findingEducation’s Digital Teachers’ LoungeTips and insights from the findingEducation team.

Did you take the Quiztory last week? Now it’s time to check your answers:

1. How far was the Selma-to-Montgomery march? 54 miles

2. When was the Equal Rights Amendment most recently reintroduced? October 2009

3. Following Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech, who ordered royal soldiers to remove gunpowder from Williamsburg so that it couldn’t be used by colonialists? Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia

4. What event at a New York City factory galvanized the labor and progressive movements of the early 1900s? Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

5. Which 1978 document outlined a framework for peace between Egypt and Israel? Camp David Accords

Subject: History, Other History, Social Studies, U.S. Government, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Quiztory, The Answer Sheet

Test your students’ knowledge of the notable events covered in findingDulcinea’s “On This Day” column this week with Quiztory. It makes a fun extra credit assignment.

1. How far was the Selma-to-Montgomery march?

2. When was the Equal Rights Amendment most recently reintroduced?

3. Following Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech, who ordered royal soldiers to remove gunpowder from Williamsburg so that it couldn’t be used by colonialists?

4. What event at a New York City factory galvanized the labor and progressive movements of the early 1900s?

5. Which 1978 document outlined a framework for peace between Egypt and Israel?

What’s Coming Up?

Next week, “On This Day” will examine Three Mile Island, Charles Manson and his followers, the banishment of Jews from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition and Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands. We’ll also take a look at the U.S. purchase of Alaska, Hitler’s boycott of Jewish businesses and the deadly collision of two 747s on a Tenerife runway.

Subject: History, Other History, Social Studies, U.S. Government, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Quiztory

Remy de la Mauviniere/AP
Nationwide strikes in France hobbled public services from transport to schools, Tuesday, March 23, 2010.

The headlines have been full of news on the unemployment rate in France; above 10 percent, France has an even higher unemployment rate than the United States. How has the recession affected education in France?

As early as November 2008, thousands of people protested against education reform plans, especially plans to cut thousands of teaching jobs, Euronews reported.

By January 2009, the economic crisis had forced the French government to make job cuts, and announce reform plans for primary and secondary education. In response, thousands of teachers went on a one-day national strike. Job cuts were at the top of strikers’ list of grievances, along with “the end of teaching hours on Saturday mornings, which means they have less time to do their work,” The Guardian reported.

Massive job cuts in the education sector will certainly sound familiar to educators in the United States. But what about an emphasis on food and culture? This may be where the French education system differs most profoundly from the American system.

“While the country is cutting public programs and civil-servant jobs to try to slash a debt of about $2.1 trillion, no one has dared to mention touching the money spent on school lunches,” Vivienne Walt wrote for Time magazine in February.

(more…)

Subject: Uncategorized
Tags: Schools Around the World

Did you take the Quiztory last week? Now it’s time to check your answers:

1. A 1990 documentary claimed that who was responsible for the November 1974 Birmingham pub bombings? Seamus McLoughlin

2. How many times was Caesar stabbed by a group of senators hoping to restore the Roman republic? 23

3. What did St. Patrick use to teach new believers about the Holy Trinity? A three-leaf clover

4. When did the Academy Awards first air on national radio? 1944

5. What was Gandhi’s protest march called in which thousands of people symbolically made their own salt from seawater? “March to the Sea”

Subject: History, Other History, Social Studies, U.S. Government, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Quiztory, The Answer Sheet

Test your students’ knowledge of the notable events covered in findingDulcinea’s “On This Day” column this week with Quiztory. It makes a fun extra credit assignment.

1. A 1990 documentary claimed that who was responsible for the November 1974 Birmingham pub bombings?

2. How many times was Caesar stabbed by a group of senators hoping to restore the Roman republic?

3. What did St. Patrick use to teach new believers about the Holy Trinity?

4. When did the Academy Awards first air on national radio?

5. What was Gandhi’s protest march called in which thousands of people symbolically made their own salt from seawater?

What’s Coming Up?

Next week, “On This Day” will examine the Selma-to-Montgomery march, the Exxon Valdez Alaska oil spill, Patrick Henry’s “liberty or death” speech and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. We’ll also take a look at the first woman executed by electric chair, Elvis Presley joining the Army and the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty.

Subject: History, Other History, Social Studies, U.S. Government, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Quiztory

Stephanie Chasteen.

Dr. Stephanie Chasteen, who blogs at sciencegeekgirl, is a physicist, a writer, an education consultant and an audiophile who climbs mountains in her spare time.

