Current Event Connection, Main

11 Things We Learned This Week

This week, we learned …

… educational videos seem to benefit high-income students more than low-income students. Read of the week!

Use our video gallery to watch dynamic instructional strategies for using video in the classroom.

 

 

… humans are relocating water around the world.

Use our educator guide for teaching freshwater topics.

 

 

… 94% of U.S. teachers say they spend their own money on school supplies.

Take a look at ten free tools every teacher should know about.

 

 

… moss can filter arsenic out of water.

A common species of aquatic moss can rapidly absorb arsenic, removing as much as 82% of the toxins within one hour in some tests.
Photograph by Rebecca Hale, National Geographic

Learn how one Google Science Fair winner is working on her own water filtration system.

 

 

… Europa is erupting with water.

Illustration courtesy Jet Propulsion Laboratory

How does NASA go looking for life on this watery moon?

 

 

… to assume “black-skinned” Odysseus was white is to misunderstand the way ancient Greeks thought of themselves.

In this amphora, the Greek hero Odysseus slits the throat of a Thracian warrior. The Thracians were allies of the Trojans.
Image courtesy The J. Paul Getty Trust. CC-BY-4.0

Who was Odysseus?

 

 

… classroom design is “NOT about being pretty for Pinterest.”

For more than a century, classrooms have been designed for white women’s psychological comfort and white men’s protective attitudes. “How might schools be different if they focused on the comfort and safety of boys and girls of color?”, asks this provocative essay.
Photograph by Lynn Johnson, National Geographic

What are the waypoints in a map of your classroom?

 

 

… climate change is a key factor contributing to human migration from Central America.

The lush jungle of the Mosquitia jungle doesn’t tell the whole story of the climate in Honduras. Intermittent drought has plagued the country for years.
Photograph by Dave Yoder, National Geographic

Who are Central American migrants?

 

 

… Latin was not the only language of the Roman Empire.

Oscan, a common language in the southern Italian peninsula, was just one of many languages spoken in Ancient Rome.
Illustration by Flappiefh, courtesy Wikipedia. Public domain

How did the spread of Latin influence power in ancient Rome?

 

 

… fracking and directional drilling are threatening a web of ancient roads in the American Southwest.

Ancestral Puebloans relied on a complex series of roads to provide goods throughout territory in what is now a part of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico.
Illustration by Roy Andersen, National Geographic

How does fracking work?

 

 

… sometimes hippos poop so much that all the fish die.

We always thought THIS was the business end of a hippopotamus.
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photo Ark

Hippos can also capsize canoes on our Into the Okavango Expedition.

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