A UK High Court judge has rejected a lawsuit by political activist Stuart Dimmock to ban the showing of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in British schools. Justice Burton agreed that
“Al Gore’s presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate.”
There were nine points where Burton decided that AIT differed from the IPCC and that this should be addressed in the Guidance Notes for teachers to be sent out with the movie.
Unfortunately a gaggle of useless journalists have misreported this decision as one that AIT contained nine scientific errors.
Got that? The British Court said Gore is right.
I’ll bet I’ve seen that case cited a half dozen times today, with claims that Gore’s film is generally wrong.
Tim’s detail on the case, and the nine allegations of “error” (scare quotes from the judge in the original opinion) should be read by anyone following the climate change debates. I doubt that any Gore critics will read, nor, just to be nasty, that many of them can.
This is another political hoax in the making. Bad reporting, caused largely because the news of the case hit as the announcement of Gore’s Nobel Prize win crossed the news wires, makes Gore a target for the denialist and right-wing spin machines. Though their charges are inaccurate, they will make the charges, and repeat them endlessly. Buckle up — it’s going to be a bumpy night.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
What’s one big difference between education and business? Communication, especially electronic communication. Businesses have too much of it, many if not most educational organizations are a decade behind that curve, not yet having enough.
My first experience with e-mail was at the U.S. Department of Education — good heavens! — two decades ago. We were experimenting with electronic communication with the old, slow systems that linked dumb terminals through telephone connections (1200 BAUD, anyone?). Our formerly technophobic boss, Checker Finn, was at home recuperating from some physical ailment, and we made the delightful mistake of showing him he could send and receive messages by computer. Within a few weeks it took at least an hour a day to keep up with the messages. But our operations were split, with administration across town at the main ED building, and most of the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) closer to the Capitol, at New Jersey Avenue, NE. Basic communications that had taken three days by inside mail, courier, and the limousine between the two buildings, were shortened to exchanges over 15 or 20 minutes. Computer messaging was a huge boost to productivity on most things. E-mail, such as it was, had to be printed out to be read. Saving it was a manual filing process.
Teachers looking for good interactive graphics on human migration in prehistoric times should take a look at the website of Australia’s Bradshaw Foundation. The map requires an Adobe Flash player, and I cannot embed it here — but go take a look, here. “The Journey of Man” seems tailor made for classroom use, if you have a live internet connection and a projector.
Ancient art is the chief focus of the foundation.
Examples of some of the most famous cave and rock paintings populate the site, along with many lesser known creations — the eponymous paintings, the Bradshaw group, generally disappear from U.S. versions of world history texts. The Bradshaw Foundation website explains:
The Bradshaw Paintings are incredibly sophisticated, as you will see from the 32 pictures in the Paintings Section, yet they are not recent creations but originate from an unknown past period which some suggest could have been 50,000 years ago. This art form was first recorded by Joseph Bradshaw in 1891, when he was lost on an Kimberley expedition in the north west of Australia. Dr. Andreas Lommel stated on his expedition to the Kimberleys in 1955 that the rock art he referred to as the Bradshaw Paintings may well predate the present Australian Aborigines.
This ancient art carries a story that should intrigue even junior high school students, and it offers examples of archaeological techniques that are critical to determining the ages of undated art in the wild:
According to legend, they were made by birds. It was said that these birds pecked the rocks until their beaks bled, and then created these fine paintings by using a tail feather and their own blood. This art is of such antiquity that no pigment remains on the rock surface, it is impossible to use carbon dating technology. The composition of the original paints cant be determined, and whatever pigments were used have been locked into the rock itself as shades of Mulberry red, and have become impervious to the elements.
Fortuitously, in 1996 Grahame Walsh discovered a Bradshaw Painting partly covered by a fossilised Mud Wasp nest, which scientists have removed and analysed using a new technique of dating, determining it to be 17,000 + years old.
Texas history and geography teachers should note the Bradshaw Foundation’s work on prehistorica art in the Pecos River Valley: “Pecos Experience: Art and archeaology in the lower Pecos.” There is much more here than is found in most Texas history texts — material useful for student projects or good lesson plans.
It’s a distinguished magazine. Analysis in the magazine is typically stellar. They promise to invite top people to debate. It might be interesting.
I got this e-mail, below from the Economist. I plan to check it out, and vote.
Introducing The Economist Debate Series. A Severe Contest.
Dear Reader,
I’m delighted to invite you to be part of an extraordinary first for Economist.com.
Our new Debate Series is an ongoing community forum where propositions about topical issues will be rigorously debated in the Oxford style by compelling Speakers. The first topic being debated is Education and The Economist is inviting our online audience to take part by voting on propositions, sharing views and opinions, and challenging the Speakers.
Five propositions have now been short-listed to address the most far-reaching and divisive aspects of the education debate covering: the place of foreign students in higher education; the position of corporate donors; and the role of technology in today’s classrooms. The highest ranking propositions will be debated, with the first launching on Oct 15th.
Choose the most resonant propositions to be debated from the list below:
Education – The propositions:1. This house believes that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of most education.2. This house proposes that governments and universities everywhere should be competing to attract and educate all suitably-qualified students regardless of nationality and residence.