While earning her doctorate in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Chasteen got restless. She realized that though she loved science, research wasn’t her bag; she wanted to communicate science to the public. She began taking journalism classes and freelancing while continuing her physics courses and research. After being selected for a prestigious science communication fellowship through the AAAS, she was placed at NPR’s science desk in Washington, D.C., as an intern.

Upon graduation, Chasteen landed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco, where she helped teach science to K-12 teachers, and created science podcasts on teaching tips for K-12 teachers. Chasteen now works at the University of Colorado at Boulder, studying how people learn physics.

In an interview with findingEducation, Chasteen likened her career path to that of heat-seeking bacteria: “I looked for what seemed interesting and intellectually ‘warm’ and moved in that direction and then reassessed.”

fE: When did you first become interested in science?

SC: Back in middle school. I remember, ironically enough in home economics class, hearing a physicist described as “somebody who learned how the world works” and I thought that sounded pretty cool. So I thought, “Oh. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.” I also came from an academic family so it wasn’t that big of a leap for me to consider going into science.

(more…)

Subject: Other Science, Physics & Astronomy, Science
Tags: Educator Profiles

Did you take the Quiztory last week? Now it’s time to check your answers:

1. What proposal in 1820 attempted to maintain the balance of slave and free states in the United States Senate? The Missouri Compromise

2. Who was the first member of the American Girl Guides, later known as the Girl Scouts? Margaret “Daisy Doots” Gordon

3. After Russia’s February Revolution began in 1917, to whom did Czar Nicholas II try to cede his throne? His brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich

4. When was Dred Scott, a slave who sued for freedom after spending time in free territory, finally freed? May 26, 1857

5. What was the name of Axis Sally’s most notorious radio broadcast, intended to frighten Allied soldiers? “Vision of Invasion”

Subject: History, Other History, Social Studies, U.S. Government, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Quiztory, The Answer Sheet

Test your students’ knowledge of the notable events covered in findingDulcinea’s “On This Day” column this week with Quiztory. It makes a fun extra credit assignment.

1. What proposal in 1820 attempted to maintain the balance of slave and free states in the United States Senate?

2. Who was the first member of the American Girl Guides, later known as the Girl Scouts?

3. After Russia’s February Revolution began in 1917, to whom did Czar Nicholas II try to cede his throne?

4. When was Dred Scott, a slave who sued for freedom after spending time in free territory, finally freed?

5. What was the name of Axis Sally’s most notorious radio broadcast, intended to frighten Allied soldiers?

What’s Coming Up?

Next week, “On This Day” will examine the Birmingham Six, the Ides of March and the first St. Patrick’s Day. We’ll also take a look at Gandhi and civil disobedience, the first TV broadcast of the Oscars, and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro by the Italian Red Brigades.

Subject: History, Other History, Social Studies, U.S. Government, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Quiztory

Did you take the Quiztory last week? Now it’s time to check your answers:

1. Who acted as an intermediary between the Charles Lindbergh family and their child’s kidnapper in 1932?  John F. Condon

2. When was Winston Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech published in Russia?  1998

3. After Berlin’s Reichstag was burned down in 1933, what did German President Paul von Hindenburg sign “for the Protection of the People and the State”? The Reichstag Fire Decree

4. When did Britain relinquish Rhodesia as a colony?  February 1980

5. Who videotaped the beating of Rodney King by a group of white Los Angeles police officers in 1991? George Holliday

Subject: History, Other History, Social Studies, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Quiztory, The Answer Sheet

Test your students’ knowledge of the notable events covered in findingDulcinea’s “On This Day” column this week with Quiztory. It makes a fun extra credit assignment.

1. Who acted as an intermediary between the Charles Lindbergh family and their child’s kidnapper in 1932?

2. When was Winston Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech published in Russia?

3. After Berlin’s Reichstag was burned down in 1933, what did German President Paul von Hindenburg sign “for the Protection of the People and the State”?

4. When did Britain relinquish Rhodesia as a colony?

5. Who videotaped the beating of Rodney King by a group of white Los Angeles police officers in 1991?

What’s Coming Up?

Next week, “On This Day” will examine Dred Scott’s Supreme Court case, Daniel Webster and Russia’s February revolution. We’ll also take a look at ‘Axis Sally,’ the founding of the Girl Scouts of America and the Hanafi Muslim Siege of 1977.

Subject: History, Other History, Social Studies, U.S. History, World History
Tags: Quiztory