Some Roots of the Blues Lie in Statesboro, GA

Among the roots of blues music, Blind Willie McTell and Statesboro, Georgia have loomed large. Lots of amazing and different versions define the feeling.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statesboro_Blues

• https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/roots-blues-statesboro-blues/

• https://youtu.be/fnWxZtI3ONY

Perhaps the best full-throated "Southern Rock" version of the blues

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezPZxfS1jys

TWO giants combine to cover it:

• https://youtu.be/EXBqJZbmR8Y

THREE giants combine to cover it:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duWv1eMNdrk
  

Other variations:

https://vimeo.com/308996544

https://youtu.be/qGRktLL_PI8

There are many more -- does your local blues band have one??

Grand Challenge: Understanding the American Experience

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

A record of Blind Willie McTell’s Statesboro Blues | Source

As the Planet Heats Up, “Conditioning” Air Under Scrutiny

No doubt about it, things are getting warmer. How do we stay cool without heating the planet? Where did A/C come from? What are people thinking about the future of "conditioning" our air?

To read more, explore these links:

Where did air conditioning come from, and why?

https://www.energy.gov/articles/history-air-conditioning

Does air conditioning stymie our ability to slow climate change?

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/why-keeping-ourselves-cool-doesnt-have-to-mean-heating-the-planet/

How AC works

https://home.howstuffworks.com/ac.htm

A competition to keep us cool

https://globalcoolingprize.org/about-the-global-cooling-prize/

Scientists are using the cold of outer space to rethink air conditioning

https://qz.com/1681465/scientists-invented-air-conditioners-for-the-climate-change-age/

India is likely to inform the future world of A/C

https://qz.com/1675017/the-next-big-disruption-in-air-conditioning-will-be-tested-in-india/

The race to build personal air conditioners

https://www.fastcompany.com/90385897/the-billion-dollar-race-to-invent-a-wearable-air-conditioner

Podcast: Reviewing the idea of air conditioners (how many stars, out of 5 stars, would you give AC?)

https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/anthropocene-reviewed-air-conditioning-and-sycamore-trees

Grand Challenge: Valuing World Cultures

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

Photo by Chromatograph on Unsplash

Mathematics, Mythology, Rice, & Computers? The Kolam

Computer scientists are studying ancient Indian art that utilizes mathematics, mythology, and rice:

To read more, explore these links:

• https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/indian-rice-art-kolam

• Computing and cosmology

  • https://indicportal.org/kolam-computing-and-cosmology-within-indian-art/

  • http://www.openculture.com/2019/05/discover-kolams-the-traditional-indian-patterns-that-combine-art-mathematics-magic.html

• Fractals & Kolams

  • https://sites.google.com/site/jeychelladurai/sample-works/procedural-models-kolam-fractals

• Teaching fractal patterns in nature

  • https://educationonline.ku.edu/articles/teaching-kids-patterns-in-nature

• A topological approach to creating a pulli kolam

  • https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1503/1503.02130.pdf

  • https://www.ikolam.com/rangoli/computer-kolam-5

Grand Challenge: Valuing World Cultures

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

McKay Savage/CC BY 2.0

Some Rallies and Chants Raise Disturbing Parallels

How do we use the past to better understand the present? How does what we learn help us not repeat the mistakes of those who came before us?

Looking at the Present…

https://www.today.com/video/trump-rally-crowd-chants-send-her-back-at-rep-omar-64070725759

From the Lenses of the Past…

Tulsa 1921

https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre/

When America saw the Irish as terrorists

http://inthepastlane.com/when-americans-saw-irish-immigrants-as-terrorists/

Lessons from the Chinese Exclusion Act

https://psmag.com/social-justice/americas-lost-generation-of-asian-immigrants-81193

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/05/05/527091890/the-135-year-bridge-between-the-chinese-exclusion-act-and-a-proposed-travel-ban

1938 Nazi rally in Argentina

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/nazi-rally-argentina-1938/

Unrest in Indonesia

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/indonesian-muslims-protest-against-christian-governor

Remembering Rwanda

http://darkroom.baltimoresun.com/2014/04/in-memoriam-20-years-since-the-rwandan-genocide/file-photo-of-rwandan-hutu-refugees-resting-on-the-side-of-the-road-next-to-the-old-mugunga-refugee-camp/

The Swastika – then and now

https://owlcation.com/academia/TheSwastikaSymbol

Grand Challenge: Understanding the American Experience

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

RareHistoricalPhotos.com

The Sky's the Limit

Cool things in our skies, the galaxy, the universe, a clear view, telling time and more -- all made possible by just looking up!!

