Cruising the Chernobyl "Dead Zone"

Our children are too young to remember Chernobyl, the town destroyed by the worst nuclear accident to ever take place.  It is worth remembering; poor technology, dangerous tests of equipment, and human error created a situation that killed many and left a large area uninhabitable.  A government's attempts to disguise what had happened caused many more deaths. 

This young lady takes us on a sobering tour of the dead zone, with some history and lots of pictures.  A very interesting site, and it can serve as an opener to a longer discussion with your kids about energy, risk, and human nature.

An Ancient Weapon

Slinging.org has an array of interesting information on slings - you know, David and Goliath kind of stuff. 

Young students and hunters may have an interest both practical and historical.

Correlation vs. Causation

One of the arguments students will encounter repeatedly is that of causation and correlation.  Whether the argument is about Anthropogenic Global Warming, or minority incarceration rates, or gun control, or smoking, or whatever subject, all too often students (and voters, and taxpayers) fall prey to this logical fallacy.

The blog that this graph links to concerns drug discovery and the pharmacology industry.  The problem of understanding correlation and causation is universal.  Clearly, one would have a hard time finding a logical connection between the importation of fruit and automotive fatalities (unless the fruit in question was the banana, and the old "slipped on a banana peel" joke could be put into play).  But, according to these statistics carefully graphed, there is a direct correlation between the two.

Students must constantly be on guard when presented with such compelling evidence.  Correlation does not imply causation - a mantra for the coming decade.