eyes are millions of plants, and they have exciting stories as well. Two surprising plant stories have recently made the news; while they do not quite range from the ridiculous to the sublime, they certainly do go from the bad to the good.

First, the bad plant news. I recently wrote a blog about an invasive fish species. There are many invasive animal species–both on land and in the water–that wreak havoc on native ecosystems. There are invasive plant species as well. Conservationists are already familiar with invasive plant species that can clog waterways or take over landscapes. But people usually do not think of invasive plants as personally threatening in the way that invasive animals can be. Think of the pythons that are now spreading through Florida. Now, however, there is an invasive giant weed that poses a threat to humans and it sounds like something from an Aliens movie. Called the Giant Hogweed, this plant is originally from the Caucasus region of Eurasia. In the 1900s, it was introduced to Europe, Britain, and North America as an ornamental species; it grows to over 15 feet in height and sprouts clusters of attractive white flowers. Now this plant is officially listed as a noxious weed; people are warned not to touch it because of the risk of skin irritation. It turns out that the sap of the Giant Hogweed can cause blisters and scarring in humans, and can even result in blindness if it comes into contact with the eyes. Giant Hogweed is called a phototoxic plant because its sap causes severe inflammations when the skin is exposed to sunlight. Blisters develop within 48 hours and form scars that can last several years. The plant should be removed by personnel from government environmental agencies, since cutting or mowing it can expose one to the dangerous sap. Be on the lookout for this giant plant and do not be tempted to touch it!

Now, the good plant news. Some plants are known for their ability to absorb toxins from the air and from the soil. That’s why certain species of trees are planted along city streets and why some houseplants (such as English Ivy) are popular; they help purify the air. Now a particular plant is being enlisted to help clean up the radioactive soil that resulted from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan. Thousands of packets of sunflower seeds have been sold to people all around the area of the power plant. The seeds are to be planted in hundreds of parks that have been affected by the radioactive fallout. The good news is that there will be an attractive blossoming of sunflowers that have the ability to absorb radioactive cesium from the soil. The flowers will beautify the landscape for a while and then be safely disposed of to rid the area of cesium, making it safer for the local residents. The project leader is encouraged by the participation of so many local citizens in this community effort and even hopes that tourists will return to Fukushima and participate with the planting of sunflower seeds.

--Carol

Constitutional Signers

2011-07-12T13:50:00.012-04:00

Elementary students reenact the signing of the Constitution.

The authors of Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2009), Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnese, have come up with a new book to be released in September: Signing Their Rights Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the United States Constitution (same publisher, 2011).

The concept and organization of the second book (I haven’t read the first one) is formulaic. Organized first by state and then by the signers in that state, the authors provide a brief biography of each of the 39 men. The biographies are short (4–5 pages each) and include interesting facts presented in a well-written way. For example, George Clymer of Pennsylvania is described as an “unassuming moneybag,” “cool cucumber,” and “big shot from a big state.” The title of this chapter, “The Signer Whose Home Was Destroyed by the British,” draws one in, though we are soon told that the destruction of his home did not affect Clymer much, and that he went on to serve as a U.S. Representative and to manage excise taxes for the Washington administration and negotiate treaties with the Creek and Cherokee.

A Good Read? I cannot imagine anyone reading Signing Their Rights Away in one or two sessions, even though the book is short. The stories are too similar to one another, though the authors do provide a twist to each biography, such as “The Underachieving Signer” for John Blair of Virginia, a man who said nothing at the Constitutional Convention and served on no committees. Furthermore, except in the short Introduction, the authors do not attempt to synthesize their findings or draw conclusions about the men as a group. Some of the most interesting facts are found in the Second Appendix. Here we find tidbits of history such as who did the calligraphy for the Constitution, who printed it, who was the 40th signer, and who attended the Constitutional Convention but did not sign the document.

I see this book more as a reference work than a history book. One might consult the book if one was interested in a particular signer or if one wanted to know who signed the Constitution from his or her state. But these days, it would be much quicker to consult an online encyclopedia for that kind of information.

Classroom Use? U.S. history or government teachers might want assign each of their students a chapter in the book to stimulate classroom discussion of the Constitutional Convention. Let the students synthesize the many facts in the book. Questions that might arise are “Why were there no women delegates?” and “Why were there no racial minorities attending this convention?”

Controversial Question in New York State Algebra 2 and Trigonometry Regents Exam

2011-07-08T13:28:00.000-04:00

They say that there is no such thing as a stupid question. New York State mathematics teachers whose students took the Regents Exam in Algebra 2 and Trigonometry last month (June 2011) are likely to disagree. The test contained a controversial question that asked students to find the inverse of a non-invertible function. Here’s the problem in question:

The problem was in the 2-point, or short answer free response, portion of the exam, testing the learning standard that demands students “determine the inverse of a function and use composition to justify the result.” (A2.A.45) The wording of the question strongly implies that the inverse of the function does indeed exist. However, since the function given is not one-to-one, there is no inverse. Teachers got loud, complaining to representatives of the Board of Regents, the group that writes, edits, and distributes the exam. The Board responded with a memo called, “Scoring Clarification for Teachers,” which acknowledged several ways that students could interpret the question and demonstrate their understanding of invertibility of functions.

Was the response satisfactory? The Board's memo cites “variations in the use of [inverse] notation throughout New York State,” which seems to evade blame for a lousy question. A prominent math teacher blogger responded on his blog, “How could the test-makers not be aware of ‘variations in notation’? Also, notice how there is an asymmetric justification burden on a kid claiming (correctly) that the inverse does not exist.” A lousy question shakes the faith that teachers and students have in the standardized test as a valid assessment of student understanding. For instance, the same blogger concluded, “I have no confidence in New York State’s ability to create a good test of mathematics, at any level.”

It is my sincere hope that this controversy and the appearance of a misleading question will lead to both (a) more opportunities to explore the meaning of invertible functions and one-to-one functions, demanding students to be more savvy test-takers; and (b) increased scrutiny and more careful construction of New York’s Regents exams. In short, as educators, better instruction and better assessment should be our smart answer to this, or any, stupid question.

Learning Through the Months

2011-07-06T16:40:00.001-04:00

Last July, I wrote a blog post for National Blueberry Month. This year, I’m getting a bit more ambitious. It turns out that every month of the year is dedicated to something, make that various things. According to my research, each month includes a minimum of seven different celebrations or commemorations, from pecans, to cholesterol awareness, to toilet tank repair. While many of the monthly celebrations can be useful for classroom ideas, not all of them are appropriate. Here, to help you sift through the options, is an incomplete list. Click on the available links for resources to help you make each month a part of your classroom or school.

January National Book Month, National Hobby Month, National Soup Month, Fat Free Living Month, Bread Machine Baking Month, National Fiber Focus Month, National Mail Order Gardening Month, National Eye Health Care, National Hot Tea Month, National Volunteer Blood Donor Month.

February African-American History Month, National Sweet Potato Month, National Boost-Your-Self-Esteem Month, National Hot Breakfast Month, National Snack Food Month, National Dental Month, Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month, Chocolate Lover's Month, American Heart Month, American History Month.

March Women's History Month, National Nutrition Month, National Peanut Month, Music in Our Schools Month, Youth Art Month, National Caffeine Awareness Month, American Red Cross Month, Mental Retardation Month.

April Pets Are Wonderful Month, Community Service Month, American Cancer Society Month, Thai Heritage Month, Stress Awareness Month, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month, National Pecan Month.

May Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, Mental Health Month, Allergy/Asthma Awareness Month, National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, Better Sleep Month, Older Americans Month, National Artisan Gelato Month, National Share A Story Month.

June Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, Audiobook Month, National Flag Month, National Hunger Awareness Month, National Soul Food Month.

July National July Belongs to Blueberries Month, National Ice Cream Month, National Culinary Arts Month, National Picnic Month.

August National Catfish Month, Peach Month, Harvest Month, National Water Quality Month.

September Hispanic Heritage Month: Celebrated from September 15-October 15, Emergency Care Month, National Piano Month, Self-Improvement Month, National Courtesy Month, National Cholesterol Awareness Month, National Organic Harvest Month.

October National Reading Group Month, Hispanic Heritage Month: Celebrated from September 15-October 15, Disability Employment Awareness Month, National AIDS Awareness Month, National Book Fair Month, Vegetarian Awareness Month, National Depression Education and Awareness Month, Polish American Heritage Month, National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Month, Computer Learning Month, National Restaurant Hospitality Month, National Toilet Tank Repair Month.

November National American Indian Heritage Month, National Novel Writing Month, Aviation Month, National Diabetes Awareness Month, Vegan Awareness Month.

December Read a New Book Month, Universal Human Rights Month, International Calendar Awareness Month.

Real-World Geometry

2011-07-01T12:54:00.001-04:00

Basic garden shed

When I was in high school I never realized the importance of learning geometry. What did all those angles mean? Right angle, acute angle, 180 degrees—you name it, I was confused! It made my head spin, yet somehow I made it through the Regents and eventually graduated. It wasn’t until I was older and a homeowner that I realized how relevant it all is. Are you considering a renovation such as putting up a wall or even a molding? If so, you better know what angle to make the cut or you’ve ruined the materials you’re working on. The rule of measure twice, cut once is a real and good one. Every piece of construction is determined by geometry. I experienced this firsthand when I tried to put up a shed in my backyard while ignoring all the basics of geometry. The result was a crooked little shanty that had to be torn down and rebuilt. I learned my lesson. Now, I go back to textbooks like Amsco’s Geometry and Preparing for the Regents Examination: Geometry. Both will give you a solid base. Believe me, you'll need it in real life.

--Rich

Advanced garden shed

Summer Immersion

2011-06-30T13:25:00.001-04:00

Summer is a great time to relax, party, and catch up with friends and relatives. But it is also the season when thousands of students immerse themselves in a foreign culture and language by studying abroad. Summer study-abroad programs have been around for as long as I can remember. They are ideal for people with a rigorous schedule or for those who simply wish to spend their summer abroad experiencing new worlds. Summer programs can be taken for credit and as part of a curriculum, or as an extra activity that will expand one’s perspective for future studies and work. Here are a few examples of places where you can study abroad during the summer:

University for Foreigners of Perugia (Italy)

L’Università per Stranieri is the oldest and most prestigious Italian institution involved in teaching, research, and the diffusion of the Italian language and culture. The university was founded in 1921, during the fascist period, with the purpose of spreading the “superior” Italian culture around the world. Since then, the university has been privatized and its new mission is much simpler: to teach high-quality Italian language and culture courses to foreign students. There is another university for foreigners in Siena, but Perugia’s is by far the most famous.

University of Malaga (Spain)

La Universidad de Málaga has been offering foreigners courses on Spanish language and culture since 1947. Their classes are said to meet the new technologies and the most innovative methods in the teaching of Spanish as a second language. Every year, an average of 2,000 students from all over the world participate in the various courses offered.

The Institute of French Studies for Foreigners in Montpellier (France)

L’Institute d’Etudes Francaises Pour Etrangers (L’I.E.F.E.) in Montpellier offers a range of French language and civilization courses specifically designed for foreign students. In addition, refresher courses on French linguistics and teaching French as a foreign language are also available. A sister institution is located in Béziers, approximately 45 minutes southwest of Montpellier.

Middlebury College (Vermont, USA)

What if your schedule or financial situation doesn’t allow you to travel abroad? You may want to consider Middlebury (College) Language School. This is one of the most famous total-immersion language programs in the country. They are so committed to total immersion, that faculty, staff, and students abide by the famous “language pledge,” a promise to communicate solely in their language of choice for the duration of their time in the program. So, whether you’re abroad or in the U.S., there are plenty of opportunities for summer language study. Best of all, it will still be fun and exciting. Having studied for a summer at the University of Urbino (Italy), I can attest that it was a life-changing experience.

Antiquity Corner: The Mean, Cobbled Streets of Rome

2011-06-29T12:50:00.003-04:00

The study of ancient history often reveals some fascinating anecdotes, mysterious happenings, and colorful characters. Some of these are not generally known.

Amsco’s Lingua Latina, Books I and II, by Professor John Traupman of St. Joseph’s University, deal with the Latin language and Roman history and culture. In Book I, Dr. Traupman describes a Roman of dubious character who was murdered in 52 B.C. Publius Claudius Pulcher (the Handsome) belonged to one of the most aristocratic families of the Roman Republic, the Claudii. One of his ancestors had built Rome’s first highway, the Via Appia, in 312 B.C. Nevertheless, he changed his name to Clodius in order to get political support from the common people, or plebians.

Clodius became a notorious gang leader. He and his followers terrorized the streets of Rome. (The Roman world, at that time, was ruled by the First Triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Crassus. These three men brought stability and order to Rome and its provinces. However, they were intense rivals. Each sought an opportunity to eliminate the other two. The death of Crassus in battle against the Parthians ultimately led to civil war between Pompey and Caesar. Pompey lost his head and Caesar emerged as sole ruler of the Roman world.)

Clodius’ sister Clodia was called pulchra because of her great beauty. Like her brother, she lived a wild life, taking many lovers. Among them was the poet Catullus. Brother and sister were admired by some and feared by others. They were involved with the leading political figures of the late Republic.

Among Clodius’ many criminal activities was the affair of the mysteries of the Bona Dea in December 62 B.C. These mysteries were open only to women. Dressed as a woman, Clodius entered the house of Julius Caesar while the mysteries of the goddess were being celebrated. Upon discovery, a scandal erupted. Clodius was accused of attempting to carry on an affair with Pompeia, Casesar’s wife. Whether this was true or not, Caesar divorced Pompeia. Clodius was brought to trial, but avoided conviction by bribing the jury.

After the departure of Caesar for Gaul, Clodius and his gang became masters of Rome. Milo, a rival gang leader and politician, was a candidate for the consulship (Rome’s highest office) in 53 B.C. Clodius’ opposition led to street battles between armed bands of the two leaders. Milo’s gang was strong enough to hold Clodius in check.

