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Shocking Fanny Wright

3/31/2022

Cheryl Harness
She’s historical!

An 1835 Sketch of "Miss Wright"

When she was a girl in Scotland, Frances or “Fanny” Wright fell in love with America, a new nation “consecrated to freedom.” On September 3, 1818, the 22-year-old writer set foot on that actual land of her dreams. She and her little sister Camilla, a pair of wealthy orphans, spent the next two years touring the young U.S.  Young females did NOT go traveling without a man in those days, but Fanny believed that freedom should apply to women too!

  Her 1821 book about her travels won her the friendship of another freedom fan, the Marquis de Lafayette, who’d helped free America from the British Empire. In 1824, the old Frenchman made sure Fanny met his friend, 81-year-old Thomas Jefferson and his friend, 73-year-old James Madison.

But wait – maybe you already see a fly in the soup. To Fanny, “slavery was revolting everywhere.” Slaves in the Land of Liberty was sickening! As much as she admired the two former presidents, she hated that they lived in slave-built mansions, waited on by people who had no choice but to do so. But slavery really did trouble them, too. Slavery trapped everyone in its evilness. With so much money tied up in costly human property, owners couldn’t afford to let them go. Could blacks support themselves, after lifetimes of being fed, housed, and denied education? Madison and Jefferson thought no; emancipation had to be gradual. Really, centuries of racial division had them and their countrymen thinking that the races could never live together. Surely blacks must go back to Africa! (In fact, many had already been sent there, to Monrovia, but that’s another story for another day.)

So Fanny planned farms where blacks could learn while they earned their freedom money. It was her way of freeing her beloved America from the curse of slavery. She published her idea and tried to make it work on Nashoba, her own farm in Tennessee, but her experiment failed. Then, in the late 1820s, she went around the eastern US, making speeches about all of her freethinking ideas and shocking the daylights out of people. A public-speaking woman was unheard of! Going around, talking about abolition, day care for working mothers, the rights of women and factory workers? SHOCKING! That’s the thing to know about Fanny Wright: She was one stubborn radical, WAY ahead of her time, imagining freedoms she never lived to see.

1824 Henry Inman portrait of Frances "Fanny" Wright. b. Sept. 6, 1795, Dundee, Scotland. d. Dec. 13, 1852, Cincinnati, Ohio

A hostile cartoon lampooning Wright for daring to deliver a series of lectures in 1829, at a time when many felt that public speaking was not an appropriate activity for women.

Cheryl Harness has written (and illustrated) short, spirited profiles of twenty women who impacted life in America by speaking out against injustice and fighting for social improvements. The book spans over two hundred years of American history and includes time lines for such important social movements as abolition, woman suffrage, labor, and civil rights. Readers inspired by these fiery women can use the civil action tips and resources in the back of the book to do some of their own rabble-rousing. For more information, click here.

MLA 8 Citation
Harness, Cheryl. "Shocking Fanny Wright." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 1
Mar. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
shocking-fanny-wright.

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Luke Skywatcher

3/30/2022

3 Comments

Alexandra Siy
Science through the lens

A long time ago in a land far, far away…

The climate suddenly changes. It’s May, and a “Great Fog” appears in the sky. During the day it blocks out the sun and acts like a blanket trapping heat near the ground. A ten-year old boy notices that temperatures spike and sunsets are a spectacular display of colors. He doesn’t know that volcanoes in the “Ring of Fire” are spewing ash into the atmosphere creating massive clouds and causing the strange weather. All he knows is that he can’t take his eyes off the sky. The boy’s name is Luke Howard. The year is 1783, and his location is the English countryside. Luke records his observations in a journal. Although he doesn’t know it yet, he is on his way to becoming the “Father of Meteorology.”

Flash forward twenty years. It’s 1803, and Luke Howard is a successful businessman. But in his spare time, ever since the summer of 1873, he’s been watching the clouds and thinking up new ideas about the weather. He writes and publishes a scientific paper and presents his ideas to a group of fellow amateur scientists. His article, “On the modification of clouds, and on the principles of their production, suspension and destruction,” classifies clouds into groups using Latin words: heaped (cumulus), layered (stratus), fibrous (cirrus), and rain (nimbus). By combining terms into names such as Cirro-cumulus, which he describes as "small, well-defined roundish masses, in close horizontal arrangement," Luke identifies many kinds of clouds.

Luke’s passion for clouds inspires him to make watercolor sketches and write a book called The Climate of London, which introduces new ideas about lightening and the causes of rain. In 1864, Luke Howard dies at the age of ninety-two, leaving behind a cloud naming system that is still used today.

A long time ago in a land far, far away, Luke Howard names the clouds—and in our imagination we see him turning to a friend and saying, “May the clouds be with you.”