• How to stargaze

  • https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-stargaze

  • https://www.darksky.org/the-night-sky-and-you-9/

• Ten cool things about stars https://earthsky.org/space/ten-things-you-may-not-know-about-stars

• What's "up" this month? https://cosmicpursuits.com/night-sky-this-month/

• Imagine the universe!! https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/milkyway1.html

• The physics of our stars https://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/ua/StarMotion.html

• Telling time with stars https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/tell-time-by-stars.html

• Pollution’s impact on watching the sky https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-the-dramatic-effect-light-pollution-has-on-our-view-of-the-night-sky

• If you happen to be in Maine! http://www.acadianightskyfestival.org/
  

Grand Challenge: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Our Complicated Relationship with Trees

Called “Sylvan Mastodons”, sequoias astounded a young America… but saws were soon to follow

• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-california-giant-sequoia-tell-story-americans-conflicted-relationship-nature-180968389/

Incredible trees around the globe

• https://community.atlasobscura.com/t/incredible-one-of-a-kind-trees/16227

• https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2017/1/25/giant-trees-discovered-in-africa

The massive Ceiba was also spiritual

• https://www.thoughtco.com/ceiba-pentandra-sacred-tree-maya-171615

If you’ve ever thought trees could be more alive than we think, you might want to explore more…

• https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/12/peter-wohlleben-man-who-believes-trees-talk-to-each-other

• Video: National Geographic: How Trees Talk to Each Other in the Forest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kHZ0a_6TxY

• Podcast: How trees collaborate https://www.npr.org/2017/01/13/509350471/how-do-trees-collaborate

Counting Our Trees

• https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0904/Seeing-the-forest-for-the-trees-Why-latest-tree-census-matters

• https://www.livescience.com/52070-global-tree-census-human-impacts.html

How are YOUR neighborhoods treating trees??

Grand Challenge: Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet

Grand Challenge: Valuing World Cultures

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

Photo by Brandon Green on Unsplash



Long-Lost Letters Remind Us to Ask: Who Serves, and Why?

Letters sent on the eve of Gettysburg have been found and read for the first time. They remind us of the many reasons that different men and women have served and continue to do so.

• www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/newly-discovered-letters-bring-insight-life-civil-war-soldier-180960784/

Who furnished troops for the Civil War? did your state participate?

• http://www.civil-war.net/pages/troops_furnished_losses.html

How many really perished in the Civil War?

• https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/science/civil-war-toll-up-by-20-percent-in-new-estimate.html

Black soldiers have served as well

• https://blog.genealogybank.com/civil-war-letter-from-an-african-american-soldier.html

• http://www.wallaceterry.com/publications/bloods

Latinos in World War II: Fighting on Two Fronts

• https://www.nps.gov/articles/latinoww2.htm

Native Americans in Service

• https://americanindian.si.edu/education/codetalkers/html/

• https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2010/05/28/127245075/warriors
  

Grand Challenge: Understanding the American Experience

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

Photo by Jessica Radanavong on Unsplash

New Frontiers in Organ Donations & Transplants

How many people are waiting for an organ transplant?

Who receives organs and what organs are most needed?

Organ delivery by drone: soon to be routine?

Some want to limit organ donations to state residents. What impact could that have?

How is your state doing?

To learn more, explore these links:

• https://www.organdonor.gov/statistics-stories/statistics.html

• https://unos.org/news/organ-transplants-in-united-states-set-sixth-consecutive-record-in-2018/

• https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48132595

• https://www.npr.org/2008/05/21/90632108/should-we-legalize-the-market-for-human-organs

Grand Challenge: Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

Photo by Alexandru Acea on Unsplash

A Bronze Age Map of the Cosmos

In 1999, two amateur treasure hunters made a rare discovery at a small town in the Eastern German region of Saxony-Anhalt that shook the world of archeology. The remarkable find was in use from 1,800 to 1,600 BC, likely came from fmines in present-day Austria, England, and Romania, but was almost lost to black market traders.

To learn more, explore these links:

• https://www.ancient.eu/article/235/the-nebra-sky-disc---ancient-map-of-the-stars/

• https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nebra-sky-disc

• https://www.businessinsider.com/nebra-sky-disk-is-oldest-depiction-of-universe-2015-1

Grand Challenges: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe

Grand Challenges: Valuing World Cultures

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

By Dbachmann, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1500795

Stemming the Tide of Waste

Building on new ideas from cast-off materials and trash, and preventing an onslaught of waste.