On January 18, 52 B.C., Clodius and his followers encountered Milo and his men on the Appian Way. A fight erupted between the two groups and Clodius was killed. His enraged clients used the building in which the Senate met as a funeral pyre for Clodius and burned it to the ground.

Milo was accused of murdering Clodius. At his trial, he was defendeded by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great lawyer and orator. Nevertheless, Milo was convicted and went into exile.

If you would like to read an exciting novel about the events described above, try Murder on the Appian Way by Steven Saylor. This is one of several first rate historical novels in Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa series. In the SPQR series by John Maddox Roberts, Clodius is an enemy of the aristocratic Roman detective, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger.

Is Tau Better Than Pi? Irrational Arguments

2011-06-28T14:43:00.013-04:00

Happy Tau Day, the most exciting math holiday you’ve yet to discover! Today, June 28, is 6/28, which contains in order the first three digits of tau (τ), the rival of math’s most popular irrational number, pi (π). In 2001, Bob Palais wrote an article for the Mathematical Investigator called ,“π is wrong!” In it, he insists that the choice of using π in our mathematical formulas for hundreds of years is no good. He argues that the use of τ would simplify many formulas and that its derivation is much more intuitive. (Notice that the symbol resembles that for pi, but with one "leg" instead of two.)

The significance of our beloved irrational number π is that it is equal to the ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter--in notation, π = C/d. However, the most defining characteristic of a circle is not its diameter but its radius. A circle is defined as the collection of points on a plane that are exactly the same distance, its radius, from a point, its center. Palais argues that intuition should direct us to the use of a more elegant Circle Constant, tau, where τ is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its radius--in notation, τ = C/r.

Self-described “notorious mathematical propagandist” Michael Hartl takes the argument even further in his now-famous “The Tau Manifesto,” which he published on Tau Day of 2010, exactly one year ago. He demonstrates with many adapted formulas that the factor of 2 is unnecessary if we incorporate it into the ratio itself. For instance, the periods of basic trigonometric functions f(x) = sin(x), and f(x) = cos(x), are in both cases 2π. Why not change them to tau instead? Palais and Hartl each list numerous other examples from calculus and physics, in which the factor of 2 is rendered obsolete by replacing 2π with τ.

The really intuitive part is revealed if you think of angle measure. How things are done now with π, a half turn of the circle is π radians, and a full turn is 2π radians. Should we adopt τ instead, τ radians would be a full turn, τ/2 radians a half turn, τ/4 radians a quarter turn, and so on. There are, of course, instances where π appears un-doubled. For instance, the formula for area of a circle: A = πr². Hartl shows, in a mathematically sophisticated way, that the replacement of π by τ even in this instance is the more sound choice, since it is analogous to similar formulas in physics. An article in today’s BBC News paints the issue as a violent conflict, with pi detractors up in arms over a lifetime of educational betrayal, which seems to this mathematician something of a manufactured controversy. (I can imagine you'd be upset if you are the sort of mathematician that has memorized pi to the nth digit. If you are one of these folks, here's the start for your new parlor trick: reciting tau, 6.283185307...)

Is it worthwhile to switch to tau use, and abandon pi? Unless your school has the budget to replace all of its textbooks, calculators, posters, etc., Hartl’s most convincing argument is that “we can embrace the situation as a teaching opportunity: the idea that π might be wrong is interesting, and students can engage with the material by converting the equations in their textbooks to see for themselves which choice is better.” Certainly π needs to be treated as a ratio, something that implies a relationship, as opposed to a discrete number. Engagement with this controversy will allow students to develop and question ideas about the significance of π, and exploration of its uses will reveal truths about mathematical relationships. This makes the debate worth mentioning in your classroom.

But what about all the jokes, the T-shirts, the tattoos that pi has inspired? I, for one, will not miss the pie puns one bit[e], but Hartl’s article concedes the word playfulness of pi is one of its assets, and he offers some initial tau jokes to entice skeptics. The inevitable conclusion: tau is twice as great as pi.

Happy Birthday, "Bitter Bierce"

2011-06-24T13:38:00.001-04:00

Till recently, I always thought of Ambrose Bierce as “that weird horror writer who disappeared into the woods without a trace.”

Actually, it wasn’t the woods. It was Mexico. In 1913, Bierce wanted an eyewitness view of the Mexican revolution, so he took off with the rebel troops. He was never seen or heard from again.

He was more than just a horror writer, but stories like “The Damned Thing” (1898) show he was one of the best. In “The Damned Thing,” a hunter is savagely killed and mutilated by an invisible animal. Another goodie is “A Diagnosis of Death” (1909), in which a skeptic is warned of his oncoming death by his doctor’s ghost.

Bierce was also a satirist. His The Devil’s Dictionary (1906), originally called The Cynic’s Word Book, contained definitions that crossed in common usage. (E.g., he defines cynic as “a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.”) His fierce literary criticism (Oscar Wilde hated him) and scathing view of life led people to call him “Bitter Bierce.”

“War,” he once said, “is God's way of teaching Americans geography.”

I was impressed by all the Civil War stories he wrote. The most famous was “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890), which depicts a Confederate supporter who is about to be hanged at the bridge he tried to sabotage.

“Chickamauga” (1891), his most tragic war story, is from the point of view of a six-year-old boy, a Southern planter’s son. It starts out innocently enough, with the boy crudely making a wooden sword (that even his ex-soldier father doesn’t recognize!). He leaves the plantation and marches off to play “war games.”

In the woods, the boy gets lost, and falls asleep on the ground from sheer exhaustion. When he wakes up, he thinks he sees animals creeping through the woods. Actually, they’re mangled Union soldiers (the Battle of Chickamauga was one of the worst Union defeats in the Civil War), crawling away on hands and knees. Their pale, blood-streaked faces amuse the naïve boy, who’s reminded of circus clowns.

In one grisly part, the boy attempts to “play horsey” on one soldier’s back:

The man sank upon his breast, recovered, flung the small boy fiercely to the ground as an unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon him a face that lacked a lower jaw--from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, gave this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and breast by the blood of its quarry. The man rose to his knees, the child to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified at last, ran to a tree near by. . . .

In the distance, the sky is red. Surrounded by the wounded, crawling mob, the boy marches ahead, playing that he is their new leader (even turning to make sure they’re all following!).

Ahead, the fire rages at a huge plantation. Unaware of what’s really happening, he keeps up the game, dancing in imitation of the flames, and looking for sticks to throw into the fire. That’s where his wooden sword comes in handy.

Then he realizes how familiar the outbuildings look.

“There . . .” Bierce writes, “lay the dead body of a woman--the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. . . . the work of a shell.”

It’s the boy’s own home that’s on fire; and the dead woman, his mother.

That is Bierce, at his most bitter.

Wolf Totem

2011-06-23T12:33:00.002-04:00

Those who study modern China know that the Communist government struggles with the yearnings and demands of its 55 ethnic minorities. What immediately comes to mind are the calls from Tibetans for more autonomy, or independence itself, and the complaints of the Uyghur people concerning religious and political discrimination in Xinjiang, the the northwest part of China. The majority Han people have been moving into both Tibet and Xinjiang, thereby changing the native cultures there.

In the last few months, we have been hearing complaints from the Mongolian people in China. Mongols are upset that so many Han have moved into Inner Mongolia and disrupted their pastoral way of life. The Mongols have staged protests against the environmental damage that comes with settled agriculture, the strip-mining of coal, the building of highways, the damming of rivers, and the overgrazing of land.

Inner Mongolian grasslands

Background. The Mongols and Han have a long history of interactions. The nomadic Mongols invaded China many times, attracted to the relative wealth of the more settled Chinese. In fact, the Mongols even ruled China from 1279 to 1368, setting up the Yuan dynasty with its capital at Tatu, which is present-day Beijing. The Yuan dynasty was known for its religious toleration, especially of Muslims, Daoists, and Buddhists. During Mongol rule, the country prospered because the Mongols encouraged foreign and domestic trade. Eventually, the Han Chinese became dissatisfied with Mongol rule and threw them out. Since then, the Han have dominated their Mongol neighbors. Now the Peoples Republic of China rules Inner Mongolia.

A Recent Novel. By coincidence, this spring I read a novel about the Han and the Mongolians in Inner Mongolia. Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong tells the tale of Chen Zhen, a Chinese Han who travels there in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution and falls in love with the traditional Mongol way of life. He and two other Han young people work and live in a community that raises cattle, sheep, and horses on the steppe. While there, Chen learns from a local wise man of Mongolian lore and spritual life and the important place that wolves play in both.

First, he learns that wolves are important because they cull the number of gazelles on the grasslands. If the gazelles were allowed to multiply unchecked by the wolves, then the fragile grasslands would be destroyed and the Mongolian pastoralism would be threatened.

Next, after some wolves have killed a herd of horses, Chen hears arguments from the wise man that the Communist authorities should not go after the wolves with rifles and kill them. Such an action would upset the balance of nature, of which the wolves are a part. Chen tags along on one of the operations to kill a pack of wolves and in the process concludes that the wolves are just as smart as people.

Chen and a friend devise a plan to go into a wolf den and capture some wolf puppies. The adventure results in the capture of a puppy that Chen then keeps at his camp, first on a chain and later in a cage. He learns a lot about wolves from this experience, including the fact that the puppy remains wild, never giving up its wolfish traits.

The book goes on and on with many adventures, much knowledge of wolves being conveyed, and constant carping about the superiority of the Mongolian way of life, which is being threatened by Han development of Inner Mongolia. The book is fascinating, but it could have been cut by 100 pages without harming the story.

The Author. I was surprised to read that Wolf Totem has become a best-seller in China. When the book was published in 2004, the reading public did not know that Jiang Rong is a pseudonym and that the author's real name is Lu Jiamin. A former Red Guard, Lu Jiamin went to Inner Mongolia in the 1960s to be re-educated. He remained there for 11 years but eventually became a professor in Beijing. He was detained for more than a year for participating in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

A Movie? I read in the press that some people in China were planning to make a feature film based on the novel Wolf Totem, but those plans had to be delayed or dropped because of opposition from Chinese authorities. This reaction shows the controversial nature of the book. Now with protests by Mongolians making international news, I would think that it is even less probable that the movie will be made.

Fireflies: Bright Lights in June

2011-06-22T11:40:00.000-04:00

Every year I wait to see them. I saw my first one of 2011 on June 14, at dusk. It was just one lonely firefly, signaling its presence near a bunch of parked cars. For me it was an exciting moment. I am not even sure why. I just love the sight of these glowing insects; they mean summer is here. Their renewed presence means the species has survived yet another year and still exists to tell me it is June. But they are not really flies. So what are they?

Fireflies are actually winged beetles. The 2,000 species of fireflies that exist are found in temperate and tropical habitats around the world. They are also known as lightning bugs and even as glowworms (particularly in their larval phase) and they have these names because of their “conspicuous crepuscular use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey” (per Wikipedia). In other words, they emit light at twilight to communicate with other insects. The light is produced by a chemical reaction that occurs within a special organ in their lower abdomen. Each species has its own pattern of light flashing to find mates.

Most firefly species are active at night, when their flashing light can be readily spotted. Some species of fireflies are active during the day, but they tend not to be luminescent. However, all firefly larvae glow, presumably as a way to warn would-be predators of their nasty chemical taste. As adults, the light usually signals a willingness to meet and mate. At least one species uses its flashing light for a different – and deceptive – purpose. The female of this type mimics the mating flashes of other fireflies; when a hopeful male responds, he ends up being dinner, not a mate. So much for a “light” dinner!

Of course, I am not the only person who loves watching these bugs. There is a magic to watching children run through a field trying to capture fireflies. Professional institutions are also dedicated to the study of fireflies. The Museum of Science in Boston teams up with university researchers to study firefly sightings each year. Volunteers around the country help them count fireflies as a way of tracking their numbers. It seems that their population has been decreasing, and this could be due to environmental influences. There is even the Kumejima Firefly Museum in Okinawa, Japan, that is dedicated to this amazing insect. The museum celebrates the fact that there are seven species of firefly thriving on Kumejima because of the island’s clean ecosystem.

So, the next time you see some bug flying near you, please don’t reach out to swat it. Just keep an eye on it and you may be rewarded by the glow of a bioluminescent love signal.

Carol

Starbucks, Ethos, and Feel-Good Consumerism

2011-06-20T10:54:00.000-04:00

Social Education, the official journal of the National Council for Social Studies, recently published a lesson plan on Starbucks. The lesson plan is great, as it analyzes American culture and consumerism through an analysis of Starbucks. It also inspired me to think of an interdisciplinary project that social studies and science teachers could co-teach on Ethos water.

Ethos water is owned by Starbucks and sold in their stores. Branding itself as a responsible company, Ethos claims its mission is to help bring clean drinking water to children throughout the world. A 20-ounce bottle of Ethos water costs $1.80. Out of the $1.80 paid for each bottle of Ethos water, Starbucks will donate $.05 toward their mission. According to the article in Social Education, “they are charging customers 15 to 20 percent more than other companies . . . in other words, they charge customers to feel good about themselves.” Interviewing, an important skill for budding social scientists, could be used to determine why people are buying an overpriced bottle of water. Is it because of the “clean water” mission? Is it out of convenience? Is it for another reason altogether?

As an entry point into this project, science and social studies teachers can use the debate over whether or not Ethos does more harm than good. Students could research which regions of the world are in need of clean drinking water, and the political and environmental issues that create that need. Students could also investigate the environmental impact of drinking bottled water, as well as issues regarding tap water versus bottled water. For instance, if students determine that tap water is safer than bottled water, they could argue for drinking tap water and donating the saved money to help bring clean drinking water to “dehydrated communities.” Another student might research statistics on charitable donations and determine that people who are saving money by drinking tap water would just buy something else rather than donating their savings. In that case, Ethos is invaluable, as the donation is built into the purchase.

Editorial writing is another skill that could be incorporated into this project. Students could write an editorial to support or discredit Ethos. Of course, these editorials could be published in a class blog instead of a traditional paper. Then students would read each other’s opinions, include relevant links, and comment on their peers’ work.

