Tag: Hank Green

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School’s out Friday

I wish I was as confident as Hank Green in thinking that Yellowstone National Park poses no threat to our current existence.

When the Tsunami struck on December 26th 2004, I remember taking Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ off my bookshelf to see what he had to say about Tsunamis. What that led me to was his description of Yellowstone National Park and what this place actually is. Here’s an extract, thanks to a posting on www.delanceyplace.com.

“In the 1960s, while studying the volcanic history of Yellowstone National Park, Bob Christiansen of the United States Geological Survey became puzzled about something: … he couldn’t find the park’s volcano. …

By coincidence, just at this time NASA decided to test some new high-altitude cameras by taking photographs of Yellowstone, copies of which some thoughtful official passed on to the park authorities on the assumption that they might make a nice blow-up for one of the visitors’ centers. As soon as Christiansen saw the photos, he realized why he had failed to spot the [volcano]: virtually the whole park — 2.2 million acres — was [a volcano]. The explosion had left a crater more than forty miles across-much too huge to be perceived from anywhere at ground level. At some time in the past Yellowstone must have blown up with a violence far beyond the scale of anything known to humans.

Yellowstone, it turns out, is a supervolcano. It sits on top of an enormous hot spot, a reservoir of molten rock that rises from at least 125 miles down in the Earth. The heat from the hot spot is what powers all of Yellowstone’s vents, geysers, hot springs, and popping mud pots. … Imagine a pile of TNT about the size of Rhode Island and reaching eight miles into the sky to about the height of the highest cirrus clouds, and you have some idea of what visitors to Yellowstone are shuffling around on top of. …

Since its first known eruption 16.5 million years ago, [the Yellowstone volcano] has blown up about a hundred times, but the most recent three eruptions are the ones that get written about. The last eruption was a thousand times greater than that of Mount St. Helens; the one before that was 280 times bigger and the one before was … at least twenty-five hundred times greater than St. Helens.”

Bill Bryson (2003) A Short History of Nearly Everything  Broadway Books, P.224 – 228.

Comforting, huh?

What this has done is make me attuned to any news that is reported as coming from Yellowstone National Park. When I saw a video posted on YouTube in 2014 purportedly showing Bison fleeing the park, I thought end of days was coming. Turns out, the Bison were running into the park! Verification matters, especially when you’re thinking a cataclysmic event is on the horizon!

But Hank’s message is a good one. After completing a term in a new school, I’m very aware that change is a constant. And when you’re working in the kind of job I have, you’re in a constant state of helping people try and get comfortable with change. Not always easy, but necessary!

Coincidentally, in terms of the Yellowstone connection anyway, I was driving to work today listening to a podcast called Snap Judgement. First story was about Yellowstone National Park, and a legendary female wolf who researchers dubbed ’06’ – her birth year. It’s quite the extraordinary tale, so follow this link for your listening pleasure. Do partake, and have a great weekend. 🙂

 

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School’s out Friday

The love affair with John Green continues…

You can’t tell me there’s not at least one common misconception you might have believed that has been now been corrected for you forever more from this Mental Floss video. I think this would be fun to use with kids – I’d like to see if they knew of the misconception, or if most of what they hear here is entirely new to them in the first place!

I held a parent meeting at school today to discuss Digital Citizenship, and one of the things discussed was the fact that our children all seem to love YouTube and can spend hours being ‘distracted’ there. If the distractions they meet are anything like the videos created by John and Hank Green, then my take is that they are worthwhile. They sure beat some of the mind numbing drivel being served up on commercial television of late.

Once again, apologies for the absence here  – did not post School’s out Friday last week if you happened to notice, and am scraping it in tonight at 11.54pm. You never know, a window of opportunity might present itself this weekend and a post may materialise…or, maybe not. I may find myself curled up in a corner, claiming back the sleep I seem to be depriving myself of lately.

Enjoy what comes your way this weekend. Make the most of the fine Autumnal weather we have been promised (if you’re living in Melbourne, that is). 🙂

 

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You are special…and we’re counting on you

So says John Green. Don’t take my word for it. Take a look.

This is John Green’s, ‘An Open Letter to Students Returning to School’, one of his Vlogbrothers entries posted on YouTube. It was my opener for my Year 10 English students today, and it sparked plenty of healthy discussion about what we should be teaching in our classrooms, and what are the skills young people are going to need to be successful in their future lives. After this vibrant, healthy discussion, we had to pick up Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, something John Green would probably consider a waste of time, since Baz Lurhmann has done a pretty good filmic interpretation of it!

What I especially loved about this video was his parting message, that schooling is about me – you need to watch it through to see John’s intent. My kids liked it to. I think it made them reflect, for a moment, about school’s higher purpose, about why they are sitting in rooms learning about Physics, Biology and English.

At the end of the video, John suggests viewers go and visit Crash Course, the YouTube channel he and his brother Hank are developing to support the teaching of Biology and World History. Take a look at John’s treatment of World History (the videos are on a playlist and scroll through) – I think they might keep some of our students a tad more interested than some of the educational videos I’ve seen in the past!

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School’s out Friday

This is John Green. He of ‘Looking for Alaska‘ fame. He of the number 1 position on the New York Times Bestseller list for Children’s chapter books right now for ‘The Fault in our Stars‘. He of ‘Vlogbrothers‘ fame on YouTube.

OK. Unless you’re a Teacher-Librarian you probably have no idea who John Green is. But if you watch this video, you’ll get a sense of the kind of guy he is. He’s fun. He writes novels that teenagers love. He’s an author who understands how to use social media well to engage a new kind of audience. He’s someone modeling the new ways people need to work now to generate readership and income. Worth taking notice of, and perhaps sharing his story with your students.

His Vlogbrothers work on YouTube is something he started with his brother Hank in 2007. It was a really interesting premise called Brotherhood 2.0.

Brotherhood 2.0 was a project created by John and Hank Green in 2007. It started on January 1st of that year with the premise that the brothers would cease all text-based communication for a year and instead converse by video blogs every weekday. The project was made available to the public via YouTube and on their Brotherhood 2.0 website.[2][3] On July 18, 2007, Hank Green uploaded a video of himself playing and singing his song “Accio Deathly Hallows” in honour of the seventh Harry Potter book. This video was the first Vlogbrothers video to make the front page of YouTube, and the starting point of the brothers’ success as vloggers. The project ended on December 31st, 2007, but due to their popularity the brothers continued making videos even after the final day had passed. Now Hank and John continue to create vlogs, but less frequently (every Tuesday and Friday, as of 2012).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlogbrothers

The video above is from the Vlogbrothers channel. If you like quirky stuff, tune in.

Big weekend ahead. My brother is getting married in my front garden on Sunday. So that means Saturday is dedicated to cleaning. Lucky me!

Enjoy your weekend – make the most of whatever comes your way. : )