Monday, March 31, 2014

Wonderopolis





http://wonderopolis.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Logo-elephants.png


 Every wondered why do you blink? Or how does a hot air balloon fly? Or do dogs really eat homework?

Well wonder no longer. Just head over to Wonderopolis. A excellent site from the National Center for Families Learning and Thinkfinity helps bring to life the answer to the questions we wonder about.

Students can view the Wonder of the day or explore previous wonders. There is also a place to submit what you are wondering about. Who knows, one day it may be the wonder of the day.

Teachers make sure to check out the educator sandbox for their blog and twitter feed as well as the ability to search for a wonder by state standard (common core, but Texas, I bet we can figure it out!)

http://wonderopolis.org/

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Compare Apples vs Oranges










 For a long time in education we have used the term "comparing apples to oranges" usually in the terms of yearly state testing.

Now Google allows for nutritional comparisons for food showing the searcher calories, fat, sugars, and the rest of the nutritional values.

Go to your Google search box or the omnibox.
Type in Compare X vs Y, with X being your first food and Y being the second. I found it likes plural terms better (which is weird because usually Google searches like singular search terms).
It didn't produce any results for Big Macs vs Whoppers, but maybe they are working on that. It did show results for hamburgers vs hot dogs.

Could be a good tool in the classroom for decision making, nutrition (since schools are making the kids fat, NOT), estimation...

One more great resource from Google. Give it a try.