This photo taken over Cape Cod bay shows several cloud types: cumulus are the puffy clouds close to the water; behind those are a thick layer of stratus; above them in the middle of the frame are altostratus; high in the sky are cirrus; and a contrail (condensation trail) from an airplane makes a diagonal line. (©Alexandra Siy)

The sun shines through a layer of cirrostratus above an old grain elevator in Utah. Cirrocumulus clouds are in the lower left of the picture.(©Alexandra Siy)

A towering cumulus cloud is illuminated by the setting sun over Long Lake in New York's Adirondack Mountains. Nimbostratus rain clouds hover over the mountain. (©Alexandra Siy)

A whimsical Luke Howard painting shows a cloud made to look like an anvil.

To see photos of many kinds of clouds go to NOAA Sky Watcher Chart

Spidermania: Friends on the Web debunks myths about spiders and takes an extremely close look at creatures that have both fascinated and terrified humans. An introduction explains what makes spiders unique. Then ten species are highlighted with incredible electron micro-graph images and surprising facts. From diving bell spiders that live in bubbles underwater, to spitting spiders that shoot sticky streams of spit at their prey, to black widows and wolf spiders, this unusual book will intrigue readers and help cure arachnophobia. For more information, click here.

MLA 8 Citation
Siy, Alexandra. "Luke Skywatcher." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 27 Apr.
2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/Luke-Skywatcher.

3 Comments

A Bouncing Ball Like You've Never Seen

3/29/2022

2 Comments

Vicki Cobb
The Master Chef of Kids’ Hands-on Science

You can’t play tennis unless you know where the ball will be after it bounces. You can’t pass a basketball unless you understand how to angle a bounce so that it goes where you want it to go. As long as the court surface is smooth and flat, a ball’s bounce is very predictable. Its path depends on gravity and on the strength and direction of the force that sets the ball in motion. Thanks to high speed photography we can get a closer look at a bouncing ball.

This is a multiple exposure photograph of a bouncing ball. It was taken in complete darkness with the camera shutter open while a high-speed flashing light, called a stroboscope or strobe, flashed 30 times a second. Each flash produced an image.

Here’s what you can learn from this photo: The ball is moving fastest where the images are farthest apart and slowest where they are closest together. When the ball is falling, it speeds up. After it bounces and moves opposite the pull of gravity, it slows down at exactly the same rate as it sped up when it was falling until it stops for an instant and starts falling again. Each time it collides with the ground, some energy is lost. That’s why each bounce loses altitude. If the bounce were perfect, no energy would be lost, every bounce would be as high as the last and the ball would bounce forever.

A strobe also captures the split second when a tennis ball is struck by a racket. The collision flattens the ball, and stretches the strings and distorts the frame of the racket, all in .005 seconds. If these objects kept their distorted shapes, most of the force of the collision would be absorbed. But they are elastic—they restore themselves to their original shapes after they collide. This restoring force is transferred to the ball to change its direction and help add to the speed of the athlete’s swing. The fastest serve leaves a racket at 130 miles an hour. In a rally, a ball-racket collision changes direction of the ball so it is not as fast as a serve, maybe 70 miles per hour. Since the distance between images made by a strobe tells how fast an object is moving, strobes are part of the instruments used to measure the speed of balls from a tennis racket and a baseball pitcher.

Photo credit: C. E. Miller, MIT

Would you believe that you could throw an egg across the room without breaking it? Burn a candle underwater? Vicki Cobb's We Dare You! is a gigantic collection of irresistible, easy-to-perform science experiments, tricks, bets, and games kids can do at home with everyday household objects. Thanks to the principles of gravity, mechanics, fluids, logic, geometry, energy, and perception, kids will find countless hours of fun with the selections included in this book. If you would like to make a We Dare You Video, click here.
Vicki Cobb is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.

MLA 8 Citation
Cobb, Vicki. "A Bouncing Ball Like You've Never Seen." Nonfiction Minute, iNK
Think Tank, 5 Feb. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
a-bouncing-ball-like-you've-never-seen.

2 Comments

Isaac Newton's Wonder Years

3/28/2022

0 Comments

Kerrie Logan Hollihan
Teaching the Power of Wonder

   In spring 1665 a college student named Isaac Newton studied natural philosophy, what we call “science.” Back then, a good student could learn everything to know about the natural world. But plague, the Black Death, came to England. Cambridge University closed. Isaac went home to Woolsthorpe.

            For two years Isaac thought about his studies during four years at university. He’d always been thoughtful—not the best at games, making friends, or minding sheep. But everybody knew Isaac Newton liked to think. Folks told time by the sundial he’d drawn on a wall.

            Home at Woolsthorpe, Isaac’s learning about science and math bubbled up in his head like yeast rising in a loaf of bread.

            So... Newton unplugged. His mind roamed like that of an artist or composer. He was driven by the need to create—not paintings or symphonies, but questions.

            “Why do things always fall down?”

            “Why does the earth move around the sun?

            “Why doesn’t the moon fall onto the earth?”

            “Does everything ‘up there” work like things work ‘down here?’”

