Learning
A Polar Hurricane or Cyclone; The Vortex Explained By A Climate Thinker
What's a Polar Vortex? Want to know more about the frigid blast of air that's been sweeping the country this week? Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology offers a two minute explanation well illustrated. more »
Selfie, Science and Twerk: The English and American Premier Dictionaries Reveal Their Word of the Year Lists
The Selfie word popularity has resulted in the creation of related showcasing particular parts of the body like helfie (a photo of one’s hair) and belfie (a photo of one’s posterior); an activity – welfie (workout selfie) and drelfie (drunken selfie), and even items of furniture – shelfie and bookshelfie. The Merriam-Webster results show that words that prompted the most increased interest in 2013 were not new words or words used in headlines, but rather they were the words behind the stories in this year's news.
SPRINGFIELD, MASS., December 3, 2013—Merriam-Webster Inc., America's leading dictionary publisher, has announced its top ten Words of the Year for 2013. This year's list was compiled by analyzing the top lookups in the onli… more »
Culture Watch Book Reviews: The Smartest Kids in the World & Shut Up, You're Welcome
Amanda Ripley gives us a detailed, separate report on the experiences of each American child she followed who had studied abroad, including each one’s "take" on what made school in those countries so successful. The youngster’s comparisons are forthright and fascinating. So are Ms. Ripley’s conclusions and descriptions in The Smartest Kids in the World. Annie Choi’s wit is pointed but not savage. She uses humor in Shut Up You’re Welcome to underscore the essential, sustained importance of family, the collective umbilical cord that binds. more »
The Scout Report This Week, Research, Education and the "Front Porch of the Lowcountry"
We've reproduced the entire Scout Report for this week. It includes, among others, the links and description of Clemson Cooperative Extension; Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap); Getty Research Journal; Engineering in the Modern World,Research and Education; Vicos: A Virtual Tour (Peru); Modeling And Simulation Tools For Education Reform; Willard E. Worden's San Francisco & Berkeley; PBS Learning Media; Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, and the Civil War: A Collection of Digitized Books; Before and After the Fire: Chicago in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s. more »