Incidentally, to write this blog post I had to do my own research into Ethos. A comment I came across on a blog sums up my opinion on this product perfectly. In light of the over $200,000,000 Ethos has generated in sales, one commenter wrote, “Note to self: Start a bottled water company that gives 6 cents per bottle to charity . . .”

Summer Adventures

2011-06-17T10:30:00.003-04:00

Summer is almost officially here. Bravo for hot weather, cool watermelon, ice cream, and if you are lucky, some great trips. Parents and students are happy that school is finished. However, studies find that students lose significant math and literacy skills during their summer vacation. So, make sure to encourage your children to keep reading this summer.

Amsco’s La Gran Aventura de Alejandro by Abby Kanter is a great start. This reader gives students in the early stages of learning Spanish the pleasurable experience of reading simple material of significant value in language and culture.

The book tells the story of Alejandro, a young Mexican boy who goes on vacation with his family to Spain. While seeing the sights, Alejandro, who is a courageous individual, walks away from his family momentarily to help a little girl. Later on, he meets the girl’s mother. To thank him for his help, the woman gives him a ring that will allow him to embark on a great adventure.

While having fun, this book will help students keep up with their Spanish during their free time. Enjoy the summer!

Another Step Toward the Completion of the Periodic Table

2011-06-15T11:37:00.000-04:00

I wonder how many times students have been directed to complete a table for homework or on an exam. Chemists have an incomplete table that they are trying to complete: the Periodic Table of the Elements, or the Periodic Table, for short. Uranium, element number 92 is the last naturally occurring element in the Periodic Table. Elements beyond number 92, called the transuranium elements, have all been produced in laboratories. The first transuranium element, neptunium (#93) was produced in 1940 at the University of California, Berkeley, by Edwin McMillan and Phillip Abelson by exposing uranium oxide to neutrons from a cyclotron. The last one, copernicium (#112) was officially recognized in 2009.

On June 6, 2011, the Joint Working Party on the Discovery of Elements of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) announced the addition of two new elements to the Periodic Table—element 114 and element 116. For now, element 114 is called ununquadium and element 116 is called ununhexium. These names are based on their atomic numbers. By officially acknowledging the collaboration between researchers from Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory in California and Russia’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, these researchers will get to suggest names for the new elements. The names will go through a review process before being adopted and the elements will be assigned a symbol by the IUPAC Council.

Scientists produced these elements by bombarding curium (#96) atoms with calcium (#20) nuclei. In a few milliseconds, element 116 decays into element 114 which lasts about half a second before decaying into copernicium (#112). In other experiments element 114 was produced by bombarding plutonium (#94) with calcium nuclei. Notice that 96 + 20 = 116 and 94 + 20 = 114.

There are three more elements waiting to be recognized: 113, 115, and 118. According to IUPAC, “Review of the claims associated with elements 113, 115, and 118 are at this time not conclusive and evidences have not met the criteria for discovery.” As soon as I hear anything more, I will let you know.

What Does the American Flag Symbolize?

2011-06-14T11:13:00.005-04:00

Flag Day! What's that? On this day in 1777, the Second Continental Congress adopted the stars and stripes as the nation's flag. In 1916, President Wilson officially proclaimed June 14 to be Flag Day. Since then, it has been a day to commemorate the American flag. Consider it a warm up for Independence Day.

Like apple pie, the bald eagle, and Lady Liberty, the flag symbolizes our nation: it is a visible sign of invisible things. Look at the pictures in the collection that follows and for each ask yourself the question, "What does the flag represent here?" Share your answers by writing a comment below.

Ice Cream, Tan Lines, and Other-World Time Travel: Summer Is Here!

2011-06-10T08:22:00.051-04:00

Summer is upon us. We all know that.

The big question is… What will we read?

While on the beach; in the car heading towards a vacation destination; on a plane; sitting on that park bench; or in bed at night, when the cicadas are singing and the breeze is warm…

What will you be reading?

Me? Oh. Well, thanks for asking:

Jamaica Kincaid’s At the Bottom of the River

Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet

Legson Kayira’s I Will Try

Kenzaburo Oe’s Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!

Richard Wright’s Native Son

Norman Mailer’s An American Dream

Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama

A collection of poetry by Walt Whitman

Naguib Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley

Probably something as racy and beach-worthy as Janet Evanovich’s Smokin’ Seventeen

And my favorite to-be-read-aloud-to-friends-at-a-picnic book: Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Summer, to me, opens worlds. When in winter all I can think to do is read contemporary American literature and avoid any outdoor activities, summer lets me adventure. Lets me meander through grassy meadows, imagine faraway places, lay in the sunlight and daydream about my future, my present, and my past. That’s what books are for, aren’t they? To bring us to new worlds?

Some of these books here have helped me to do that. Some have helped me travel this world while staying right at home. Some have helped me see home in a whole new way. Some are new to the list this year, and I pray they bring me to new heights of summer exploration.

What’s on your summer reading list?

Ten Reasons Homeschool Teachers Count on Amsco

2011-06-08T13:36:00.004-04:00

We are very proud to have received the HOMEEducators Resource Directory Seal of Approval! How did we earn this honor? The same qualities that have established Amsco as a classroom favorite, also make us a go-to resource for secondary-level homeschoolers.

Ten Qualities Homeschoolers Appreciate

We publish high-quality textbooks, review books, skills books, college-test and Advanced Placement preparation books, classic literature, and more.
We publish books for all the major subjects: English language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and foreign languages.
We take a straightforward approach that has proven successful for over 75 years.
Our teacher's resources include easy-to-use lesson plans, answer keys, and tests.
Homeschool teachers can access our teacher's resources by registering with us.
Many of our top titles are also available in e-book editions.
We offer virtual sampling of new books on our Web site.
Our books are well designed for easy teaching.
We keep our prices affordable.
We are accessible and will answer your questions if you contact us.

Teaching for Understanding

2011-06-06T17:28:00.002-04:00

One of the things that has always bothered me about the Common Core Curriculum is the idea of teaching for "understanding." On the surface, this seems like a term that is so vague that it is almost useless. How do you know when a student understands? Then I started to read Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics—the CCSS borrows freely from this report.

As per Adding It Up, conceptual understanding is about making connections and organizing ideas. Students need to learn how to represent situations in different ways and know how different representations can be useful for different purposes. In particular, students need to explore similarities and differences among various representations. Students need to learn why ideas are important.

Let's look at some examples of varying difficulty.

As per standard A.SSE.4, students are supposed to understand that the polynomials form a system similar to the integers. You can teach for understanding by having students explore the similarities and differences among addition, subtraction, and multiplication with integers and polynomials. In particular, students can see whether or not the usual properties of numbers hold for polynomials—commutativity, associativity, etc.
As per standard 6.RP.2, students need to understand the concept of unit rate. You can teach for understanding by emphasizing unit rates in different real-world contexts. For example, speed as a rate, cost per item as a rate, etc.
As per standard 8.F.1, students are supposed to understand the concept of a function. Again, you can teach for understanding by emphasizing the different ways that functions can be represented—symbolic, numerical (table), and graphical. For example, you can give a problem that asks students to compare two functions—one represented symbolically and the other by a graph. You can also teach for understanding by talking about the importance of functions in modern society—namely, how functions are a fundamental part of computers.

I Can't Learn a Foreign Language. Untrue, Say Researchers.

2011-06-02T17:38:00.000-04:00

A healthy brain can be taught a new word in less than 15 minutes, according to scientists. This discovery will deprive many students of their excuse for not studying a foreign language.

Cambridge neuroscientists found that all you need to do is to listen to a word 160 times over a span of 15 minutes. The secret is just hearing a word repeatedly. After that, the brain will have formed a completely new network of neurons specifically tasked with remembering that word.

Dr. Yury Shtyrov and his team reached this conclusion after placing electrodes on the heads of 16 healthy volunteers to monitor their brain activity. They recorded the pulses generated when the subjects listened to a familiar word. Then the volunteers were made to listen to a made-up word, over and over again. Initially, the brain had to make an effort to recognize the new word. However, after 160 repetitions over 14 minutes, the new memory traces were "virtually indistinguishable" from those of the already familiar word, said Dr. Shtyrov.

I guess that hearing a word 160 times does not seem like a particularly amusing way to learn a language, but at least it gives one hope that becoming comfortably proficient in a foreign language is possible.

This research gives us a hint of the importance of recycling content throughout lessons when you are teaching a foreign language. It is not a secret that the more you see or hear something, the more you will remember it. On the other hand, maybe the key to retaining information is to forget that you are trying to learn it in the first place.

It's Time For Fun In The Sun

2011-06-01T12:16:00.002-04:00

Now that summer is around the corner, I’m starting to miss the beach. And I don’t mean any beach, certainly not in the United States. I’m talking about a tropical beach, with white sand and coconut and sea-grape trees for shade. I’m talking about Balneario La Monserrate, better known as Luquillo Beach. It is located about 15 miles (45 minutes) east of San Juan. As a kid, I used to go there quite often (it was 30 minutes away from my house). It is a crescent of fine sand, with various types of mature trees. And behind this beach is the rain forest—it’s picture perfect.

The balneario (public beach resort) has been designated a “blue flag beach.” This means it meets very high standards (water quality, facilities, management, etc.). The beach itself is wide, so there is ample room to pick your favorite spot. If you are melanin challenged, you may look for a shady spot because you will burn in a New York minute. Luquillo Beach is very popular with locals and tourists alike, and it can get incredibly crowded. An alternative spot for snorkeling enthusiasts, Playa Azul (Blue Beach), is a few minutes away. La Pared (The Wall) and La Selva (The Jungle) offer good medium-range surfing waves, if you’re interested in that kind of action.

I haven’t been there in more than three years; so maybe it’s time to plan a short vacation.

Antiquity Corner: Nazi Science and Scientists of the 1930s and 1940s

2011-05-31T11:14:00.002-04:00

Head-measuring device

Once upon a time, there was a very evil man named Heinrich Himmler. During the period of the Third Reich– 1933–1945, Himmler had the title of Reichfuhrer SS. As head of the SS (Schutzstaffel), Hitler’s private army, and the Gestapo, Himmler was the most feared man in Europe. During the Holocaust, six million Jews and nine million other Europeans were murdered on his orders. It was he who directed the work of the concentration camps and the roving action groups that carried out the work of genocide. In order to begin to understand the mind of Himmler and the homicidal maniacs who worked with him, the basics of Nazi racial theories must be examined. Hitler, Himmler, and the other Nazi leaders preached the superiority of the German race. Those of pure Aryan descent were ein herrenvolk, a master race whose destiny it was to rule the world. Non-Aryans were untermenschen, racial inferiors, who must serve the master race. It all became quite involved, with an Institute for Racial Study, charts, graphs, racial purity tests, genealogical studies, etc. Eventually, all the peoples of the world were placed into racial categories, ranked in order of their proximity to the pure Aryans. By killing off racial inferiors, either immediately, or by working them to death, the Nazis would create a better world, based upon the principles of racial superiority. Such beliefs motivated them to do all sorts of things, such as naming their Japanese allies honorary Aryans during World War II (1939–1945).

In the summer of 1935, Himmler founded the Ahnenerbe, an organization devoted to the study of German ancestral heritage. The organization was intended to give scientific credibility to Nazi racial theories and to strengthen German nationalism. Its mission was to investigate German history and mythology, using as their principal tools the disciplines of archeology and anthropology. The Ahnenerbe’s most important task was to investigate the origins and spread of the Aryan race. It was in pursuit of this task that Himmler ordered the Nazi expedition to Tibet (1938–1939). Five Ahnenerbe scientists, all SS officers, aided by Indian and Tibetan guides and porters, suffered considerable hardships making their way through Indian monsoons and freezing Himalayan passes before entering Tibet and spending two months in the area around the capital city, Lhasa. Tibet was a strange place to search for the origins of the tall, blond, blue-eyed Aryans of Germanic mythology. However, scientists of the 19th and early 20th centuries believed that the highland plateau of Tibet was a likely place in which to find evidence of human origins and evolution. There the superior Aryans originated, aided in their cultural development by survivors of the lost continent of Atlantis.

The leader of the expedition was 28-year-old Ernst Shafer. A respected scientist who had studied zoology and geology at Gottingen University, Shafer had gained fame as an intrepid explorer and expert hunter. He was only the second European to shoot a giant panda. Although a great marksman, Shafer had shot and killed his wife in a hunting accident the previous year. During their two month stay around Lhasa, the Germans collected specimens of Tibetan flora and fauna, researched Tibetan ancestral traditions, and took 20,000 black and white photographs, and 2,000 color photographs.

Ernst Schäfer (left) and an Ahnenerbe colleague collecting data.

The expedition’s anthropologist was 26-year-old Bruno Beger. Seeking physical traits that indicated Nordic traits in the Tibetan population, Beger made detailed records, taking fingerprints and checking hair and eye color against special charts. Beger also used calipers to compare facial characteristics such as the size and shape of noses, ears, chins, and eyes. Plaster was used to create facial casts. Beger’s study of nearly 400 Tibetans led him to conclude that migratory Aryans coming from northern Europe had shaped history and human anatomy in the locale. This was proved, he believed, by what he perceived as the Nordic characteristics of Tibetan nobles. These included their smooth hair and a sense of themselves as being dominant.

The expedition returned to Germany shortly before the German invasion of Poland, which began World War II in September 1939. During the war, Ahnenerbe scientists were sent to Poland, Italy, Ukraine, and the Crimea to acquire artifacts thought to be Aryan. The scientific study of racial characteristics was much in demand by the SS and their death squads as they exterminated Jews and other undesirable ethnic groups. In June 1943, Beger spent eight days at the Auschwitz concentration camp taking measurements of 115 inmates chosen for their “Asian” physical characteristics. After he departed, the prisoners were sent to another concentration camp where they were gassed. Their bodies were sent to the anatomy department of the Reich University of Strasbourg, where Dr. August Hirt was building his collection of skulls.