3. This house believes that companies donate to education mainly to win public goodwill and there is nothing wrong with this.
4. This house believes that the “digital divide” is a secondary problem in the educational needs of developing countries.
5. This house believes that social networking technologies will bring large changes to educational methods, in and out of the classroom
Join the Debate
The debate schedule is as follows:
Sep 17th-Oct 12th – Vote for your favorite proposition and join the open forum to discuss topics
Oct 15th – Winning proposition is revealed and the Debate begins
Oct 18th – Rebuttals. Share your comments on issues so far and vote for your winning side
Oct 23th – Closing arguments by the Speakers. Post any additional comments you would like to share and vote for your winner
Oct 26th – The debate winner is announced.
To receive debate updates sign up now. We will then contact you to announce the winning proposition and details of the debate as it unfolds.
I look forward to you joining us and your fellow Economist readers for this lively debate. In the meantime, check the site to track which proposition is winning, and to view guest participants and the announcement of key Speakers at www.economist.com/debate.
Yours sincerely,
Ben Edwards
Publisher
Economist.com
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Missed it? Well, it was at the dinner hour, 06:16:42 PM (CDT). You may have thought it was Bubba’s great sauce for the barbecue, or the raspberry in the iced tea.
In terms of destruction, the earthquake was hardly significant.
Emergency responders said they knew of only one report of damage: A teapot fell off of a woman’s stove.
In California, people probably wouldn’t have even noticed the tremor. But this earthquake happened in the Lone Star State and left Brazos Valley residents baffled.
“You just don’t expect your house to shake,” said Burleson County resident Karen Bolt. She was in her trailer home cleaning dishes when the temblor began.
35 km (20 miles) W of Bryan, Texas
65 km (40 miles) ENE of Taylor, Texas
110 km (70 miles) ENE of AUSTIN, Texas
170 km (105 miles) NW of Houston, Texas
In terms of magnitude and damage, this is the largest earthquake known to have occurred in Texas. The most severe damage was reported at Valentine, where all buildings except wood-frame houses were damaged severely and all brick chimneys toppled or were damaged. The schoolhouse, which consisted of one section of concrete blocks and another section of bricks, was damaged so badly that it had to be rebuilt. Small cracks formed in the schoolhouse yard. Some walls collapsed in adobe buildings, and ceilings and partitions were damaged in wood-frame structures. Some concrete and brick walls were cracked severely. One low wall, reinforced with concrete, was broken and thrown down. Tombstones in a local cemetery were rotated. Damage to property was reported from widely scattered points in Brewster, Jeff Davis, Culberson, and Presidio Counties. Landslides occurred in the Van Horn Mountaiins, southwest of Lobo; in the Chisos Mountains, in the area of Big Bend; and farther northwest, near Pilares and Porvenir. Landslides also occurred in the Guadalupe Mountains, near Carlsbad, New Mexico, and slides of rock and dirt were reported near Picacho, New Mexico. Well water and springs were muddied throughout the area. Also felt in parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and in Chihauhua and Coahuila, Mexico.
Texas history courses could make some use of these data, for map reading exercises, and for general geography about the state. Click on the map below, the isoseismal map of the 1931 Valentine, Texas quake, and geography teachers will begin to dream of warm-up exercises right away.
Text publishers for Texas generally provide websites to accompany their texts. In several cases the on-line version’s chief virtue is offering the full text on-line, in case students leave their books in their locker. Most of the texts offer a few brilliant on-line sources.
In most cases, features of an on-line text are limited so those school districts that purchase the publisher’s books. Access is restricted by sign-in codes and passwords. In many cases the on-line books are a bit clunky.
Textbook Revolution is a site that claims to be “taking the bite out of textbooks.” I hope they don’t mean the intellectual bite.
The site points to textbooks available on-line with no serious restrictions. There are five history texts, four for U.S. history and one with a focus on world history. Economics is a hotter field, with 14 listings, including one from the Ludwig von Mises Institute which promises links to “dozens” of texts. Geography doesn’t have its own category, but a search of the site for “geography” turns up seven texts. The search for “government” is much less successful, turning up a hodge podge that includes chemistry and a rant, “Nudity and Smartfilter.”
The prairie is one of North America’s great ecosystems and a vital habitat for many plants and animals. Over 98% of the prairie has been lost in the past 150 years—but some people are trying to bring it back, hectare by hectare. Restoring a prairie is a great challenge, requiring knowledge of biology, ecology, climatology, and even economics.
Are you up for the challenge? If you choose the right plants and animals, you can watch the prairie come to life before your eyes! Let’s begin!
North America’s prairie is divided into the tallgrass ecosystem and shortgrass ecosystem (plus an area in between—the “mixed grass” prairie). Which one do you want to restore?
This game fits neatly into geography curricula for a number of states, and also covers parts of the 7th grade social studies standards for Texas — if your state is covered by the tallgrass or shortgrass prairies as shown on the accompanying map, it’s likely your state standards include students’ learning about prairie ecosystems.
