http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/31/opinion/turner-7-billion/
By Ted Turner, Special to CNN
October 31, 2011
Editor’s note: Ted Turner is the founder and chairman of theUnited Nations Foundation.
Triple A Learning IB Blogs
October 31, 2011
GM crops
The much lauded potential improvements in the worlds food supply through GM crops has come under question recently with a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.
The report says that only two traits have been developed on any significant scale and that in places such as China where insect resistant Bt cotton is widely planted, there has been an increase in the use of pesticides needed to combat the pests that previously were only a minor problem.
Focus on Carbon
I have come across the following YouTube clips on carbon and global warming and thought that I would use them as a mini topic this week.
They could, I guess, be used an organic chemistry resource (OK, obvious, I know), but also used in conjunction with the bonding unit, the energetics unit and the environmental option.
Zombies, rabbit’s feet & baseball
Photo: Pumkinking
For North Americans – and beyond – Halloween is upon us. Where I live, it seems that each year Halloween grows in popularity and extravagance. Some studies show that this is, on the larger scale, true. Halloween is an occasion, and an industry, that is worth over $6 billion in the United States alone. The increasing popularity of this holiday is not just restricted to the North American continent – its recent growth in the United Kingdom is astounding. BBC News just reported a 23-fold increase of consumerism associated with Halloween this year over 2001.
October 28, 2011
Opening scenes
How many IB Film students begin their movie with the main character waking up to the sound of an alarm clock? Far too many. There are so many creative ways for our students to open a film, but using an iPhone instead of a clock is not one of them.
This got me thinking about how directors open their films – either in terms of the title sequence or the opening scene. I will never go into a cinema where the film has already started. What the director chooses to show (or not show) first is a very important choice. Here are some of my favourites:
science in action: back to those speedy neutrinos
Patrick Decowski
It was just last week, October 18, that I blogged on “science in action: neutrinos and the speed of light”. Intrigued by the implications of the recent OPERA experiment, which concluded that neutrinos could move faster than the speed of light, I turned with my TOK questions to an active researcher in particle physics. Regular readers of this blog have met him before: Dr. Patrick Decowski. I asked him what the experiment and reaction to it reveal regarding the nature of science.
Musical Links Investigation: Cultures vs. Compositions
Dear IB Colleagues,
During the recent Triple A IB Music Prescribed Works participants discussed the topic of ‘establishing links’. The conversation immediately moved towards the MLI and the ‘required links’. One of the participants commented about the emerging trend where students focus more on the examples than on the cultures. This is contrary to the spirit and requirements of the IB Music curriculum. The purpose of the MLI is to explore cultures. The musical examples are just a way to illustrate the musical characteristics of the selected culture.
October 27, 2011
Improving Student Study Habits
Students often fail to grasp the fact that learning with some form of assessment in mind is a two part process of firstly comprehending the material, and then secondly, of studying that material until is becomes part of your understanding.
Find below a list of suggestions you can pass onto to them to help the become better students. You could challenge students to adopt at least one of these suggestions and report back to the class in a discussion.
October 26, 2011
Urban climate change in mega-cities
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/asia-africa-megacities-top-climate-change-risk-survey/