After the war, Beger was first cleared of any Holocaust related wrongdoing. At a second trial in 1970, he was sentenced to three years in prison. The sentence was later suspended. Ernst Shafer went to Venezuela in 1949 to run a wildlife preserve. He had been arrested by the Allies, but was cleared of war crime charges by a de-nazification tribunal. He eventually became curator of the Hanover Museum.

Although Beger was the only member of the Tibet expedition to be connected to Nazi war crimes, it has been argued that all the Ahnenerbe scientists were guilty of supporting with their alleged science an ideology that led to the mass murder of millions. They brought a degree of respectability and scientific authority to theories that could not be substantiated by any genuine evidence or scientific methodology. It is in popular fiction that the work of the Ahnenerbe has most survived. It provided a model for some of the characters in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark.

How to Name Your Fictional Characters

2011-05-27T17:44:00.003-04:00

Cynthia enjoys tea and crumpets.

If I could’ve chosen my own name, what would it be?

Not Cynthia. It seems so formal, so tea and crumpets. Cindy is OK, though it sounds blond, and I’m a brunette. All the other Cindys I grew up with were blonds. But as adults, not all Cynthias are stuffed shirts.

In fiction, certain names conjure up stereotypical images. We expect Buffy to be a bubbly cheerleader and Rebel or Snake to be bikers. If we’re wrong, and Buffy winds up being the dental hygienist, we might feel tricked.

According to T.L. Cooper’s “Naming Characters in Fiction,” names create relationships between the characters and readers. Names show how the characters feel about themselves. And nicknames clue you in on how they feel about each other. In two of my own stories, minor characters named “Madman” and “Sorehead” told you these stories were set in a challenging, dysfunctional world.

Also in Cooper’s article was a list of Don’ts, to be aware of, when naming your characters. For one thing, you can’t use the same name for two different characters. It creates total confusion. (I mean, why would you even want to use the same name, unless they’re father and son? Then you could call them William and Billy.)

Also a no-no is using names that begin with the same letter (like Gary and Greg) or that are too similar, period (like Gary and Gerry). It’s also a hassle when your character has no name (“the big-nosed girl,” “the red-headed guy”). Trust me, it’s hard to keep up with that. If a character figures largely enough in my story, I come up with a name.

Jack Oceano’s “Five Tips for Naming Your Characters in Fiction” helps us when we’re stumped.

Tip # 1 - Select a name that reflects your character's personality. In other words, the name James Bond suits a super-cool, womanizing secret agent better than Percy Withencroft.

Tip # 2 - The name of your character should roll nicely off the tongue. Names should have a nice ring to them, like Rocky Balboa. You shouldn’t trip over a name, especially if it’s the main character’s, whose you hear the most.

Tip # 3 - Make certain your character's name is appropriate for his heritage and trade. By this he means don’t name the pizzeria owner Stash Donahue. You could name your character this if his Italian maternal grandparents started the business, and his mother married an Polish-Irish guy from Bayonne, New Jersey. But you’d have to explain all that. It seems like way too much work.

Tip # 4 - Keep the character's name consistent with his [or her] time period. If you’re writing an historical romance, you wouldn’t name your heroine Tiffany or Dakota. Keep contemporary names where they belong: in contemporary fiction.

Tip # 5 - Avoid names that sound similar to names that others have already made famous. Charlotte O’Meara sounds too much like Scarlett O’Hara, etc.

Last but not least, where do you find good names for characters? Lynda Schab concludes her article “How to Choose Character Names for Your Novels” with a useful list:

• Phonebook
• The Bible
• Internet
• Soap operas
• Movie credits
• Baby books

Except for the soaps, I’ve tried them all. Too many soap characters sounds like stuffed shirts. Give me Cobra over Cynthia any day.

Teaching Tier Two Words for the Common Core State Standards

2011-05-25T15:31:00.001-04:00

Common Core State Standards: these four words are becoming a veritable mantra in the hallways of schools across the nation. Here at Amsco, we’ve also been spending quite a bit of time analyzing the documents, dissecting the Standards, and planning for the future.In my travels through the English Language Arts Standards and their appendices, which are available here, I’ve discovered a gem that I think is going to make a world of difference in preparing students for college: Tier Two words.

In Appendix A of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, the architects discuss vocabulary acquisition in terms of tiers. They refer to words as Tier One, Tier Two, and Tier Three. Tier One words are defined as those we use in everyday speech, the kinds of words one would find in simple narrative text, those that readers simply have to decode in order to comprehend. Tier Three words are domain-specific words, like osmosis and onomatopoeia. Nestled neatly between Tiers One and Three are the Tier Two words.

Tier Two words are referred to in the Common Core State Standards as “general academic” words. They are the words that grant students access to academic discourse, words that are used to discuss, persuade, and explain across disciplines, words like argument, significance, characteristic, and question. They could also be words that describe more specifically or that elevate tone, like writing mention instead of tell, or fortune instead of luck.

How can you help students get a leg up on Tier Two words? Think about compiling a list and teaching the words to your students as you would any other vocabulary list. Then--and here’s the catch--follow up consistently, showing students how the same word (like determine) is used over and over in different contexts and in different disciplines. Use the words on the list frequently in class discussions, and draw attention to the words when you use them. Lastly, encourage students to use the words in their own writing so that their own discourse is increasingly academic.

Ultimately, we hope our students will advance to college and/or workplaces where they will need to understand, use, and produce sophisticated texts. Let’s give them the passwords they will need to gain admission to those places.

For information about Amsco's vocabulary offerings, Vocabulary for the High School Student, Vocabulary for the College-Bound Student, Vocabulary Explorations (A, B, and C), and Vocabulary for Success (I, II, III, and IV), visit our Web site or click the links here.

Note to ET: Don’t Bother Calling Us!

2011-05-24T12:06:00.004-04:00

The title of this post is my advice to any extraterrestrials who might happen to be trying to contact Earth. Why am I giving them this harsh advice? We are not listening anymore. It is not that scientists have given up because they don’t think there are other intelligent beings in the universe. It is just that funding to the Allen Telescope Array has been cut. It would take $5 million to keep listening for radio signals from the exoplanets found by Kepler satellite for another two years in addition to $2 to $3 million to function and keep other research projects going.

The radio telescopes of the Allen Array are dedicated to searching for alien intelligence. The array was built by the SETI Institute. SETI is short for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Up until now, funding to operate the Hat Creek Radio Observatory, where the Allen Array is located, has come from several sources: private donations, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and the state of California. Seth Shostak, SETI senior astronomer reported that, “As it happens, Berkeley’s budget is way down—the state of California is in terrible financial circumstances because of the economic downturn. Consequently, they don't have the money to keep the doors open and pay the electric bills and pay the staff at the antenna. And we don't either, because we run our SETI projects mostly based on private donations, and those are down as well."

As of April 15, the Allen Telescopes have been put into hibernation to protect them and allow them to function again in the future. However, all is not lost; SETI astronomers can still collect data during downtime on other telescopes. Instead of having a 24-hour sky watch, they will have to depend on a few hours here and there to collect their data. This will significantly diminish their chances of finding a signal. Until the Allen Telescopes are back online, I guess ET will just have to wait for us to pick up our phone again.

The Role of the Personal in the Academic Essay

2011-05-18T15:48:00.004-04:00

I recently attended Our Mutual Estate, an education conference organized by the NYC Association of Assistant Principals Supervision– English (NYCAAPSE) and Long Island University (LIU). Writing was the focus of this year’s conference, and I decided to participate in the Teaching the Academic Essay workshop. I felt it aligned closely with the new emphasis on informational reading and writing in the English Language Arts classroom outlined in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

The Problem

The workshop I attended was organized by a professor from LIU, and a high school English teacher who has also taught at the university level. The guiding question for the session was, “What is the role of the personal in the academic essay?” I jumped in to point out that the CCSS are asking teachers to stop just asking students for their personal reflections, and to require them to make sound arguments based on evidence from the text(s). Other teachers in the room quickly agreed with me, and shared stories of how their students include personal anecdotes in academic essays once they run out of evidence. In other instances, they believe students have provided personal experiences rather than text-based evidence to support their arguments because they struggle to actually understand the text they were assigned.

Our opening discussion finally ended with a teacher confessing, “Although we complain about it when we grade essays, English teachers seem to spend more time on task asking students to share their personal reactions to a plot, character, etc. Then, we hold this against them when they are asked to write an academic essay.” I found it particularly interesting that this confession was addressed several weeks ago by David Coleman, “the architect of the CCSS,” who argued that teachers need to stop simply asking students what they think about a text, and instead require them to go back to the text and provide specific evidence to support a claim.

A Solution

Now that everyone in the workshop agreed that students were writing about their own experiences instead of the text, it was time to brainstorm some solutions to this problem. My favorite activity that was suggested is one in which students discuss the texts they’ve read as the author of the text. This helps students go beyond expressing their opinions because they are being asked to be someone else altogether. The workshop presenters had us try this activity ourselves, and it helped us create a strong table of text-based evidence to support our thesis statements. I imagine some of the teachers in the workshop will be trying this out with their students soon.

From a philosophical position, we could continue to discuss the initial question regarding the role of the personal in an academic essay. However, the practical matter seems to be straightforward—students are not including text-based evidence in their academic essays. As new assessments are developed for the CCSS that place a priority on using text-based evidence to support a claim, teachers will need to redefine the types of conversations and writing assignments they plan around texts, so that academic essays don’t continue to include, “this article reminds me of the time . . .”

The Indeterminable Rate of Educational Velocity

2011-05-16T15:42:00.003-04:00

This morning I turned in the last piece of homework I will ever have. I submitted my final research project: my master’s thesis.There was no parade, no trumpets or cymbals to herald my victory. No “three cheers!” to mark the completion of my efforts. Just the simple knowledge that I have finally finished.

They won't hand me my diploma until later this month, but the reality is that today marks the end of my years of formal education. Added up, 18 years of teachers, classrooms, professors, projects, presentations, and dreaded papers. Over.

When I think back on the memories of school, what stick out most are not the facts I learned or the books I read, but what I recall are all the relationships I made and the fun I had when I wasn’t studying in the library alone.

School offers us just that, the opportunity to find new experiences that we wouldn’t have otherwise discovered.

Because of a middle-school French-class trip to nearby Québec, I learned that my friend Emma would always find ways to get us into the most fun kind of trouble, and that I love all things maple-syrup related. Because of reading I Will Try during library hour in elementary school, I have made it my mission to travel across Africa (although not exactly the way the author did, when he decided to walk from Malawi towards America for his education). And because of spending countless hours at the local pub after economics class, I have learned that while philosophical entanglements often leave one feeling unfulfilled, beer and good company always leave one in better spirits. We would spend hours there, after Economics Development class, after History of Economic Philosophy class, after Statistics class: my peers and I, in time spent not studying, but taking what we learned in lecture and talking about it, openly, with opinions, with our own theories and smart colleagues to bounce ideas off of.

These are the friends, memories, and happy learning experiences I will grow from for the rest of my life. Even if, heaven forbid, I forget how to use the econometrics regression equation to find the unknown parameters to formulate the average expected outcome of an observed condition. (Not that I hope to ever forget my mathematical training!) My experiences remind me, looking back, that learning happens throughout life. One has only to put oneself in situations that allow for unexpected, exciting opportunities to arise.

Though my years of formal education might be complete, they leave me with the knowledge that power lies in asking questions, and life is a learning curve that I will always be trying to bend. I may be out of the classroom, but I will forever be a student.

Do you have favorite memories, or wisdom to share about your education experience? Leave a comment below!

A Scary Fish Story for Friday the 13th

2011-05-13T17:51:00.001-04:00

Today is Friday the 13th, so it makes me think of lucky and unlucky things. Personally, I like this date; but I know some people are uncomfortable with it. So, in keeping with the unlucky theme, I am reminded of a recent article about a very unlucky phenomenon in the marine environment. A level of ecological success that has been very lucky for one fish turns out to be extremely unfortunate for many other creatures in the Caribbean Sea.

The beautiful lionfish, with its red-striped face and body and long dorsal spines, is a native of the Indian and Pacific oceans. But in recent years it has gotten into the Caribbean Sea. How? It is thought that just a few lionfish escaped from a smashed aquarium tank during a hurricane in Florida. Usually an animal that gets loose in an alien environment is at a disadvantage. But the stealthy lionfish is a clever hunter and a successful breeder, producing thousands of eggs every four days. A few lionfish were first spotted in the waters around the Bahamas in 2005. Within three years, they had taken over the reefs, experiencing a population explosion by eating many of the native fish species, as well as shrimps and crabs. Scientists have found that the lionfish can reduce a reef’s native population by 75 to 80 percent in just a matter of weeks -- very unlucky for the local inhabitants. The same problem is now happening around the Grand Cayman Islands as well.

Just why are the lionfish so lucky in their new environment? It appears that, unlike the local reef fish, the lionfish are not infested by parasitic worms. Without parasites or any local predators, their mortality is quite low. And they are voracious predators, able to consume up to 30 times their stomach volume! This has caused a problem for local tourism, since people dive on the reefs to see all the beautiful native fishes--only to see an abundance of lionfish. In addition, their venomous dorsal spines can deliver a painful sting, making them a potential danger to divers who come too close. They are also a threat to the local commercial fisheries, since they are eating up native species.

So, what can be done about this fish invasion? Scientists catching a few here and there have not had an impact on their increasing population. But now, unfortunately for the lionfish, the tables have turned and there is one local predator it does have to worry about. Quite recently it has been determined that the lionfish makes a very tasty dish for humans when fried with nice seasonings. And this is turning out to be lucky for local residents and tourists in the Caribbean. Now the fishermen, not just the scientists, are turning their sights on the not-so-lucky lionfish!

Posted by Carol

Free Math Apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch!

2011-05-11T17:52:00.000-04:00

Last week we offered the Android users among you a selection of free math-related apps. If you’re an iPhone user like I am, you will be pleased to know that there are equivalent apps for your device!

