The spacecraft Juno made it through a very hostile environment to send back images of this enormous, telegenic, enshrouded planet. The god Jupiter was a cheating punk. Always sleeping with mortals was he, and enshrouding himself with thick clouds so … Continue reading Spying on Jupiter: Space Photos of the Week

Most schoolchildren can recite the founding date of the United States of America: July 4, 1776. But a searing project from the New York Times Magazine changes that date to August 20, 1619—the day 20 enslaved Africans first arrived on … Continue reading The ‘1619 Project’ Curriculum Challenges Teachers to Reframe U.S. History

By Elizabeth Pennisi Some frogs are thumbnail-size, but Cameroon’s Goliath frog (above) is bigger than a whole human foot, measuring up to 34 centimeters and weighing up to 3.3 kilograms. Although the world’s largest frogs are well known for their girth, … Continue reading The world’s biggest frogs build their own ponds

BY ALVIN WARD English vocabulary is full of pitfalls that you might not be aware of. Don’t let them trip you up. 1. INVARIABLY If something happens invariably, it always happens. To be invariable is to never vary. The word … Continue reading 38 Word Usage Mistakes Even Smart People Make

by Andrew Webb “We get around 70 requests a week from all over the world from people wanting to come and see what we do here” says Rob Houben, manager of the Agora school in Roermond, Netherlands, and the closest thing … Continue reading Meet the school with no classes, no classrooms and no curriculum

 This article is more than 5 months old An American 14-year-old has reportedly become the youngest known person in the world to create a successful nuclear reaction. The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, a hobbyist group, has recognised the achievement by … Continue reading Boy, 12, said to have created nuclear reaction in playroom lab

1. Kano PC Computers-for-kids pioneer Kano recently partnered with Microsoft to launch an Intel-powered mobile PC with an 11.6-inch touchscreen. After your child has assembled it—connecting the components and snapping on the clear case—they can complete tutorials on how to create emoji, … Continue reading TOP 3 COMPUTERS FOR INTRODUCING YOUR KIDS TO COMP SCI

How to Teach Students Historical Inquiry Through Media Literacy And Critical Thinking Many students are not good at evaluating the credibility of what they see and read online according to a now-famous Stanford study that was released just after the 2016 election. … Continue reading The price of living in a world with so much information at our fingertips is that we have to ask questions about sources. Start by interrogating the textbook

The ‘terrascope’ would use a detector in space to collect refracted light  BY  EMILY CONOVER Telescopes keep getting bigger — and more expensive. But what if there were a better way? One astronomer has suggested a possible work-around: Turn the entire Earth … Continue reading A proposed space telescope would use Earth’s atmosphere as a lens

SOMETIMES YOU THINK you have a complete understanding of something and then BOOM—a simple problem throws everything out the window. Let’s consider a very basic physics problem involving pushing a block with a frictional force. These kinds of problems are quite common … Continue reading EVEN PHYSICS TEXTBOOKS TEND TO GET FRICTION SLIGHTLY WRONG