Blog Archives

May Day

4/29/2022

Cheryl Harness

She’s historical!

For some of us, spring begins when you can go outside in your shorts and not get cold legs. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, spring’s official start is at the vernal equinox, when the sun shines directly on the earth’s equator. For me, here in Missouri, that was March 20, 5:45 P.M. CDT. The autumnal equinox arrives in September— when spring begins in the southern hemisphere! But I digress from today’s theme: May Day. For thousands of years, it’s been a day for celebrating spring, But that’s not all it’s been.

     Since the oldest olden days, winter-weary people have gloried when the weather warms and the cold earth comes back to life. Some of their ancient festivals still happen every spring, such as Sham el Nissim, in Egypt. In India, on Holi, dancing Hindus still shower one another with colors; and Iranians still fix a special supper at Norooz, as did their ancient Persian ancestors.

     When the Roman armies invaded ancient Britain, in 55 B.C.E. they brought along their spring holy day, Floralia, when they gathered bouquets of flowers for their goddess, Flora. The Celts, who’d been living in Britain for years, celebrated the earth mother’s reawakening with dances and bonfires at Beltane, around the end of April. Over the years, the holidays blended into May Day, a time for giving gifts of flowers and dancing about a Maypole, strung with ribbons.

Then, in the 1880s, May Day celebrations changed. It was like this: For decades, factory owners had been making their employees work anywhere from 10 to 16 hours a day, six days a week (even children!), often in unsafe, nasty conditions. The workers were sick of it! They organized themselves into labor unions. At a Chicago gathering, in 1884, they started a worldwide movement for an 8-hour workday. With a huge demonstration in the city, on May 1, 1886, May Day came to be the first Labor Day, a day of parades. It’s still celebrated as International Workers’ Day in many countries.

But one more thing happened, in 1923. Because ‘May Day’ sounds like the French phrase, ‘m’aidez’ or ‘help me,’ a London radioman turned it into an international distress call. So if you hear “Mayday! Mayday!” on your radio, no one’s wishing you ‘Happy Spring!’ Someone’s in trouble! And once he or she is saved, I’ll bet he or she would like to have some pretty flowers.

May Day festivities at National Park Seminary in Maryland, 1907. Celebrations were common at women's colleges and academic institutions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Wikimedia Commons

A maypole at a Renaissance Fair in Tuxedo Park, New York. Wikimedia

International Workers' Day began a celebration of laborers and the working classes but later the date was adopted by anarchists, socialists, and communists and other groups. It occurs every year on May Day. "Socialists in Union Square, N.Y.C." May 1, 1912. The Library of Congress

Cheryl Harness is the author and illustrator of Remember the Ladies: 100 Great American Women. One of the 100 Ladies is the great and heroic labor union activist "Mother" Mary Harris Jones. She was born on May Day, 1830. Click here to find out more about about Mary, and about a lot of other great Americans.

MLA 8 CItation
Harness, Cheryl. "May Day." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 1 May 2018,
www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/May-Day.

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Defining Weather, Global Warming, and Climate Change

4/27/2022

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Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
Nature’s Animal Ambassador

People are confused. They hear the terms “global warming” and “climate change” tossed about without much explanation. We all talk about the weather, but what does that word actually mean, and how does it relate to these other terms?

NASA defines global warming: “Global warming is the increase in Earth’s average surface temperature due to rising levels of greenhouse gases.” So global warming is a measurable statistic. Record the temperature at many sites on Earth for a given year, add them up, and divide to get an average. Rising levels of greenhouse gases are also well measured. The famous “Keeling curve” of atmospheric CO2 begun in Hawaii in 1957 is the best example.

Climate change is more complicated. Climate change is a long-term change in the Earth’s climate and includes measures of the atmosphere, oceans, land, cryosphere (snow and ice), wind, precipitation, deforestation, wildfire, and more, as well as temperature. So, climate change is a more inclusive measure of many factors changing the Earth system, which is very different from a single statistic like the rise in temperature from global warming.

Then there’s the weather. What, exactly is the weather? That term refers to what’s going on in the atmosphere at a particular time and place. It includes the air temperature, wind speed, humidity, and precipitation. Weather happens day to day, while global warming is shown by recording day-to-day temperatures over a long period of time. Climate change is a long-term process that can result in drastic changes in conditions on our planet.

To sum up: Weather refers to what’s happening in the atmosphere at a given time and place over the course of days to months.

Global warming refers to an upward trend in the average temperature over a period of years to decades.

Climate change is a long-term process that can be influenced by changes in the average temperature but includes many other factors.

To watch a brief but amazing video of the affect of global warming and climate change over the next 20 years, click here.

Dorothy's recent book The Call of the Osprey, has been chosen as a Best Science Trade Book for Students by the National Science Teachers Association. It covers research being done in Western Montana by scientists at the University of Montana. Starting in the late 1800's, Butte, MT, at the headwaters of the Clark Fork River, was the largest copper mine in the U.S. The major result of the mining was two-fold—the electrification of America and the largest Superfund cleanup site in the U.S. Call of the Osprey deals not only with current research but also with the history of Butte and the lives of the scientists involved in the research. Click here to find out more.

Dorothy Hinshaw Patent 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
Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "Defining Weather, Global Warming, and Climate Change."
     Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 16 Apr. 2018,
     www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
     Defining-Weather-Global-Warming-and-Climate-Change.

2 Comments

Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson—Smuggler!

4/26/2022

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Peggy Thomas

Curiosity queen: writing science, history, and everything in between

On April 13, 1787 Thomas Jefferson celebrated his 44th birthday riding a mule over the Alps on his way to Italy. Jefferson’s first official federal position after writing the Declaration of Independence was serving as Minister to France under President George Washington. Jefferson’s job was to grow America’s economy, which he did by forming trade agreements to sell whale oil and tobacco overseas. He also looked for new crops that could be grown in the U.S. and sold in Europe.