Many of the specific apps for Android are not available on iPhone, but that’s not to say that there is any shortage of math-related iPhone apps. For instance, Andie Graph is not available for iPhone, nor is Graph Lite. However:

• There are TONS of graphing calculator apps that are available for free:

• Or if you don’t mind spending $1.99, check out the very nice-looking Graphing Calculator from Appcylon LLC: • Algebra 1 Lite is a different mini-interactive textbook: students read some examples and then try out some practice problems. The app also keeps track of student progress. Here’s an example of a quiz question:

• Math Genius. (Also available on Android). Practice basic arithmetic skills.

• Cool math resources include (free) Digital Protractor, ($0.99) Slide Rule, and (free) Abacus.

Another app I recommend to math and science educators is the free NPRnews app, featuring the wonderful weekly podcast Science Friday (SciFri), which is also available on Android.

The neat thing about iPhone apps is that they can also be downloaded and used on iPod Touch devices, which allows more students access to these free math resources. Please respond with tips about other helpful apps for students and math teachers.

Test Your Personal Finance IQ and Boost It with Amsco's Personal Finance!

2011-05-10T12:06:00.003-04:00

Do you know the difference between securities and a security deposit? Between a bull market and a bear market? Between forbearance and foreclosure? Do you know how to spot a Ponzi scheme? Or to calculate your net worth? Test your personal finance IQ by clicking here to take take our Interactive Quiz. If you find that your score is less than genius-level, you may want to brush up with Amsco's Personal Finance by Margaret Magnarelli, senior editor at Money magazine and a blogger on cnnmoney.com. If you are teaching Personal Finance, Business, Entrepreneurship, or Consumer Economics at the high school or community college level, you may want to add this book to your curriculum.

Personal Finance teaches students everything they need to know to do better financially, guiding them through the decision-making that will help them earn, save, invest, and protect their money throughout their lifetimes.

The author's approach engages students, asks them to connect to the subject matter, and challenges them with new concepts, while maintaining ease and readability. The book proceeds in a commonsense order:

First, helping students understand the time value of money and recognize education and career choices as long-term investments;
Second, delving into the everyday money-management skills that keep people on track; and
Third, advancing to the topics of investing for the future, using credit wisely, and managing risk.

This standards-based book aligns with national and state-specific standards, so you can be certain that you are teaching students the skills and concepts they need to know. Helpful teacher's resources include a Teacher's Guide with Answer Key and Test Bank.

While we are on the topic of money, it's worth mentioning that the student book is $23.00. Personal Finance is also available for the same price as an enhanced e-book, which brings money matters to life on an iPad, smart phone, laptop, etc.

If you would like to learn more about Personal Finance, visit our Web site, where you can see a full description of features under Price List and Book Information, and sample a chapter under Virtual Sampling.

Potpourri of Free Math Apps for Android

2011-05-06T12:59:00.009-04:00

With the rising popularity of Android (Google), iPhone, and iPads, I thought it would be a good idea to search for free math-related apps, starting with Android. Unfortunately, I was appalled that many of the popular apps collect too much information, namely, your unique phone id.

What's the big deal? As far as I can tell, your unique phone id is just like your Social Security number—it's not something that you give out to anyone who asks for it. Unfortunately, this is exactly the scenario that I kept finding in the Android market. Why does a flashcard app need the equivalent of your Social Security number? It seems a little fishy to me and I can't recommend those apps.

Here are some of the offending apps: Math Practice Flash Cards, Fun Math Tricks, The King of OX, Math Workout, Math Attack

That being said, I did find some good ones (screen shots below):

Algebra Tutor. This app is more like a mini-interactive textbook: students read some examples and then try out some practice problems. The app also keeps track of student progress.
Andie Graph. The TI-83 Graphing Calculator on your phone.
Graph Lite. Yet another graphing calculator for your phone.
Math Genius. Practice basic arithmetic skills.

OK, OK, so these apps really aren't that good. I guess Android still has some catching up to do when it comes to math apps (that is, unless you want to give away your unique phone id). Tune in next week for iPhone math apps.

Word Choices: Spanish Verb Pairs That Puzzle

2011-05-03T15:54:00.037-04:00

The Spanish language has some verb pairs that mean the same in English, but cannot be interchanged. That can be confusing for English native speakers who are trying to learn Spanish. The following is a list, by no means exhaustive, that will help avoid the most frequent mistakes nonnative speakers make.

Tocar vs. Jugar (to play)

Jugar is used when referring to playing a sport or game.
Juego al tenis todos los sábados. I play tennis every Saturday.
¿Quieres jugar a las cartas conmigo? Do you want to play cards with me?

Tocar is used when referring to playing an instrument or style of music.

Me gusta tocar el piano. I like to play the piano.

Admiro mucho a los grupos que tocan música contemporánea. I admire bands that play contemporary music.

Tocar also means to touch.
Mi madre tocó mi cabeza mientras dormía. My mother touched my head while I was sleeping.
¡No toques el cuadro! Don´t touch the painting.

Saber vs. Conocer (to know)

Saber is used to indicate that you know a fact, know something thoroughly (subject, discipline), or know how to do something.
Yo sé donde vive Josefina. I know where Josefina lives.
Adam sabe mucho español. Adam knows lots of Spanish.
Yo sé conducir muy bien. I know how to drive very well.

Conocer is used to state that you are or are not acquainted with a person, a place, or an object.
Yo no conozco a Josefina. I don't know (am not acquainted with) Josefina.
Julio y Manuel conocen Perú. Julio and Manuel know (are acquainted with) Perú.

Salir vs. Dejar (to leave)
Use salir to express that you are exiting or going away.
El avión sale a las nueve. The airplane leaves at nine.
Yo salgo del trabajo a las cinco. I leave work at five.
But if you are leaving an object somewhere, use dejar.
Dejé mis libros en el tren. I left my books on the train.

Preguntar vs. Pedir (to ask)
Preguntar is used to ask a question or request information.
Pregunto qué hora es. I ask what time it is.
Use pedir to ask for, or request an object, service or favor.
Pedimos más ensalada. We order more salad.
Pido permiso a mi padre para ir a la fiesta. I ask my father for permission to go to the party.

To learn more about verb pairs in Spanish, check Amsco´s Spanish First, Second, and Third Year series or the Spanish Is Fun series.

Imparate l'italiano (Learn Italian)

2011-04-29T11:53:00.003-04:00

Ciao, amici! Great news for those interested in learning Italian, and for teachers looking for excellent Italian-learning resources. Introducing Amsco’s Italian First Year, Second Edition and Italian Two and Three Years, Third Edition. These books provide a comprehensive grammar review and help learners achieve a thorough understanding of the elements of Italian normally covered during the first three years of study. They are available in print and e-book editions. Here are some of their salient features:

Topical organization that allows for maximum flexibility of use.

Concise grammar explanations that present clear examples with key elements highlighted typographically.

A variety of open-ended activities that enable students to show their language proficiency in a personal and creative way.

Mastery Exercise section in every chapter that offers practice of the material previously covered.

A comprehensive overview of Italian and Italian-American cultures that familiarizes students with the background of Italian native-speakers.

An overview of Italian culture and civilization (written in English in Italian First Year, and in Italian in Italian Two and Three Years) that presents students with the cultural and historical background of the Italian people.

The improved layout and two-color design, along with the updated grammar explanations, vocabulary, and exercises make the Amsco Italian workbooks an invaluable tool for those interested in learning the language of Dante. Arrivederci.

Spring Cleaning Day T-Shirt Contest!

2011-04-28T14:11:00.001-04:00

On Spring Cleaning day, the members of the Editorial Department dig deep into their T-shirt drawers. Choose your #1 favorite T-shirt and vote by leaving a comment below. ~~Voting closes at 5:00 p.m. today~~. Due to the intensity of the competition, voting is extended to MIDNIGHT tonight.

Dino Bones

Dancin'

Dino Fight

Family Fever

HTTP

Honduras!

Gettin' Mathy

No Che

Polar Bear

Scotty

Taino

Yankees

Blah Blah Blah

Antiquity Corner: The Road to Bremenium

2011-04-26T15:40:00.001-04:00

“Take a look through these,” Grant said, handing me a pair of binoculars. We were kneeling in the high grass of a hill in Northumberland, England’s northernmost county. My companion was an assistant archeologist employed by the county council. I carefully focused the lens of the binoculars, expecting to see the remains of a 3rd-century A.D. Roman fort. Instead, I saw very modern barbed wire fencing penetrated by an access road along which olive drab jeeps and trucks rolled up to a guard post manned by red caps (British military police). Beyond them were barracks and squaddies drilling on open training grounds. With a shock, I realized that I was staring at Otterburn army base, Britain’s large training and testing facility for heavy artillery and long-range weapons systems. Several possibilities flashed through my mind, including arrest and incarceration for espionage or annihilation by a stray artillery shell. Angrily, I turned to Grant whose grin told me that, once again, he had indulged his passion for practical jokes by guiding me to the wrong location—a very wrong location.

“Don’t get your knickers twisted,” the archeologist said. “I thought you would enjoy a look at today’s British military.” As I had seen my share of army bases during my service in the U.S. Army, I was not impressed and told him so. I suggested we get on with our assignment, which was to survey the remains of Roman outpost forts upon which no excavation work or investigation had been done for years. An hour or so later, after making our way across the high moor, we came to another hill. On its summit were the remains of a low wall overgrown with grass and weeds. A dead tree leaned over the open gateway, giving the isolated spot a haunted look—barren and deserted. We were looking at Bremenium, an outpost fort that was part of the marvel of Roman military engineering that comprised the Hadrian’s Wall complex. Bremenium was located north of the wall, its primary function to gather intelligence about the activities of the unconquered British tribes that periodically threatened the peace of the towns and villas of the more civilized province to the south. It was built in the first century and not, therefore, originally a Hadriannic fort. A variety of units had served at Bremenium. In the third century, the fort was manned by the Germans of the First Cohort of Loyal Vardullians. They were Roman citizens, a privileged status not shared by the numerus (irregular troops) of exploratores (frontier scouts) also posted there. Of the vicus, or civil settlement which often grew outside the walls of Roman forts, there was no sign at Bremenium. We concluded that the surrounding countryside was just too rough and dangerous for the usual purveyors of “service industries” to risk settling there. However, the outpost could not have been entirely self sufficient. Periodic supply trains must have been dispatched to the fort.

The western gateway to Bremenium

We speculated, as we often did, supplementing available recorded information and physical evidence with our own projections. As we did this, the images began to form in my imagination. I could see the pack mules and drovers making their way through the rugged countryside.

The gates of the fort opened and a cavalry escort cantered out to meet them. Perhaps it was a turma, a troop of thirty men commanded by a decurion and his deputy, a duplicarius. The sun would have glinted on their armor, each man wearing the lorica hamata (chain mail) common to auxiliary troops and the helmets of iron and brass. Before they could reach the supply train, it was attacked by Brigante tribesmen. Tall, well muscled men, they would have worn plaid trousers, close fitting and cross bound with strips of leather. Long hair, stiffened with lime, long moustaches, and swirling tattoos covering their bare arms and chests would have contributed to their fearsome appearance. Upon sighting the raiders, the decurion snapped an order, bringing the turma to the gallop. Out came the long spathas, or cavalry swords. Each man’s clipeus (oval shaped shield) swung to the front before they smashed into the attackers. It did not take long before the tribesmen broke and scattered, leaving behind their dead. Prisoners would have been forced to their knees, their arms bound with strips of leather. They would be brought back to Bremenium for questioning by the frumentari (intelligence officers). Those who survived the experience would be sold to the first slave trader to reach the fort.

A sudden rainstorm brought me back to the present. I stuffed my notebook and pen into my pack and we moved out to our next site, another outpost fort called Habitancum and another visit to antiquity.

Ready to Teach the Common Core? Welcome to the Writer's Studio!

2011-04-25T06:30:00.004-04:00

Exciting news! Amsco has just released a brand-new writing series! I am very proud to present to you The Writer’s Studio, by Lesli J. Favor, a three-book series to help your middle and high school students improve their writing skills.

This new series was created using current research on writing strategies, including work by Nancy Atwell, Deborah Dean, and Traci Gardner. The instructional approach uses six traits of writing—ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions—as a framework for tackling any assignment. Each chapter walks students through the steps of the writing process and provides an assignment rubric based on the six-traits model.

The books are arranged by five genres: descriptive, expository, persuasive, literary, and response to literature writing. Within each genre, you will find a variety of activities and writing assignments. Students are also given numerous writing models, as well as opportunities to reflect on their own writing.

The Teacher’s Guides and Test Banks contain additional helpful resources. Tests are modeled on the ACT/SAT, so they review content in the student book while giving students a preview of these important exams. The Teacher’s Guide provides additional lesson and activity ideas for each unit and chapter in the student books.

Sounds like a great series, doesn't it? You can see for yourself by viewing virtual samples of each book. Just click the titles below.

The Writer's Studio: Level A

The Writer's Studio: Level B

The Writer's Studio: Level C

When you are looking at the virtual samples, you might notice that the series aligns very well with the writing strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Specific standards taught are:

Text Types and Purposes
1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Production and Distribution of Writing
4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

Range of Writing
10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

Note: It's hard to put a price on great instructional materials, but we did! Each book in The Writer's Studio series is an affordable $11.

Wesley the Owl

2011-04-21T15:30:00.002-04:00

As I was walking through my local Barnes and Nobel bookstore, a small book with a fuzzy owl chick on the cover caught my eye. The book was Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl by Stacey O’Brien. I thought it was a children’s book (it’s not). As a joke, I showed the book to my son Ed, who is fascinated by owls. He bought the book and read it. As he was reading, he would often stop and read funny incidents to me. I just had to read the book myself.

Biologist, wildlife rescuer, and rehabilitation expert who specializes in owl research, Stacey O’Brien lives in California. When she acquired Wesley, a barn owl, as a four-day-old chick, Miss O’Brien worked at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the Owl Lab. She was asked to adopt him and raise him at home because he had nerve damage in one wing and would never be able to fly well enough to catch an adequate number of mice to support himself and a family in the wild.