            Isaac Newton answered his questions with three science rules, Newton’s Laws of Motion.

            At Woolsthorpe, Newton grappled with the concept of moving objects. He worked out the math to find the area under curves. He called this math fluxions. Today we call this calculus, useful for launching rockets or tracking TV signals.

            Once back at Cambridge, Newton said nothing until he read someone else’s paper on fluxions. Newton published a better paper. Soon he was Cambridge’s top math professor.

            Isaac Newton wondered another twenty years. He played with prisms in a dark room and theorized that white light comprises the visible spectrum of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He practiced alchemy and chemistry, looking for the legendary philosopher’s stone to turn base metals to gold. In 1687, Newton published our most important science book, the Principia.

            In the Principia, Newton showed how laws of gravity and motion work the same at great distances—far off in space, or in your classroom. We accept these ideas, but in 1687 many still had medieval beliefs that sun, moon, planets, and stars all traveled in their own crystal spheres.

            Yes, Newton wondered about A LOT:

Gravity
Forces
Mass
Inertia
Math
Motion
Light
God
???

Whatever interests you, I hope you’ll think about it—a lot! Like Isaac Newton, take time to WONDER!

Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, astronomer, theologian, author and physicist who is widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. Based on a portrait by Godfrey Kneller, 1702, via Wikimedia Commons

Sir Isaac Newton's own first edition copy of his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica with his handwritten corrections for the twentieth edition. Photograph Andrew Dunn via Wikimedia Commons

Trinity College, the part of the University of Cambridge where Newton worked and lived. Library of Congress

This statue of the young Isaac Newton stands at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Look carefully around his feet for a hint on what he is wondering about. If you can’t figure it out, then read about Newton and gravity.
Wikimedia Commons

Featuring 21 hands-on projects that explore the scientific concepts Isaac Newton developed, Kerrie Logan Hollihan's Isaac Newton and Physics for Kids paints a rich portrait of the brilliant and complex man and provides readers with a hands-on understanding of astronomy, physics, and mathematics. A time line, excerpts from Newton's own writings, online resources, and a reading list enhance this unique activity book.

MLA 8 Citation
Hollihan, Kerrie Logan. "Isaac Newton's Wonder Years." Nonfiction Minute, iNK
Think Tank, 21 Feb. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
isaac-newtons-wonder years.

0 Comments

International Waffle Day

3/25/2022

1 Comment

Jim Whiting
The Running Encyclopedia

French Waffles. Yum!

Today is International Waffle Day!

It originated in Sweden, probably due to confusion between the Swedish words Våffeldagen (Waffle Day) and Vårfrudagen (“Our Lady’s Day”), which also falls on March 25. Vårfrudagen marks the Annunciation, when the archangel Gabriel tells the Virgin Mary that she will become the mother of Jesus Christ. Despite this coincidence, International Waffle Day has no religious significance. In Sweden, the date is the traditional start of spring and Swedes (and many people throughout the world) celebrate by—you guessed it—eating waffles.

Historians date the origin of waffles back to the ancient Greeks, who cooked flat cakes called obleios between two hot metal plates. In the 1200s, an unknown European craftsman invented plates with the honeycomb pattern that characterize waffles. Waffles reportedly came to the New World in 1620 with the Pilgrims.

Americans also celebrate National Waffle Day on August 24. On this date in 1869, Cornelius Swartwout received the first U.S. patent for a waffle iron. Designed for use on top of coal-burning stoves, it consisted of a cast-iron griddle and cover joined by a hinge. A handle and clasp prevented the cook from being burned. When the batter was poured in, it would cook for a few minutes and then the iron would be flipped over to cook the other side. The widespread use of electricity in the early 1900s resulted in the development of the electric waffle iron, making it easy to produce one of the most popular breakfast foods.

Waffles have another distinction. About 1971, University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman was experimenting with new soles for running shoes. He wanted something to provide traction and stability, yet lighter in weight than current models. Looking at his wife’s waffles gave him an idea. He poured rubber into her waffle iron and let it cook for a few minutes. He removed it, let it harden, then cut it to the proper shape. His experiments ruined the waffle iron, but they resulted in a new shoe called the Waffle Trainer. Bowerman joined businessman Phil Knight, one of his former runners, and founded the Nike Shoe Company to market the Waffle Trainer. The shoe created a sensation among runners of all levels of ability. Today Nike is almost synonymous with running shoes and other athletic footwear.

A North American Belgian style electric waffle maker. Wikimedia

Track and field coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman. Over his career, he trained 31 Olympic athletes, 51 All-Americans, 12 American record-holders, 22 NCAA champions and 16 sub-4 minute milers.

The original Bowerman waffle iron is in very bad shape having resided in a rubbish heap for a number of years after the rubber waffle escapade. But it is now safely ensconced at Nike’s corporate headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon.

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Shocking Fanny Wright

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A Bouncing Ball Like You've Never Seen

Isaac Newton's Wonder Years

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