The Hiatus

It has been quite a while since my last post. I've been on a short hiatus because of some changes in our family situation. Specifically, I was offered a temporary contract position outside the house.

The temporary situation, as it turns out, is more temporary than I had hoped. I had hoped for about two years worth of work, but the DoD contract has apparently been terminated earlier. The political aspects of this are interesting, and I may write about them at a later date.

In the interim, my girls switched from home school to private school. We wanted the transition to be as easy as possible, and I was absolutely dead set against public schools. We found a small Roman Catholic parish school, Our Lady of Lourdes. As much as I am a fan of home schooling, I still must say that this school has been tremendous! Small class sizes, a really great group of teachers and administrators, a conservative culture (not in a political sense, but in terms of dress and behavior) - I highly recommend this school to anyone in the Denver area. At such time we return to home schooling, we will still financially support this school.

Hopefully our schedule will stabilize over the next several months, and I will start posting regularly again.

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.

Astronomy Links

Our science this year will include astronomy.  Nice, because it was a particular interest of mine (although my mathematical skills fell short when it came to advanced work).  The girls have an interest as well, in part because we have a telescope (similar to this, but without the computer assist):



Unfortunately we lack the space to be able to keep it up and available, but we do set it up and drag it outside from time to time.

While inside, where it is warm, we can look at a couple of interesting web sites. First, a site for tracking satellites. My brother sent me this link when he knew SkyLab was going overhead. We could not see it because of our location, but I find the link fascinating. I usually click the "Satellite" setting on the Google map, and tracking the orbit also becomes a geography and geology lesson.

 Next is NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day.  They are not all masterpieces, but they are informative, and link to tons of information about the subject in question - for instance, the International Space Station.

Here Are a Couple of "How Did They...?" Videos

First is an enterprising gent who decided that building Stonehenge should be no big deal, as long as you have a bit of engineering know-how (and the family to cheer you on):



When we were recently in Savannah, Georgia, I was fascinated by the size of the cargo ships that ran the river. Of course someone has to build them - not hard to picture. But getting them into the water... well, you don't back the trailer down the boat launch, do you. Not with a vessel that size:


Ship Launching - Click here for the most popular videos

One More on Climate Change

Still not meaning to get political, I intend this next example to be a warning about looking at data.  The fact is, anyone with an agenda can manipulate the presentation of data in this way.  Students need to know not only how graphs work, but how the data set can be presented to appear to be something other than it actually is.  This video examines a graph commonly used in AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) presentations.



Whether dealing with junk science, or with claimed rates of return for a mutual fund, or any number of situations, people need to know to ask questions.  They also need to know which questions to ask. Skepticism is always healthy, and especially when someone is reaching for your wallet.  More especially when they claim to be doing you good while reaching for your wallet!