The Fantastic Sky Race

We've done so much art viewing in the last few days that it is going to take more than one blog post to catch up with it all!  But let's start with the most monumental piece of them all -- a 60-foot-by-21-foot piece entitled The Fantastic Sky Race.

The Fantastic Sky Race is actually 15 separate 21-foot-long banners that are adorning the sides of a concrete parking deck in downtown Raleigh (at Davie, McDowell, and Cabarrus streets, for you locals).

It was created by three young artists from the Design Program at NC State University, who won a contest run by the University and Empire Properties (the owners of the parking deck) to find a more attractive facade to the structure than the plain concrete it had for two years (originally, it was to abut other buildings so that it wouldn't be seen, but the other building plans were put on hold due to the poor economic conditions).

Here are the three artists, who have named themselves The Balloon Boys, and who had to devote tremendous hours to completing this work on top of their normal course load and part-time jobs:

In the banner, all sorts of man-made contraptions and fantastical animals are flying through the skies above varied environments, from coastal or aquatic settings through arboreal climates, over icy tundras and warm-colored deserts.   However, also hidden amongst the drawing are at least a dozen references to the Triangle area and/or North Carolina.  For example, see if you can spot the distinctive Raleigh landmark in the details of this picture (you can click on the picture to enlarge it):

To get a better idea of the piece, watch this movie about the project from NCSU:



Wake County students will be hearing lots more about this project, because the County Library system is going to be doing programming around this imaginative theme for the next two years.  Look for announcements about art and poetry contests and presentations by the artists, which should be coming soon from our local libraries!

Curriculum Resource: Terminal Velocity Curriculum

The researchers at The Jason Project are working on a new curriculum entitled Terminal Velocity.   While the ultimate goal is to investigate the major forces in our universe, the only unit they have completed so far is A Universe of Motion:  Motion, Velocity, and Momentum.  This section looks at the concepts in the title, particularly through the use of test crash dummies to determine vehicular safety.

While I haven't tried this curriculum myself, because that is not what we are doing in science these days, I have done a number of the other The Jason Project curricula and found them all to be useful.  So if you have a middle school who is interested in cars, racing, crash safety, and the like--or if you are studying velocity and momentum--I would check out this FREE online curriculum

Matt Damon's Pep Talk for Teachers (and Parents)

Everyone may have already seen Matt Damon's keynote speech at this weekend's Save Our Schools rally.  If you haven't heard about Save Our Schools, it was a rally held last weekend in Washington DC to show support for public schools and to protest the extensive use of high-stakes standardized testing to evaluate both students and teacher on its performance.  Although it drew some of the biggest names in the alternative education reform camp (that is, the Diane Ravitches and Alfie Kohns, not the Bill Gates and Michelle Rhees), unfortunately, it tended to be overshadowed by all the drama on Capitol Hill about the debt ceiling increase.

Matt Damon flew overnight from Vancouver, where he is filming his latest movie (hence the bald head) to give his support to the cause and to speak out against the overuse of standardized testing.  But even more, he spoke of his appreciation for teachers, and let them know how grateful people are for the tough but invaluable work they do.  He was introduced by his mother, who was, and maybe still is, a school teacher.  And he did was is really the ultimate reward that those of us who teach, or those of us who parent, fantasize about.  He acknowledged that an important part of who he has become and the success that he has achieved has come from the support and education he received from his teachers and his parenting (he does mention the last one specifically as well).  He said he knew it wasn't always easy, and he was thankful.

So I think this is a great video to have on hand for those days when teaching, or being a mom or dad, just seems really frustrating and thankless work.  Our students or children may not be able to communicate this feeling, but I'm sure they would if they could.  And it also reminds us that maybe we ought to take time to thank our own parents and teachers for the difference they have made in our lives.

You can watch Matt's mother's introduction, and then Matt's talk here:

History of the Internet

For today's middle schoolers, there has always been an Internet and World Wide Web, Macintosh computers and Windows software, Google and Wikipedia.  But most of us teachers can remember when that wasn't so...

The following is a video from 1969, which was the last year of the original TV series, Star Trek, envisioned the connected computer network of the future (albeit in gratingly sexist ways):


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Almost 25 years later, Star Trek was still on...except by now, it was Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine.  The Internet was a reality by this point, but was so primitive compared to what our children can even imagine, as shown by this 1993 video:




I think it is great for our kids to see how far computer networking has come in a relatively short time... or, if nothing else, to recognize that distinctive connection noise that those of us using the Internet in the 1990's will never forget...

Curriculum Resource: IMF International Economics Games

Perhaps it is all this focus on the debt ceiling debate, but our homeschool group has been abuzz about economics education discussions and resources lately.  But when I heard about these two online games by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), I knew I had to post them, seeing as I have not just one, but TWO people in my immediate family who have served as the US Executive Director to the IMF!