Chapter 5: Flying Lessons is one of my favorites. The author describes Wesley’s comical early attempts at flying. She could not help laughing at his antics. She describes how Wesley was embarrassed by her laughter. When she tried to comfort him, he pushed her away with his wings, hissing at her under his breath, faced the wall, and refused to look at her. He would exhibit this behavior whenever anyone laughed at him. Miss O’Brien, fearing the Wesley would become depressed, forbid anyone from laughing at Wesley in his presence. Although she admits to rushing into the bathroom, closing the door, and bursting out in laughter.

There are many comical, heartwarming, and touching parts to Wesley’s story. I enjoyed this book so much I may break my rule about not rereading a book. If you love animals and birds in particular, I recommend this book to you. High school science teachers might also consider adding it to students' summer reading lists.

Spring Means It’s SCONYC

2011-04-19T16:31:00.004-04:00

Every year in early spring, science teachers, book publishers, and environmental organizations convene at Stuyvesant High School in NYC for the SCONYC (Science Council of New York City) conference. This year, SCONYC’s 34th annual conference took place on Saturday, April 2 and, as always, Amsco had a presence there. Our company had a table at which we displayed and discussed our science texts, and the science department staff attended various workshops.

Two of our own Amsco authors presented workshops at the conference from 8 to 9 A.M., which we attended. Midge attended the workshop called “Basic Skills,” which was presented by our Mastering Basic Skills in Science author, Donald Abramson. The author discussed techniques for helping students learn basic skills and facts in science, such as how to remember the six major elements that compose the tissues of the human body. Madalyn and I attended the “Marine Science: The New General Science” session, presented by our Marine Science: Marine Biology and Oceanography author Thomas Greene. He gave tips on how to prepare a marine science curriculum, explaining that it is interdisciplinary, combining topics from biology, chemistry, earth science, and physics. This makes marine science the perfect choice for either a general science course before a specific Regents science class or as an elective after one or more Regents science classes have been completed. The teachers in the workshop were interested in learning more about Greene’s curriculum and about our textbook.

At 9 A.M, all three of us attended the Keynote Address: “Forensics for All!” presented by the author of a Forensic Science textbook, Anthony “Bud” Bertino, who has over 40 years of teaching experience. Bertino emphasized that “techniques used in crime solving can model observational skills … for students” and that forensics “can also teach math, scientific principles, technology, manipulative skills, logical thinking and team-building” in classrooms of different grade levels. After this presentation, we joined other Amsco employees at our table, where we responded to teacher inquiries about our various science texts. There was a good amount of interest in our books, which is always nice to see! While there, we took the opportunity to get a look at other publishers’ books.

Science teachers examine Amsco science books.

We attended three more sessions after helping at the Amsco table. Madalyn attended the “NYSED Science Update,” presented by Joseph Selch of the NYSED, who discussed how national and state-level education reform will affect science education at all levels throughout the state. Midge attended the “Pollen Analysis Workshop” presented by Bud and Patti Bertino, in which they discussed how pollen can be used as an investigative tool in forensic analysis; they presented hands-on activities with pollen that teachers could then use with their own students. I attended the “Engaging Students in Biology Through Real-World Connections” workshop, given by Alan Ascher and Barbara Poseluzny. The purpose of this workshop was to show teachers how they can enhance the teaching of biology with hands-on activities that have real-world applications. One activity demonstrated how termites follow chemical trails, which was interesting to observe. The chemical trail was from the ink of a ball-point pen! Another activity concerned the spread of cholera in tropical regions, and how this related to local water supplies.

All in all, it was a productive day in which Amsco editors learned more about the world of science education, and science educators who came to our table learned more about the world of Amsco science publications!

Florida Reading FLASH!

2011-04-14T16:40:00.012-04:00

Think the Marlins will make the playoffs this season?

Maybe. But right now your goal is to pass the Florida Reading test.

Amsco’s Florida Reading Grade 6, Florida Reading Grade 7, and Florida Reading Grade 8 will help students review the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for Grades 6–8 English Language Arts. The student books, by authors Dana Henricks (6-8), Amy Himes (8), and Virginia Pake (8), include eight chapters that cover all the benchmarks assessed on the Florida Reading test. There's also a Practice Test modeled on the Florida Reading test right in the book (with more to be found in the Teacher's Guide with Answer Key and Test Bank).

Special Features

Benchmark indicators, which show which standards are covered in each chapter
Key Concepts, a study aid that highlights and reinforces important concepts covered in each chapter
Try It Out opportunities for guided practice (Practice makes perfect!)
On Your Own opportunities for independent practice (Go ahead, challenge me!)

The star (of Grades 6 and 7) is Florida Fred, a cartoon cat, who gives student-friendly test tips and multiple-choice question strategies. Oh, and a little bit of attitude. (Way to go, dude!)

Meow!

In all three books, one of the coolest chapters is Chapter Seven, “Now Featuring,” which sharpens students’ skills at reading text features (including boldface and italic text, quotation marks, and text boxes), and especially reading graphic text features such as line, bar, and pie charts. Students who master this will be on their way to acing the Florida Reading test. Across the series, a high-interest mix of informational and literary texts will engage Florida middle school students. Visual texts such as maps, diagrams, graphs, illustrations, and photos accompany the readings, preparing students for what they’ll encounter on the actual exam.

So, don’t let the Marlins’ antics distract you from the Florida Reading test. Whether or not they make the playoffs, you’ll still have to pass the test! See these brand-new books for yourself! Click the links to view virtual samples of Grade 6, Grade 7, and Grade 8.

Prepare for the ACT with Amsco!

2011-04-12T16:00:00.001-04:00

Are you planning to take the ACT? The next test date is June 11, 2011. Whether you’re planning to take the exam on this date, or any other time in the future, Amsco’s Preparing for the ACT: English, Reading & Writing can help you prepare for and score well on this important exam.

This book will help you prepare for the English and Reading sections on the ACT, as well as for the optional Writing Test. All of the topics covered on the English Test are reviewed, and you are also given numerous strategies for successfully completing the Reading Test. Each review section includes practice exercises, as well as guided and independent practice questions formatted in the ACT style. Answer explanations are provided for all of the review sections. The writing section includes sample essays with score explanations. The book also includes detailed information about test registration, score reporting, and test-taking/test-preparation tips.

Key Features

Time-management checklists and helpful test-taking strategies.
A Study Chart. This tells you exactly which topics you need to review and where you can find the appropriate instructional section in the book.
A thorough review of ACT English topics. These topics include sentence structure (e.g., run-ons, sentence fragments, modifiers), grammar and usage (e.g., verb tense, parallel form, comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs), punctuation (e.g., semicolons, apostrophe), and rhetorical skills (e.g., strategy, organization, style).
A thorough review of ACT Reading topics. These topics include using vocabulary context clues, finding the main idea in reading selections, and more. Also included is a step-by-step strategy to use when answering multiple-choice questions about reading selections.
Diagnostic Tests. A diagnostic test is included at the end of each section for you to evaluate your skill levels after you have reviewed the instructional material.
Three full-length Model English and Reading Tests modeled on the actual ACT.
Answer explanations. These are provided for all items in practice exercises, subtests, diagnostic tests, and practice tests. Explanations help you to understand why you got an answer wrong.
A writing section that will help you prepare for the optional ACT Writing Test. This section includes a detailed writing review that shows how to use the steps of the writing process to complete the timed writing task on the test. This section also includes a Diagnostic ACT Writing Test, and two practice ACT Writing Tests. Each test is followed by sample essays and scores.

These are just some of the many features that make this book a must have for any student preparing for the ACT. To learn more about this product, visit our Web site: http://amscopub.com. For additional updates from Amsco, follow us on Facebook.

Birds : Dodos :: SAT Questions : Analogies

2011-04-11T17:08:00.001-04:00

Was anyone else disappointed when the College Board eliminated analogy questions from the SAT? I know it’s been a while, but I’ve been lamenting their demise since their phase-out in the 2005 exams. It’s not the first time a breed of questions was jettisoned. In 1994, the Board stopped asking antonym questions in favor of other question types.

Analogies are powerful tools for arguments. Business author Jonathan Kantor explains, “The use of analogies … allows your target reader to grasp an unknown concept by using something that they already know.” This is powerful advice for advertisers. Someone who is adept at writing and understanding analogies is likely to be an effective communicator, a more informed consumer and citizen, a more critical thinker.

Being a solid thinker includes being able to construct, extend, and effectively use analogies, and it also includes the skill of recognizing flawed analogies. Adam Cohen wrote in a 2005 editorial published in the New York Times, “Obviously, every American should be able to write, and write well. But if forced to choose between a citizenry that can produce a good 25-minute writing sample or spot a bad analogy, we would be better off with a nation of analogists.”

Among the many other standardized tests that one may encounter are the GRE, the LSAT, which asks its takers to find analogous arguments, and the Miller Analogies Test. Some graduate schools, and even the high-IQ society Mensa, accept high Miller Analogies Test scores as evidence of an applicant’s cognitive capacity.

Certainly skills in analogies aren’t obsolete. The College Board decided that testing writing would provide an informative glimpse to college admissions officers of a student’s ability. While I understand that the SAT cannot possibly test every skill that could help a student succeed in college, I still miss them like a watchmaker misses the days before cell phones.

Just in Time for the Regents U.S. History and Government Exam

2011-04-08T15:40:00.001-04:00

For those of you who are planning to take the New York State Regents Exam in U.S. History and Government this June (or have students planning to do so), we have just the ticket. Just released last month, our New York State Regents Review: U.S. History and Government will help you review the material. Moreover, it will give you tips on how to take the test. Perhaps most important—it will give you practice taking the test.

What’s the Deal? Before going on, let me summarize the special features of the book:

· Student’s Study Guide in the front of the book provides you with proven test-taking strategies.

· Two recent U.S. History and Government Regents examinations bring up the rear (aka, the back of the book), so you can get practice taking real exams.

· In each Chapter Review, you will find multiple-choice questions from actual Regents exams from the recent past.

· Also in each Chapter Review, you can try answering essay questions and DBQs (Document-Based Questions) that mirror Regents questions. Since practice makes perfect, imagine how you will do (or your students will do) on the exam this June if you answer all the questions for all of the book’s 22 chapters!

· Each chapter opens up with a table of Documents, Laws, Events, People, and Groups discussed in that chapter. Look at this table to see if you need to review anything in it. If so, then read the chapter.

· Up-to-Date Content: the text covers content as recent as the “Lame Duck” session of Congress of December 2010.

· If you don’t want to carry this review text around with you, take instead the eBook version, which comes on CD bound into the book at no extra charge. Load it onto your laptop, iPad, or smart phone* and amaze your peers.

The Deal-Breaker. Run, don't walk to your phone or computer! All these score-enhancing features can be yours for only $16! Call (866) 902-6726, or click here to order online. Use Code # R302P. You won't regret it.

*There's an app for that. Try iBook or any PDF reader app.

Using Social Networks in the Classroom, Part 2

2011-04-06T17:33:00.000-04:00

I have a love-hate relationship with the book Reality Is Broken that I'm currently reading. On the one hand, the book takes everything that makes games so popular and tries to apply it to improving real-world problems. On the other hand, the target audience is the gaming industry, so all that's going to happen is that the video game companies will use the research to make more money.

But we can apply this research to make educational activities that run on social networks. Why? Because the game format is what students are used to. So, instead of forcing students to think differently, we might as well use game theory to create activities kids are actually interested in.

Here are five recommendations based on the research:

Use a compelling story for a backdrop or to tie the content matter together. The story should be engaging, capture the imagination, be epic. People love to have their curiosity piqued, their imaginations engaged, their minds challenged, and to feel that they are part of something bigger. For example, a tsunami hits our City. How can we use math to survive?
Use unnecessary obstacles. Instead of discouraging people, these types of challenges force us to be creative, which in turn makes us feel that what we are doing is "fun."
Use clearly defined and easy-to-understand rules and objectives. One of the most frustrating things is not knowing whether or not you are making progress (lack of feedback). Clear goals and rules allow us to quickly see whether or not we are on the right track.
Make failure fun. This one is counter-intuitive. In real life, we get depressed and unmotivated when we fail. What researchers discovered is that the strongest positive emotions are evoked when a gamer fails.¹ (That helps explain why some games are addictive.) Why? It's all about giving players the hope of succeeding—making them feel that success is right around the corner. That's really what we mean by "make failure fun."
Make it a social activity. Even the most introverted person longs for some type of social contact. The minimum social activity requires students to be in the same physical area as other people and nothing more. At the other extreme are activities that cannot be done alone (group work). In between are activities that require some type of face-to-face communication.

Let's apply these recommendations to math, for example. Why do some people love math and others end up hating it? In my case, (1) I found an intriguing story in the history of math—how a logician (whose name I can't remember now) tried and failed to turn math into a complex computer program. (2) Math is all about overcoming unnecessary obstacles. (3) The rules and objectives are all clearly defined. (4) Thanks to good teachers, I was always encouraged to persevere in math.

As educators, we already know that students frequently see math, science, etc. as "hard" (3). But we often take the other points for granted.

¹ Ravaja, Niklas, The Pscyhopysiology of Video Gaming: Phasic Emotional Responses to Game Events, Ghaning Views: World in Play. Digital Games Research Association, June 2005.

Introducing Latin Is Fun, Books I and II, Second Edition

2011-04-04T16:14:00.003-04:00

Why has enrollment in middle-and-secondary school Latin increased over the last two decades? Why has the number of students taking the National Latin Exam and the Latin AP Exams increased as well? Maybe students have realized that learning Latin helps them improve their vocabulary, reading and writing skills, comparative-analysis skills, and SAT scores; or maybe the popularity of the Harry Potter novels and movies—chock-full of Latin and classical references—has sparked interest in the language, especially among young fans.