The game is fail-safe; it does not allow incorrect selections. It’s not a sim, really, but a basic introduction to what makes a successful prairie. Students should be able to master the game in 15 minutes.
Though developed way up north in Minnesota, the game and species are close to Texas prairies, too. The emphasis on soil points to some of the key errors made by farmers (encouraged by developers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture) which led to the Dust Bowl; this is a good enrichment exercise for Dust Bowl lesson plans. These games cover many of the requirements for Boy Scout merit badges, too: Environmental Science, Wildlife Management, and Soil and Water Conservation, and others.
Update, October 2011: No, I can’t find the game now, either. It appears the Bell Museum took the site down, and trusting (and hoping) they wouldn’t do that, I didn’t pirate any of the images, nor especially the game.
Here’s hoping someone will put the thing back on line, somewhere. If you find it, will you let me know? I’d like to renew the links. Several school systems went through this site to get to the game for classroom activities. It was a good thing.
It’s a new school year. Watch it again. Certainly it’s still a conversation starter for teachers — it maybe a good place to start conversations for students, too, in government, history, geography and economics courses especially.
Irony sometimes means happy surprises. Cuneiform on the world wide web?
The University of California system is working hard to deliver important information to scholars on the web. One of these projects is the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI). Here is the official desription:
The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) represents the efforts of an international group of Assyriologists, museum curators and historians of science to make available through the internet the form and content of cuneiform tablets dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3350 BC, until the end of the pre-Christian era. We estimate the number of these documents currently kept in public and private collections to exceed 500,000 exemplars, of which now more than 200,000 have been catalogued in electronic form by the CDLI.
Some of the photos demonstrate the beauty of everyday history and archaeology. These are instructional photos, but some are works of art. Examples of drawings of the writing are available, which can be used in the classroom to show students what the writing looks like.
Some sites in CDLI allow searches by topic. Students, consider these school tablets, and thank your lucky stars, inventors and the trees for paper and ink. Can you imagine lugging these things in a backpack?
Educational osmosis is one way to learn, I have found. I think a good classroom is one in which the student learns regardless what the student is doing, even daydreaming by looking out the window. How to achieve that? We’re working on it. In 2007, such a classroom should visually stimulate learning, and do so with sound and kinesthetics, too. Repetition in different media, with different contexts, aids learning and cementing of knowledge. But, I speak only from experience, having taken only a tiny handful of “real” education classes in my life, and they rank at the bottom of my list of useful courses.
It may be my fault for failing to make the point, but I think a successful classroom also needs access to a photocopier that can turn around material in short order — a fast photocopier is preferred. Classrooms also need printers.
I also wonder if working ventilation and temperature control for comfort figures into the technology equation.
The ideal classroom technology is that set which allows the student to learn well, with speed and wisdom.
You’ve got your lesson plans mapped out, most of them done. You’ve got the data sheets for the students to fill out, you’ve got the first week’s bell ringers all prepared. The syllabi are all resting snug in their boxes, just waiting for students, those sly little foxes.
You’re ready.
Take a minute, take a deep breath; now, go browse the Digital History resources. See what other possibilities there are.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
It is so thrilling to see how the ‘little’ things such as our manual typewriter can connect people in far away places to real feelings! They are lucky kids indeed but how lucky are we that we get to be a part of it :) If you have a manual typewriter that you would like to see used and loved by “generation ?” feel free to send it to us. One just is not enough!
CSWS 9450 22nd Ave SW. Seattle. WA. 98106
With Love
Sarah Airhart
Founder of the Community School of West Seattle.
So, if you’ve got a working typewriter in your attic or basement, or in your office acting as a paperweight, now you know where to send it — I’ll wager Sarah will give you a receipt so you can deduct the value of the machine from your income taxes.
But even if there were no deduction, wouldn’t the interest of the kids be enough?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
What would your ideal classroom have in it, especially with regard to technology? Brian Smith wants you to tell him what you need, and what you want, and what you dream about — here, and here.
Pushing the corporation’s training into the 21st century, almost two decades ago for AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines and SABRE (which has been split off subsequently), a group of us in the future-looking department benchmarked corporate and academic training and education. One of our trips took us to IBM’s training center in White Plains, New York — IBM then being considered rather the leader in corporate training and education (running neck and neck with Arthur Andersen; tempus fugit, o tempora, o mores).
IBM put us through a wringer designed to make us think hard. For one example, they asked us why we weren’t benchmarking our own pilot training, which they had benchmarked a few years earlier. Pilot training at airlines in the U.S. was the best in the world, one fellow noted: You hire people who already know how to do the job well, and you have the pick of the best; you train them in simulators and in an intense classroom situations; then when they go to the job, they have trained people behind them to make sure they do it all right; then you call them back every year to refresh with the latest technologies. (Most other training at airlines still is not up to the pilot training standards, which is good for safety as far as pilots are concerned; aircraft mainenance is close behind. One gets an appreciation for true concern about safety when studying that process. But I digress.)
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Examples of some of the most famous cave and rock paintings populate the site, along with many lesser known creations — the eponymous paintings, the Bradshaw group, generally disappear from U.S. versions of world history texts. 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 