One thing he noticed was that the French ate a lot of rice, but they didn’t buy rice grown in America. The French preferred dry or upland rice. American farmers grew “swamp” rice and suffered with mosquitoes and malaria. Jefferson thought that if American farmers switched to upland rice they would not only be able to sell it abroad, they would also be healthier.

Jefferson asked for samples of upland rice from friends, farmers, ship captains who traveled to far off lands, and even the seven-year-old prince of Cochin China. The most prized rice, however, was grown in Italy and banned from export.

Determined to help America, Jefferson rode over the Alps and found the unhusked grain. “I could only bring off as much as my coat and surtout [overcoat] pockets would hold,” he wrote a friend. Under penalty of death, he smuggled it across the border.

Back in France, Jefferson sent rice to farmers in South Carolina and to his farm manager at Monticello, his home in Virginia. He even grew samples of rice in pots on his windowsill when he returned to New York to be Secretary of State.

Unfortunately, the upland rice didn’t grow well in the South and didn’t become a big export for the U.S., but Jefferson was not discouraged. He had already set his sights on another amazing plant that he hoped would be “the source of the greatest wealth and happiness.” Olive trees.

Many years later when Jefferson listed his achievements, along with writing the Declaration of Independence he included his attempts to bring rice and olives to the United States. “The greatest service which can be rendered any country,” he said, “is to add an useful plant to its culture.”

Celebrate his birthday with a salad made from some of the useful plants he brought to our culture— kale, tomatoes, peppers and chickpeas with a splash of olive oil.

Happy Birthday, Thomas Jefferson!

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson while in London in 1786, 15 years before he began his presidency. By Mather Brown. Library of Congress, courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

After service as Secretary of State (1790–93), Jefferson began rebuilding his Virginia home, Monticello, based on the ideas he had acquired in Europe. The home is a major tourist attraction today.

Peggy Thomas is the author of Thomas Jefferson Grows a Nation

Among her other books are:
* For the Birds: the life of Roger Tory Peterson
* Snow Dance
* Farmer George Plants A Nation
* Joshua the Giant Frog
* Forensic Anthropology: the Science of Talking Bones

MLA 8 Citation
Thomas, Peggy. "Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson - Smuggler!" Nonfiction Minute,
iNK Think Tank, 13 Apr. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/
the-nonfiction-minute/happy-birthday-thomas-jefferson-smuggler.

3 Comments

World Penguin Day

4/25/2022

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Jim Whiting
The Running Encyclopedia

Who doesn’t like penguins? Their waddling gait is fun to watch. They have little fear of humans so it’s easy to get next to them. Penguin movies such as Happy Feet and The Penguins of Madagascar are box office hits.

World Penguin Day on April 25 focuses attention on these loveable flightless fowl. Some people dress up in black and white clothing. Many read books about penguins or watch penguin movies.

I was fortunate to get up close and personal to thousands of penguins during a trip to Antarctica. As our ship neared the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula—the closest point to the southern tip of South America which had been our departure point—we marveled at how effortlessly they skimmed through the water beside us. Soon we marveled at another characteristic. We were at least two or three miles offshore when the harsh odor of the poop generated by all those penguins wafted over the ship.

We relished the opportunity to go ashore and wander through their rookeries. There were lots of juveniles, covered with gray fuzz that would eventually fall off and be replaced by their characteristic black and white plumage. None of them seemed to mind our presence.

But we had several harsh reminders that we weren’t in a zoo. Several century-old stone huts provided shelter for explorers who slaughtered hundreds of penguins to eat during the long, harsh Antarctic winters. Skuas, nasty predatory birds, routinely feed on penguin chicks. We saw the discarded remains of several skua meals. Danger can also come from the depths. A couple of times we observed large seals relaxing on ice floes with bright red stains next to them.

The saddest sight came one afternoon when we took a Zodiac inflatable boat to shore. A penguin stood forlornly on top of a small ice floe, a leopard seal thrashing the water next to it. We asked our guide if we could rescue the doomed bird. He shook his head. “The water is too rough,” he said. “Too much chance of falling in if anyone tried to step out onto the floe. And you don’t want to be anywhere near an angry half-ton leopard seal that feels his dinner is being taken away from him.”

On our way back to the ship, there was no sign of the lone penguin. We had to accept that we couldn’t interfere in the natural course of things.

Although all penguin species are native to the Southern Hemisphere, they are not found only in cold climates, such as Antarctica. In fact, only a few species of penguin live so far south.

An Adélie penguin feeding its young

Greenpeace invites you to celebrate World Penguin Day and also to join the campaign towards its protection. You can learn more by visiting this website: ttp://act.gp/wpd2013.

Jim Whiting has written more than 100 titles and edited another 150 or so, with subjects ranging from authors to zoologists and including classical musicians and contemporary pop icons, saints and scientists, emperors and explorers. Many of his books have received glowing reviews.
He's also ventured into a number of classrooms and served as a presenter at writers' conferences, conveying the enthusiasm for writing and for a good story that still animates him. Check out his work here.

MLA 8 Citation
Whiting, Jim. "World Penguin Day." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 25 Apr.
2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/World-Penguin-Day.

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Spring Break

4/17/2022

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April 18 to April 22 (Earth Day) the iNK authors are taking time to smell the flowers. Hope you do so as well. See you with a new crop of Minutes on Saturday, April 23. If you were off last week, we're leaving up our posts for you to enjoy every Nonfiction Minute.

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May Day

Defining Weather, Global Warming, and Climate Change

Happy Birthday Thomas Jefferson—Smuggler!

World Penguin Day

Spring Break

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