This week, we learned …
… how blackboards transformed American education. Read of the week!

Photograph courtesy National Geographic
We don’t often think of blackboards—or even computers—as technology. What about rocks?
… recycled Scottish Christmas trees are not going to a landfill. They’re going to a sandfill, and helping mitigate coastal erosion.

Photograph by Rebecca Hale, National Geographic
How might recycled Christmas trees help create a living shoreline?
… what the numbers actually say about refugees. Not what you think.

Graphic by Declan Butler and Jasiek Krzysztofiak, Nature
… why birds are worth protecting.

Photograph by Christianus Fabbri, National Geographic My Shot
Did you know it’s the “Year of the Bird”?
… we need to start thinking about coding as a viable blue-collar industry.

Photograph by Kevin Ku, courtesy Pexels. Public domain
Get your students coded for success!
… the architecture of Guinea Bissau reveals the nation’s complex history.

Photograph by Colleen Taugher, courtesy Wikimedia. CC-BY-2.0
What other architectural styles indicate a region’s cultural history?
… the weird, lumpy composition of Earth’s mantle.

Illustration by Mary Crooks, National Geographic
… the equally weird history of witches. Example: “Though it may seem strange to us now, that the devil came as an apparition of a butterfly was very old news in 1664.”

Illustration by Martin le France, courtesy Wikimedia. Public domain
Could you survive the most famous witch hunt in history?
… what Minecraft can teach us about economic geography.

Photograph by SkyeWeste, courtesy Pixabay. Public domain
Where is Minecraft required curriculum?
… the literary legacy of shipwrecks, shipwrecks everywhere.

What does a shipwreck tell us about the slave trade?
… China shut down its ivory trade.

Map by Virginia W. Mason, National Geographic