• https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/dominican-and-american-students-build-school-waste-products-and-concrete.html

• http://projects.archiexpo.com/project-258397.html?token=96f025e59a61a44d9c0e2478e73563a5880f19f5#utm_medium=email&utm_source=insight&utm_campaign=53-architectural-projects-18-12-2018&utm_content=photo&utm_term=PROJECT_highlight

What are SCHOOLS doing?

• https://www.waste360.com/business/what-are-school-recycling-programs-teaching-our-kids

• http://www.ecocycle.org/schools/overview

• https://www.fastcompany.com/3060571/10-clever-student-inventions-that-could-reduce-our-waste

How about cities?

• https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/12/let-this-japanese-town-show-you-how-zero-waste-is-done/419706/

Grand Challenge: Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

The Art and Craft of Freed Slaves

First picture: Bill Traylor (ca. 1853–1949) is regarded today as one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century. A black man born into slavery in Alabama, he was an eyewitness to history: the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the Great Migration, and the steady rise of African American urban culture in the South.

To read more, click here:

• https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/traylor

Second picture - A beautiful plane made by Cesar Chelor (born 1720 in Wrentham, MA), a slave owned by the earliest American plane maker, Francis Nicholson. He was freed in Nicholson's will, in which he was also given Nicholson's tools and workbench.

To learn more, read these articles:

• https://www.jimbodetools.com/products/crisp-18th-century-chelor-ten-inch-yellow-birch-moulding-plane-near-mint-78095ru

• https://www.tpt.org/antiques-roadshow/video/antiques-roadshow-appraisal-cesar-chelor-plane-ca-1755/

• http://memorialhall.mass.edu/turns/view.jsp?itemid=6256&subthemeid=15

Third picture: Slavery to Freedom Museum

• https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/harriet-beecher-stowe-slavery-to-freedom-museum

Grand Challenge: Understanding the American Experience

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

Humans Are Still Asking: Where Did Our Water Come From?

A heap of space rubble that might unlock the mysteries of water on Earth https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613137/ryugu-is-a-heap-of-space-rubble-that-might-unlock-the-mysteries-of-water-on-earth/

Japanese scientists think they know where the Ryugu asteroid came from https://bgr.com/2019/03/21/ryugu-asteroid-origins-hayabusa2-japan/

Too dry?? What does that mean for our planet? https://www.newscientist.com/article/2196990-asteroid-ryugu-is-so-dry-we-may-have-to-rethink-how-earth-got-water/

How come we HAVE water? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-did-water-come-to-earth-72037248/

Grand Challenge: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57780984

The 15th Amendment

The 15th Amendment: Ulysses S. Grant’s Vision for a Post-Civil War America.

To learn more, explore these links:

• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/president-grant-pen-vision-civil-war-america-180965218/

• https://guides.loc.gov/15th-amendment

• http://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/african-americans-and-the-15th-amendment

Grand Challenge: Understanding the American Experience

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

Hand colored lithograph print commemorating the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment containing a large central scene of the celebratory parade held in Baltimore in May surrounded by several bust portraits and vignettes. Source: The Library Company of Philadelphia

Valuing and Preserving World Cultures

The conservation of world cultures and heritage, now more than ever, is a key factor in economic, scientific, social and human development.

NASA and Navajo Nation Partner in Understanding the Universe

https://www.space.com/nasa-partnership-with-navajo-nation.html

The Amazing Pyramids of Teotihuacan
https://www.livescience.com/63315-photos-teotihuacan-pyramids.html

World Heritage Challenges for the Millennium

http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/world-heritage-challenges-for-the-millennium-2007-en.pdf

This Humble Terrain in New Orleans Played an Invaluable Role in the Birth of Jazz

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/congo-square

Greek Astronomer Hipparchus' Sky Globe Still Helpful Today
https://www.space.com/719-long-lost-star-catalog-plain-sight.html

Grand Challenge: Valuing World Cultures

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

Photo by Alex Paganelli on Unsplash

Dim the Sun to Cool Our Planet?

Could spraying sunlight-reflecting particles into the stratosphere cool Planet Earth?