If you are considering learning Latin, or you’re a Latin teacher looking for a straightforward and affordable text, check out Amsco’s new second editions of Latin Is Fun, Book I and Latin Is Fun, Book II. This series aims to provide students with a basal text that will help them learn basic communicative skills. Latin Is Fun presents a natural, personalized, and enjoyable program of language acquisition by teaching vocabulary through lively drawings and allowing students to discover grammatical rules deductively. Latin Is Fun also features short, fun narratives that illustrate new vocabulary and structures. The lessons are rounded out with illustrated conversations, personalized dialogue activities, and varied practice.

You can check out virtual samples of both books online by visiting www.amscopub.com, clicking “Virtual Sampling,” and scrolling to Latin Is Fun, Book I or II. (Or take a shortcut and click here for the samples: Book I, Book II.)

The Roman History of April Fool’s Day

2011-04-01T17:46:00.003-04:00

The Roman Quarter-ly

Unbeknownst to much of the world, a short article appeared last month in the Roman Quarterly Academic Journal; and the Roman historical documents community was shaken by a new discovery.

The authors of the article, two archeologists from a small private university in Finland, described their discovery. While digging in the basement of an old church in the heart of the city of Rome, in an effort to seek and map the pomerium, they found a letter.

The letter was allegedly discovered between two pieces of rock, cemented together by old-age material used to seal the stones that made the walls of the pomerium, built by King Servius Tullius. King Servius, known to have reigned during the Roman Kingdom from between 578 and 535 B.C., was a mighty king who accomplished major domestic advancements during his 44-year reign. He initiated the first census, and implemented a new constitution.

The letter, or more specifically, the pieces of the letter that are still legible, have been translated as this:

Dearest Servi,

I have never meant to hurt you. But I have to be honest to you, as honest as I can be. I never loved you, dear Servi. But I need to tell you the truth now, for it is not only you, but I too have been betrayed by the one I love. [...] I have been, for a very long time, in love with your son-in-law. He commissioned me to entertain you […] while he planned the takeover of your kingdom. But he used me too you see. [...] I know you will never forgive me but I must tell you this. Keep a watchful eye on the company you keep from now on, dear Servi, for they plan their attack in short time.

[…] never see me again.

Abrillia Diana

Chilling, isn’t it? It is a letter shrouded in mystery. And the mere fact that it was never found must have meant some very bad things for its intended reader.Historians knew details about the reign of King Servius, but never any specifics on the plot for his murder. But with this new information, the writers of the article have pieced together the story:

The goddess Diana

King Servius had a lover in the later years of his reign, a woman known as Diana, a palace woman of the harem.

Meanwhile, the king married his daughter, Tullia, to the young son of former King Priscus, Prince Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. The boy had a charming effect, and it is said he could make any maiden fall in love with him. Lucius, given his new status as king-to-be, was allowed access to the harem women.

Servius was taken with Diana; he even erected a temple in honor of her god-name. Lucius saw this devotion and, plotting a scheme, won Diana’s confidence. Historians originally believed that Lucius paid Diana to occupy the King’s time. The letter proves now that Lucius actually used her affections for him to trick her into entertaining the king, while he secretly plotted his ouster. The others of the king's court and inner circle knew of Diana, and knew her to be taking advantage of the poor old king, but were not sure of her final intentions. But the king, upon hearing these accusations of his lovely Diana, refused to listen, and continued to love her blindly. Servius let Diana out of the harem, and set her up in a small apartment in the confines of Rome; meanwhile getting her a reading tutor in the hopes of elevating her class status.

Where the letter was found is of significant importance: it is believed that this place in the wall was a meeting place of the two lovers. Servius, hoping to keep Diana a secret after hearing the disdain of his peers, would meet her there, away from spying eyes. Historians are speculating that Diana asked to meet Servius there the night she left the letter, to give him the news of his son-in-laws scheming plot; probably mere hours of learning the truth herself. Diana left this letter instead of waiting, probably fearing reproach and disbelief by the king. Unfortunately, the king never received the letter, it must have fallen too deep into the crevice between the rocks, where it stayed for centuries, cemented in during times of renovation to the wall.

Servius never received the letter, so he had no idea that his daughter, Tullia, had been convinced by her thieving husband Lucius to plot his murder. No one knows what happened to poor Diana. It is believed Servius was killed shortly after by the young couple, and Lucius became King of Rome.

Although April Fool's Day's beginnings have always been murky and shrouded with mystery, these historians and archeologists believe they have finally discovered its origins.Historians now believe that this must be the start of the holiday April Fool’s. They speculate that Lucius, after hearing talk by the king’s court of how Servius fell fool to that damsel Abrillia, founded Abrillia's fool day. He held day long festivals every spring in his honor; to celebrate the holiday people were to trick and fool each other in silly ways, to prove their superiority. From that time forward, early spring rains marked the start of the "Abrillia's Fool" holiday. And as Rome conquered an empire for the century following, this fool’s holiday spread. And as the calendar was named in the later times of the empire, and the month of April was appointed, people started associating April with this silly holiday that had begun almost a century before. Slowly but surely, the holiday stuck as a fool’s day, throughout the vast reaches of the Roman Empire.

Incredible, isn't it? Hard to believe. But if you do . . . April Fools! (Using a few real historical facts, I contrived this story. Want to hear about more April Fool's Day hoaxes? Click here, or here, or here. If you dare.)

Using Social Networks in the Classroom, Part 1

2011-03-31T16:51:00.005-04:00

According to the Pew Research Center, about 73% of teens use social networking sites. That makes sites like Facebook an untapped classroom tool.

So, how can we use Facebook in the classroom? We first need to see that a new type of narrative is emerging on the Internet. This "new" way of telling stories is

nonlinear
collaborative
immersive

Nonlinear means random and spontaneous. Not random in a haphazard way, e.g., posting whatever comes to mind (that will probably get you fired), but posting whatever comes to mind regarding the topic you are currently teaching.

Spontaneity leads to authenticity. Students want to see something "real." This can mean sharing your own struggles with mastering the material. For example,

When I was in high school, I couldn't understand symbolic logic.

Your posts should encourage student participation outside of the classroom. For example, in a lesson on percents, students can go to real stores (such as the local deli) and find items that are on sale. Students can leave their findings via comments. Just make sure that such extra-credit projects are exactly that—extra credit and not mandatory.

Seeing math, social studies, etc. in their own lives helps immerse students in the subject matter. You can further help immerse students by posting links to videos, autobiographies, news articles, etc., anything that directly relates to the subject matter at hand.

To conclude, I challenge you to take the plunge and post your first Facebook status (if you haven't already) for your class. Feel free to share ideas in the comments below.

Bibliography:

The Art of Immersion: Why Do We Tell Stories?, Frank Rose, http://wired.com

Space Weather: Who Cares?

2011-03-29T17:04:00.034-04:00

On October 25, 2006, NASA launched twin STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) spacecrafts. STEREO began sending back exceptional pictures of the sun and solar storms from the beginning of its mission. On Sunday, February 6, 2011, the two spacecrafts reached their positions 180° apart, aligned exactly opposite each other on either side of the sun. NASA showed the world the first 360° view of the sun.

I’ll admit that I’m a science geek, so I find this exciting. However, why should the average person be excited by this? Before I answer that question, let me ask a few more. Do you depend on GPS technology to get you from place to place? Do you listen to satellite radio or receive your television programming via a dish antenna rather than cable? How long could you go without your cell phone? Is electricity important to your wellbeing? You may feel like asking me what this has got to do with seeing the whole sun.

It has to do with sunspots and solar eruptions. To learn a little about sunspots see Stumbling into Cycle 24. In that post, I mentioned that during 2008, the sun was quiet with very few sunspots because sunspot cycle 23 was ending and cycle 24 was about to begin. Now, it’s 2011; cycle 24 is in gearing up and the number of sunspots and solar eruptions are increasing. So what, you may say. Sunspots and solar eruptions occur over the entire sun. Solar eruptions send streams of charges plasma particles into space. When the eruptions are aimed directly at Earth they can cause geomagnetic storms on Earth. Geomagnetic storms cause auroras, which can be really pretty.

Geomagnetic storms can also create problems for our gadget-loving society. Many of us depend on GPS devices, satellite-based entertainment, cell phones, and electricity. These devices can be disabled by severe geomagnetic storms. The power grid is vulnerable to damage from geomagnetic storms. The only way to protect the grid is to shut it down before the storm hits. That can mean hours without electricity. Ready for that? If the grid is not protected, it may be damaged which could mean being without electricity for months or years.

Before STEREO we could see only the sunspots on the side of the sun facing Earth. Scientists had no idea about what was happening on the other side of the sun. If there was a huge sunspot and solar eruption on the far side of the sun, scientists didn’t discover it until the rotation of the sun brought it around to face Earth. Now that astronomers can see the entire sun, they will be able to see sunspots that could affect Earth in a few days. This allows us time to take the necessary precautions and not be surprised when our gadgets don’t work for a while.

“Please don't panic," said Stephan Lechner, director of the European Commission Joint Research Center. “Overreaction will make the situation worse.”

My Beginning of Spring Celebration

2011-03-25T14:59:00.001-04:00

Back in my high school days and even in college, I was never good at any sports. In fact, I felt I was not born to do any type of athletic activity. I always felt awkward and somewhat embarrassed by my lack of physical coordination.

Everything changed about a year ago when I started running. I really don’t know how it happened, but nothing seem to stop me; okay, maybe an injury. At the end of last year, I ran my first half-marathon (13.1 miles) in Staten Island; after that, I decided to enter the lottery for the NYC Half-Marathon. I couldn’t have been more excited when I was accepted (37 thousand runners applied).

My friend Richard and I freezing before the race

Many believe this race, just like the ING New York City Marathon, IS New York City. You run the whole of Central Park with another 10 thousand runners, then through the heart of Times Square, where the streets are closed just for you. With all the lights and cheering, you just feel like a big star of a Broadway show. Then, you keep going all the way down to Battery Park, where you can catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

Runners going through Times Square

There is nothing more NYC than this race. You see the city and the park. You run with amazing views. You run after some of the biggest stars in the sport. And you see them up close; they will run a few feet from you at some point. You tear up a little. After some effort, you make it to the finish line. And if you make it there, you can make it anywhere. You get downtown, steps from Ground Zero, and you get a big medal. That's it. You're IT.

Finish line in downtown Manhattan

The Creole Choir of Cuba

2011-03-24T11:55:00.002-04:00

As part of the ¡Si Cuba! arts festival, the Creole Choir of Cuba will perform at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in early June. As an avid fan and student of Cuban and Haitian music, I’m absolutely thrilled about this upcoming performance. As both an educator and advocate of integrating the arts and cultural history into the classroom, I can’t help making connections between the Creole Choir of Cuba and social studies topics such as slavery, colonialism, Latin American history, the Haitian Revolution, Christopher Columbus, the Tainos, or “The New World,” in general.

To begin a class, unit, or project by playing the Creole Choir’s song “Kadja Boswa” opens up many points of historical inquiry that students could investigate to understand colonization and slavery in the Americas from multiple perspectives. After the song is over, you could ask the class, “Why is a modern musical group in the Spanish speaking country of Cuba singing a song in French Creole to honor a West African spirit (Kadja) and their ancestors from a country with an Arawak (Ayiti or Haiti) word for its name?”

This type of question with multiple connections could lead students down different paths of research, potentially culminating in all types of projects, presentations, or research papers. For instance, some students might just investigate the explorations of Christopher Columbus and Spanish colonization in the Americas. Another student might want to understand how French Creole is different from French. This could lead to research that would unravel the details of French colonization in the Caribbean, the purposeful educational disempowerment of slaves in the colonies, and the eventual usage of “Kreyol” as a means of empowering Haitians to have pride in their own culture.

Another student might follow the path of researching West Africa and the spirit Kadja. This might lead to content on the Kingdom of Dahomey (now Southern Benin), the early colonial outposts in West Africa, the beginnings of the slave trade, and the eventual colonization of Africa. It could also lead students to research the preservation of African traditions in the Caribbean, as well as the “black codes” imposed on the slaves that banned certain religious, linguistic, and traditional practices as a means of oppression.

Haiti

Of course, another student’s interest might be piqued by learning that Ayiti or Haiti is the Arawak word for mountains or mountainous. This student’s research might lead them to learn about Christopher Columbus and the early colonization of “Hispaniola,” which was actually called Quisqueya (“great land”) by the Tainos. A more positive twist would be for the student to research the culture and history of the Tainos, rather than just their colonization and demise. The possibilities are endless.

There are many other topics of interest that could be generated by introducing students to the Creole Choir of Cuba. The short answer to my initial long question is that the members of this choir are descendants (the original name of the group is Desandann) of Haitian slaves and immigrants. The first wave of French and Afro Haitians arrived in Cuba during and after the Haitian revolution, as many colonists fled to Cuba with their slaves. Since then, the difficult social, political, and economic conditions in Haiti have led to additional Haitian migration to Cuba. Kadja is a West African spirit who is honored in Haitian religious ceremonies and daily life. The tradition of honoring Kadja has been preserved in Haiti and by Haitians in Cuba. Finally, the name given to Haiti by its first residents was preserved. This choice might have been directly influenced by Tainos living at the time, or by newly freed slaves who wanted to honor the people who helped them escape and survive in the mountains before the revolution.

Of course, this type of student-centered and project-based learning might not fit into more traditional school settings that have a very specific curriculum or testing mandate. In this instance, at the very least, introduce your students to the ¡Si Cuba! festival, and some of the other cultural events that will abound as the weather warms and festivals kick off around New York. What better way for students to begin making meaningful connections to the content they learn in the classroom.

Pearl Buck in China

2011-03-21T11:25:00.003-04:00

As this is women’s history month, I want to draw attention to the contributions of Pearl Buck, an American author much read during her lifetime but largely forgotten in recent decades. I found reading one of her biographies, Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earth, by Hilary Spurling, very worthwhile.

