April 2009 Archives

While clicking on the random Wikipedia link to find articles to feature this week I visited quite a few interesting pages that I chose to leave out. Some are collected in the following list :

11. Insectary plants - plants that attract insects
12. Mod (lifestyle) - the Mod movement of the 1960s
13. Pampas grass - native South American plant
14. Panthalassa - the ocean surrounding the supercontinent Pangaea
15. Places in London - a list of many places such as rivers, cemeteries, sports stadia
16. Queensland - a state in Australia
17. Roger the Engineer - an album by the Yardbirds
18. The Art of Denmark - rather obvious really
19. The Mikan Drill - a basketball practice and coaching drill
20. West Bromwich Central tram stop - links to lots of light rail systems info

And finally - Chace Community School ..... actually this didn't appear randomly.

The Wikipedia random link selector.

House of Wessex family tree

The picture above is not a real picture but represents Cerdic who is regarded as the first King of Wessex and, indirectly, the ancestor of subsequent monarchs.

I found this via a page with a full family tree that takes us right up to the Norman invasion of 1066. Lots of links to many names I remember from my history lessons in the 1950s - including Alfred the Great, who is said to have "burned the cakes", and Harold Godwinson who lost the Battle of Hastings to William the Conqueror.

The family tree page has lots of links at the bottom to many other similar diagrams.

For this week I clicked on the 'random link', ignoring "stubs" or very short articles, until I found something I found interesting or that had links to other articles.

While clicking on the random Wikipedia link to find articles to feature this week I visited quite a few interesting pages that I chose to leave out. Some are collected in the following list :

1. 43rd meridian east - one of the lines from North pole to South pole
    - shows the places on the line of longitude
2. 5 Whys - a problem-solving approach
3. Brabus - high-performance engine tuning company
4. Cumberland Bay - there's a note about Guantanamo Bay here too
5. Curiosity - an emotion that leads to exploration and learning
6. Flag of Devon - the flag of the English county created via a web-based poll
7. Floorball - otherwise called floor hockey
8. Folklore of Lanacashire - superstitions, beliefs and customs
9. Henry Doulton - of Royal Doulton pottery fame
10. Iggy Pop - the rock iguana

The Wikipedia random link selector.

Ben Macdui

What interested me about this entry was the fact that it is the second-highest mountain in the UK. I've known that Ben Nevis was the highest from when I was quite young - we learned a lot of facts like that in those days - but I've never come across this name before.

On reading further I noticed in the 'sidebar' the entry - "Listing", this turns out to be various lists of mountains that fall into particular categories. But what really caught my eye were the two entries - 'Marilyn' and 'Munro'.

For this week I clicked on the 'random link', ignoring "stubs" or very short articles, until I found something I found interesting or that had links to other articles.

From the start of this month Intel have some new badges intended to make their different products easy to identify and differentiate by anyone. Gizmodo have an article here about them - they appear a little less-than-convinced by the strategy.

About 3 hours after posting the previous article they posted this one - it manages to poke fun at several targets in one go.

UPDATE - looks like Intel have simplified things. (June 2009)

The after-school sessions are intended to extend and help with GCSE practical coursework for Year 10 & 11 students. If there are spare workstations then other students are welcome too.

Location : B25 - Time : 3 pm to 4:30 pm

27. Friday, 24^th April 2009
28. Thursday, 30^th April 2009
29. Wednesday, 6^th May 2009
30. Friday, 15^th May 2009
31. Wednesday, 20^th May 2009
     
     - HALF TERM -
     
    
32. Friday, 5^th June 2009
33. Thursday, 11^th June 2009
34. Wednesday, 17^th June 2009
35. Friday, 26^th June 2009
36. Thursday, 2^nd July 2009
37. Wednesday, 8^th July 2009
38. Friday, 17^th July 2009

Look here for the dates for 2008/2009 after-school sessions part 2.

The day of the week changes to avoid 'clashing' with regular events like homework clubs or sport practice.

Updates, reminders, links, pictures and various 'oddments' will be available via ccspk at Twitter - follow it there or view via the 'widget' in the sidebar on the main page of CCS-PK.

Doctor Popular is an extraordinary bloke and has a few yo-yo techniques up his sleeve as you can see in the video above - but he's into so much more than just this.

Read more about him in this post at BoingBoing by the lovely Xeni Jardin.

Human Brain	Human Heart

Just over a week ago (27th March 2009) Ofqual - the organisation tasked with maintaining standards in examinations - reported rather unfavourably about the standard of GCSE Science in England. As expected many news organisations leapt on this and added their views :

• BBC News and BBC News again
• The Daily Express
• The Guardian
• The Independent
• ITV News
• The Daily Mail
• The Daily Mirror
• The Sun
• The Telegraph
• The Times

Far be it from me to suggest that any subject is easier nowadays than it was but ..... I must say that youngsters these days are ..... a bit wussy. The poster below shows that they used to play with REAL science kits in the 1950's. Read more about this - fortunately short-lived kit - at The Retro Thing and Scrapboo. Or get hold of some modern kits from here for some Easter fun.

Extra note - as a Physics teacher in the late-1970's I did have access to small radioactive isotopes which I was able to use in class demonstrations - rather amazing looking back now.