• https://www.technocracy.news/scientists-spray-the-stratosphere-dim-the-sun-cool-the-planet/

• https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07533-4

• https://www.perspectaweather.com/blog/2018/11/5/800-am-earths-upper-atmosphere-cooling-off-dramatically-and-cosmic-rays-continue-to-increase-as-deep-solar-minimum-approaches

• http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/08/plan-shoot-tiny-droplets-sky-would-cool-planet-it-wouldn-t-help-crops

Grand Challenge: Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet

Grand Challenge: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

Photo by Quentin Rey on Unsplash

Youth Protests Over Climate Change Envelope the Globe

As youth anger over climate change mounts, protests spread around the globe. 

• "There is no Planet B'." https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/25/global-wave-protests-is-underway-anger-mounts-among-those-wholl-have-live-with-global-warming/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fb8d4ff5a89e

• In Belgium, school is out https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/24/thousands-of-belgian-students-are-skipping-class-to-protest-against-climate-change-thecube

• Striking Australian students gain adult backing https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/more-climate-protests-planned-for-saturday-as-australians-back-student-activists/news-story/bad8c051ae23a69706b1d4aff5304a43

• French students pledge to spurn polluting companies https://www.fastcompany.com/90267447/more-than-20000-french-students-have-pledged-to-not-work-for-polluting-companies

• Action in 50 cities in Germany www.tagesschau.de/inland/schueler-klimaschutz-101.html

• Girl’s solo protest snowballs https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/24/school-strikes-over-climate-change-continue-to-snowball

Grand Challenge: Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet

• Develop concepts, theories, tools, and models that contribute directly to halting biodiversity loss, managing species and their habitats, restoring ecosystems, and mitigating threats to the environment.

• Understand how species interactions, climate change, habitat fragmentation, diseases, environmental contaminants, and invasions of exotic species affect the survival of species and the functioning of ecosystems.

• Improve knowledge of the relationships between cultures and biological diversity over time in order to better sustain both.

STEM, STEAM, STEMX, STEMD and beyond..

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism.

Environmental Protest PC: Tony Webster | CC

The Birth of Women's Suffrage

In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other women called a women’s rights meeting in Seneca Falls, New York.  People came to view the Seneca Falls, NY gathering as the meeting that launched the suffrage movement.

To learn more, explore these links:

• http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/seneca-falls-meeting/

• https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/on-this-day-the-seneca-falls-convention-begins

• https://www.nps.gov/wori/index.htm

• https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/seneca-falls-convention

Grand Challenge: Understanding the American Experience

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

By unknown - Library of Congress, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22568316

Pieces of Mars Are Among the Bodies Colliding with Earth

In order to understand meteorite impacts on Earth, it is important to know where the chunks of rock come from.

• https://www.space.com/33695-thousands-meteorites-litter-earth-unpredictable-collisions.html

• https://earthsky.org/space/heres-how-often-small-asteroids-enter-earths-atmosphere

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/09/28/pieces-of-mars-have-landed-on-earth/

• https://nineplanets.org/

Grand Challenge: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

Rohit Bhartia of NASA's Mars 2020 mission holds a slice of a meteorite scientists have determined came from Mars. One of two slices will be used for testing a laser instrument for NASA's Mars 2020 rover while it's still on Earth; the other slice will go to Mars onboard the rover.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Quebec Diaspora

Emigration from French-speaking Canada benefited American industry and culture.

To read more, explore these links:

• http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/readings/leaving.htm

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_diaspora

• http://frenchnorthamerica.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-other-side-of-cotton-franco.html?m=1

• https://bangordailynews.com/2010/03/30/news/franco-influence-big-in-state/

Grand Challenge: Valuing World Cultures

·         Shed light on the interconnections among world cultures.

·         Add to knowledge of migrations, diasporas, and interactions of cultural groups

Grand Challenge: Understanding the American Experience

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

Creole girls, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, 1935 Ben Shahn - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID fsa.8a16783.

Happy New Year - In the New World, Who Got What?

A Pope Fixes the New World Dispute Between Portugal & Spain.

To read more, explore these links:

https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/treaty-of-tordesillas/

https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Tordesillas

http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/Americas/Tordesillas.html

Grand Challenge: Valuing World Cultures

·         Shed light on the interconnections among world cultures.

·         Add to knowledge of migrations, diasporas, and interactions of cultural groups,

·         Deepen our understanding of significant global political and historic patterns and events and their impact on humanity and the planet. 

ERC Grand Challenges: For project design, for inquiry, for activism

Wikipedia: The Cantino planisphere of 1502 shows the line of the Treaty of Tordesillas.