The IMF has an educational section on its website with curriculum guides for middle school and high school teachers, and some online games for middle school and high school students.  The first game for the middle schoolers is called Where in the World & What in the World is Money?  In this game, students use a time machine to visit cultures around the world at different times in Earth's history, and discover that the units of exchange have varied greatly over time and space.  The other game for this age group is Trading Around the World, which is a little more involved than the first one.  Students choose to play a role based on a trader from different continents across the world.  They your trader goes about trying to sell his/her goods at the best prices, while buying other things at the biggest bargains.  Sometimes the desired trades are blocked by trade barriers, which helps students understand why international organizations like the IMF exist to keep trade flowing.

If you have a high schooler, or an advanced middle schooler, you could also check out the Money Mania game.  It is a quiz on macroeconomics, set as a game show format.  You pick your character, who is competing against a typical uninformed high school student and a college economics major.  But it isn't easy!  In the beginning, I was getting trounced by the college econ major.  But then they asked some questions about policies that my father spent most of his early career working on....so shame on me if I didn't get those right!  Then, at the end, they asked four questions specifically about the IMF itself, all of which, fortunately, I got right (did I mention TWO of my family helped run the IMF?).  But even with those advantages, I ended up tying with the college student.  So I don't know how well most higher schoolers would do, let alone middle schoolers.

Still, these are fun ways to help explain why it might matter whether or not the US defaults on its international loans, and some other aspects of international economics.

Ramadan Mubarak, or Happy Ramadan

Today is the first day of Ramadan, the month-long spiritual observation that is the most sacred practice in the Islamic calendar.  For the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn until sunset, as well as spending more time in prayer and spiritual reflection, increase their good deeds for others, and pay a percentage of their income to support other Muslims in need.

Since we are studying Islam right now in our World Religion class, we spent last week's lesson on Ramadan.  In our class, at least, it has been easier for the students to appreciate the spiritual power behind the often once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca that the annual observation of Ramadan.  Maybe because the class was primarily boys--middle school boys who seem to be eating all the time--, they just couldn't seem to get why anyone would volunteer to give up eating during the day.  We discussed the many spiritual reasons for fasting, and also talked about other religious practices around fasting or abstinence from certain foods or activities, but they were still dubious about the whole thing.

However, for Muslim children around this age, getting to fast is a really big deal.  Children are not required to fast until around puberty.  However, when they are officially ushered into the population who are supposed to fast, it represents their admittance into the full-fledged or adult community of Islam, sort of like a bar mitzvah does for Jewish adolescents.  So as much as our students don't understand it, being required to fast is something that Muslim middle schoolers really look forward to.

We did do a couple of other things that they liked better than the idea of fasting.  They tried some dates, which is the traditional food to eat first to end the daily fast during Ramadan, which some of them liked better than others.  And because Ramadan is supposed to be a joyous and celebratory time, as well as a highly spiritual one (or maybe, because of being such a spiritual time), families often decorate their houses for the month.

One of the decorations often displayed is a special lantern named a Fanoos or Fanous.  There seems to be lots of different stories behind this tradition that disagree pretty dramatically, so I'm not going to try to give a historical explanation for their connection to Ramadan.  But homes display them during this season, so we made some paper versions and hung them up in our class room.

In a land where we have so much, and in a time where we are so driven to focus on the new and the material, I think it is great to expose our students to the idea that there might be value in voluntarily giving us some of what commands our attention the most in our everyday lives, at least for a little while.  So I don't think you need to be Muslim to be able to learn a great lesson from Ramadan.

Happy Birthday Harry Potter!

The books may be done, and the last movie may have been released, but we will still be celebrating Harry Potter for years to come!  Because his birthday is supposed to be July 31, it seemed that an observation of that occasion was in order.

We incorporated it into our science coop by fixing a Harry Potter meal and by continuing our work on Harry Potter genetics (which we started last week when we bred dragons). We started on our assignment, but all went home to re-read the books to fill in some of the question marks in our investigation, which I will describe in more detail in a future post when we have figured it out better.

However, in honor of Harry's birthday, we also did some cooking.  First, we made our version of Cornish pasties, which are mentioned several times in the book, since they are a traditional English dish.

To make things even more festive, we washed our pasties down with the famous Harry Potter Butterbeer.  There are lots of recipes for Butterbeer around, especially since the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, FL, opened and started serving them cold.  But the recipe I've always been inspired by was vanilla ice cream, laced with a caramel/butterscotch/butter brickle add-in, added to a warm mug of either boiled apple cider (enhanced with soda water if it was not of the effervescent variety itself) or heated  cream soda.


Either way, the dish is a lovely drink.  We started by making the caramel,  then adding it to vanilla ice cream to liven things up.  

A scoop of the icream then goes into heated (or not) cream soda or apple cider.

It makes a lovely frothy birthday treat.

We made that meal on Friday with our Science Coop, but the actual date is Sunday, July 31.  We had some left-over butterbeer ice cream, so we used that to make another treat.

We made some Ginger Newts (the cookie or "biscuit" in Professor McGonagall's office in HP and the Order of the Phoenix, I believe...), and then layered them with some of the extra butterbeer ice cream.

It made a treat worthy of the birthdate of everyone's favorite wizard!