An Unbelievably Interesting Life. Born in 1892 in America as Pearl Sydenstricker, she spent most of her childhood in

China

because her parents were Christian missionaries there. As a little girl, she played with Chinese peasant children and was more fluent in Chinese than in English. She loved to attend Chinese funerals because there was always a party afterward where she could eat treats and listen to the other guests talk and have fun. She spent much time with her Chinese nurse, hearing traditional Chinese stories as well as village gossip. She liked to overhear conversations among poor Chinese women complaining about their hard lives and how they were mistreated by men.

Pearl learned at an early age about foot-binding and female infanticide. She worried that she would never be married because her feet were not bound. Frequently, the young Pearl found human bones on the ground, the residue of dead female infants left outside for the dogs. She would gather their bones, sticking some in existing graves and digging small graves for the others. The Chinese neighbors thought that she was crazy for doing that.

The Good Earth, published in 1934, set Pearl Buck’s reputation and financial security for life. It became an enormously popular book in America, in China, and elsewhere. It was a Book of the Month Club selection. It was made into a popular movie. Buck won a Pulitzer (1932) and a Nobel Prize (1938). She is one of only two American women to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. (Do you know who the other is?) Buck became an outspoken commentator on all things Chinese and a critic of American missionaries in China.

Millions of people read her works, yet she gained many enemies. The Nationalist Chinese government (and later the Communist Chinese government) condemned her writings for exposing the underbelly of Chinese life—the bandits, the concubines, infanticide, and more. The literary establishment in America considered her writing to be too plain and old-fashioned. Now, though, Buck’s reputation is experiencing a renaissance. Readers are recognizing the she was the first person to write about the rural peasants in China in a realistic manner, exploring their lives in depth. It was because of her writings that Americans gained a truer idea of what life was like in China, beyond the stereotypes.

The Good Earth. Set in the 1910s and 1920s after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, The Good Earth is written in the style of popular Chinese novels of the 14th to 17th centuries. Indeed, Buck composed the book in her head in the Chinese vernacular, then rendered it into stylized English. Thus to Westerners, the writing style of the book seems more formal, almost Biblical. But Chinese scholars have noted that her locutions are really English translations of Chinese terms and grammatical structures. Like the popular Chinese novels, the trilogy of which The Good Earth is Part I spans generations and takes place over vast stretches of territory.

Buck wrote about matters in

China

that she knew well. In the novel, the farmers are hit by a devastating drought that forces the main character, Wang Lung, and his family to abandon their farm and go south, to a city where they find free food and jobs. The Bucks, while living in a city in

China

, experienced such an influx of starving Chinese from the north trying to survive by moving south.

The farmers in The Good Earth regularly (about every seven years) experience floods that wipe out their crops. In 1931, the Bucks experienced the worst flooding of the Yangtze River in 100 years. It was so bad that Pearl could not make it to the funeral of her father.

Navigating a Yangtze flood

The Wangs in the novel several times encounter bands of soldiers belonging to war lords. These soldiers rape women and kidnap men in order to force them to become soldiers themselves. The Bucks were living in the city of Nanjing when a band of soldiers of a Northern warlord arrived, killing foreigners and robbing their houses. Were it not for Chinese neighbors taking them in and hiding them, the Bucks may have been killed too.

Her Legacy. Another “

China

hand,” Helen Foster Snow, commented on the legacy of The Good Earth, “I was surprised to find how the young Chinese intellectuals hated it.... Also, the missionaries disliked it.” (Interview by Nora Stirling, August, 1977, NS Collection, Lipscomb Library, Randolph College Archives.) Yet the book was immensely popular, so popular in the United States, in China, and around the world that it has sold millions of copies. Pearl Buck’s work is experiencing the renaissance that it deserves.

Antiquity Corner: Who Was St. Patrick?

2011-03-17T10:21:00.001-04:00

Statue of St. Patrick in Connemara, Ireland

March 17 is the feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. It is a national holiday in that country and is celebrated around the world wherever there are people of Irish descent. The celebrations are in honor of the missionary who brought Christianity to 5th-century Ireland. For many who are Irish, or of Irish descent, this day is about so much more than religion. It is a joyous immersion in all things Irish—music and dance, food and drink, literature and the performing arts, and the wearing of the green. It is always “a great day for the Irish” and for many who are not Irish. New York City’s traditional St. Patrick’s Day Parade up Fifth Avenue includes the city’s famed Fighting 69th Infantry Regiment, which began its long service during the Civil War, when it was formed as Corcoran’s Irish Brigade, and served in every war up to the present Iraq campaign. Regardless of ethnicity, the soldiers march to the music of "Garryowen," the regimental song, and share pride in the unit’s origin and history.

Irish step dancers

But who was St. Patrick and how did he convert to Christianity an entire country? His story began on the western coast of the Roman province of Britannia around 389 A.D. Born into a Romano-British family, it is believed that his full name was Patricius Magonus Sucatus. His father was a Christian deacon and his grandfather a priest. At that time, Christian clergy were not bound by the rule of celibacy. In his autobiography, which Patrick called his “Confession,” he tells us that as a boy he was not religious. At the age of sixteen, Patrick and some others were kidnapped by raiders from across the Irish Sea. The British captives were taken to Ireland where they were made slaves. Patrick was sold to an Irish chieftain and was put to work as a shepherd. For six years, the boy tended his flocks outdoors and alone for long periods of time. Lonely and afraid, Patrick turned to the Christian religion of his native Britain. He tells us that he prayed constantly, saying as many as a hundred prayers a day and nearly that many at night. Each morning, in snow and frost and rain, he woke up to prayer, “because then my spirit was fervent within”. It is believed that at this time, Patrick began to dream of converting his captors to Christianity.

According to his writing, Patrick eventually heard a voice telling him to escape from Ireland. He believed that what he heard was the voice of God. To obey the voice, Patrick walked nearly 200 miles from County Mayo, where it is believed he was held, to the Irish coast. There he found a ship about to sail. At first, the captain refused to take Patrick aboard. Patrick prayed silently and then the sailors called him back. After three days at sea, they reached an uninhabited tract of land where food was scarce. It may have been in Britain or in Gaul (France). Faced with starvation, the seamen asked Patrick to pray to his God for them. He did so and a herd of pigs appeared. The sailors killed many of them and were saved. With plenty of food, they continued their journey. Eventually, Patrick was restored to his family.

Although there is no certainty as to the order of events which followed, Patrick began to prepare for his life as a missionary by spending many years at monasteries in Gaul, where he was educated and eventually ordained as a priest. In 432 A.D., there were some scattered Christian communities in Ireland. When Bishop Palladius, who had been sent to combat heresy in Britain and Ireland, was killed by the Scots in north Britain, Bishop Germanus of Auxerre recommended Patrick as his replacement. Pope Celestine I agreed and Patrick returned to Ireland. He began his work in Ulster, where he had been a slave. He set out to gain the support of the powerful King Laeghaire, who held court at Tara. There are stories of great trials of skill and strength, with Patrick prevailing over the druids who opposed him. As a result, Patrick gained royal permission for his teaching. Subsequently, many were converted to Christianity and a monastic center was established in Ulster. Although King Laeghaire did not become a Christian, his chief bard, two daughters and a brother were converted and Patrick was given lands upon which to build. Although opposed by the druids (bards, historians, teachers, doctors, judges, and councilors to kings), Patrick gained the support of many powerful chieftains and his work proceeded well despite many dangers and hardships. He made many converts and is said to have founded more than 300 churches and baptized more than 120,000 people. Patrick preached in Ireland until his death around 461 A.D.

Patrick was intensely spiritual and had a great talent for organization. He brought Ireland into much greater contact with Britain and Europe and with the Papacy. The strengthening of the weak Christian communities that he found on arrival and the establishment of new ones in so many regions gave him his place as the patron of Ireland. There are many stories about Patrick. Among them is the tale that he charmed the snakes of Ireland off the land and into the sea where they drowned. Another is that he used a three leaf shamrock to illustrate the idea of the Holy Trinity. As a result, the shamrock became the traditional symbol of Ireland.
The first St. Patrick’s Day parade in the United States was held in Boston in 1737. More than 100 cities continue to hold such parades. New York City has the largest.

St. Patrick's Day Parade, Dublin

Biotechnology in the News and at Amsco

2011-03-16T17:14:00.002-04:00

“U.S. Approves Genetically Modified Alfalfa”

“A New Role for Stem Cells”

“Farmers Growing More Genetically Engineered Crops”

“GM Crops Continue Spread, Passing Billion Hectares”

“Ugandan Scientists Grow GM Banana”

These are just some of the recent headlines that show the increased importance of biotechnology in our everyday lives. These are controversial issues--not everyone is comfortable with the use of stem cells, the planting of genetically modified crops, and other uses of biotechnology. For example, some people worry about the possible impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on regular and organic crops. But that does not stop the technologies from advancing and affecting our lives. In fact, according to one of these articles, “biotech crops now cover 10% of the world’s farmland,” whereas just 15 years ago there were none.

Genetically modified sunflowers

It is important for young people to be aware of such recent trends and innovations; so, not surprisingly, new courses are being taught that cover topics in biotechnology. That’s why Amsco has just published a new book called Biotechnology: With Student Activities, by Laura M. Johnson. (Click the link to see an online sample of the book.) Written primarily for the middle-school audience, this book tells the history of biotechnology and explores the many current issues and advances in the field. To engage students in learning these topics, there are numerous activities within each of the chapters.

Outstanding Features of Biotechnology: With Student Activities

The book contains six chapters, each comprised of several numbered Lessons followed by one Student Mini-Lab, one Graphing Skills exercise, one Student Activity; completed by a Chapter Review section comprising questions and a vocabulary crossword puzzle. A CD edition of the text is bound in each book; students can use it on a computer and print out the activities at home or in school.

The author is an experienced teacher who developed the book for her own course.
Activities are “student tested”; many can be used with students of differing abilities.
Student Mini-Labs engage students in investigations that require inquiry skills and critical thinking.
Graphing Skills exercises enhance comprehension of the material.
Student Activities extend the information, challenging students to be creative and gain a deeper understanding of the material.
Chapter Review sections reinforce facts and concepts in a variety of question formats, such as true-false, multiple choice, and short answer.
The Vocabulary Crossword puzzle in each Chapter Review includes every boldfaced vocabulary term covered in that chapter.
Abundant photographs, diagrams, and tables illustrate concepts in biotechnology.
A complete Glossary defines all boldfaced vocabulary terms used in the text.

The text is engaging and the activities are fun. We hope this book helps young people enjoy learning about the new possibilities within the world of biotechnology.

The Unique Economic System of Japan

2011-03-15T12:46:00.004-04:00

Nikkei 225 Stock Index Board

When I was in school, I always had trouble understanding the time line of history. It wasn’t until college that I could piece together time lines between nations and continents. You know how I did it? I looked at economies, how industries developed, what a nation traded, and with whom it was trading. A developing time line, say from farm to industry, helps me understand not only the evolution of a nation’s history, but also its situation today.

Often, in secondary education, economics and economic systems are taught separately from history, civics, and current affairs. Yet, concepts in economics can sometimes best explain a nation’s moment in history, the reason the nation has the alliances it does, and the type of government structure that exists in it. Economic systems can be a good way to introduce history, politics, dissect current affairs, and even play around with predicting future outcomes in a fun, discussion-oriented class setting.

Tsunami damage in Japan

This week, consider Japan. Given the natural disasters that are in the news, maybe a glimpse into Japan’s economic history can help students connect the current events of today with the country and people involved. This might be a good way to bring some background to the news article you read for class, or just as added interest-inspiring material.
Since 1990, Japan’s economy has been rather stagnant. Slow growth, coupled with a low birth rate meant the recession of 2008 was a double blow to the just-recovering economy. The Japanese were probably pretty fed up. Which could be a reason why since 2000, Japan has had seven prime ministers, some staying in power for mere months before being ousted and replaced by someone else. Someone who, people hoped, could reinvigorate the economy.

So, what does Japan’s economy look like? They are capitalist, right? The answer, is yes. And no. Why? They have a market system (definition of capitalism), but a kind that is unseen anywhere else in the world.

During the occupation of Japan after WWII, The allied powers attempted to dissolve the old-family business structure prevalent in Japan, and create a more recognizable “free enterprise system.” General Douglas MacArthur was in charge of the dissolution, and was almost successful in breaking apart these zaibatsu (family-controlled monopolies). What happened, however, was that the newly formed companies ended up later reintegrating. These detached companies became reconnected, through a formulation of shared purchases, to form what are known as kieretsu.

Keiretsu is a traditional Japanese word for “alliance,” and can be defined as: one of the connective relationships among companies; a connective relationship between a large company and a small or medium-sized company that is a subcontractor of it; or a vertical or horizontal relationship between a “family” of companies.

Each keiretsu is centered around a bank, which lends money to each member company, and also owns shares in the companies. The bank performs as a monitor of company activity, and as the bail-out solution to any company in trouble. Keiretsu companies purchase and sell goods from each other, and are often each other’s only suppliers. For example, the oil company sells to the plastics and rubber companies, which sell to the car company, etc. The businesses also typically held large portions of each other’s equity in shares.

Keiretsu model: interlocking alliance

In Japan, the government originally was heavily involved in determining how resources were allocated to these business associations. After WWII and this restructuring, it was formal government policy to maintain and promote this system of corporate growth, in an effort to protect against increased competition from world imports.

The keiretsu model has lost some of its rigid structure in the past two decades, due to the long stagnation of the economy (low growth coupled with low employment growth). Furthermore, the effects of globalization required a different corporate governance.

That is a small introduction to the unique economic system of Japan. Not only is this system fascinating, but it gives a background to Japan, insight into its political system post-WWII, and it can even spark class discussion about the future of Japan, after the recent natural disaster and its aftermath. It is also something that impacts our daily lives. Some questions for discussion are: “Given Japan’s current economy, do you think this natural disaster will be dealt with in a timely manner? Does Japan have the resources to recover? What are other nations doing to help Japan? Will this hurt or help their selling of products abroad? How long might it take until their economy can run at its regular levels again? Will businesses falter in the financial sector as well? Why?”

Economics can help teach history, current affairs, political science, and even cultural awareness. What else can economics explain? Leave your comments below!