10 Bizarre Death Rituals from Around the World I'm surprised that the historic funerary rites of the Iroquoian peoples aren't on here. The Wendat (also known as Hurons) would bury their dead twice. The first time was when the person died. They would then be buried again during a ritual known as The Feast of the Dead. Every 10 to 25 years, the Wendat would move their village to a new location (the soils in Wendake are rather are sandy and rather poor, so the Wendat engaged in slash and burn agriculture, and would move when yields went down) but before the move they would hold a Feast of the Dead. The bodies would be exhumed, any flesh that remained would be removed, and wrapped in beaver furs before being re-interned along with grave goods in a mass grave pit known as an ossuary. In 1636, Jesuit Missionary Jean de Brébeuf, was invited to a large Feast of the Dead outside the village of Ossossané, near what is now Elmvale, Ontario.
Describing a photo 20 different connected ways I love examining a good image. As a trained geographer I always examine an image in 20 different yet connected ways. Sounds intense but it really is quick and can be an extended starter task or a collaborative task on the same image. I like this avenue best:) I'll do it in numbered points so you can see the level of depth to the thinking that can be applied to a single photo. 1. You can extend these even more by applying the question matrix to each of the 6 senses and vary the thinking required as a personalisation strategy. As you can see this links to our senses. This all applied to the NOW. 7. Thinking of a photo in these four ways is fascinating and gets students being creative and also reflective. 11. Add further strength to this and allows imaginations to run riot:) The next few are geography categorising skills but can really focus students into specifics of an image or get them thinking of likely or possible issues: 13. 16. 17. I like multiple coloured post it notes. 18. 19. 20.
Cold War tests in St. Louis raise concerns - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq By Jim Salter - The Associated Press Posted : Wednesday Oct 3, 2012 18:52:04 EDT ST. After learning that the Army conducted secret chemical testing in her impoverished St. In the mid-1950s, and again a decade later, the Army used motorized blowers atop a low-income housing high-rise, at schools and from the backs of station wagons to send a potentially dangerous compound into the already-hazy air in predominantly black areas of St. Local officials were told at the time that the government was testing a smoke screen that could shield St. But in 1994, the government said the tests were part of a biological weapons program and St. Now, new research is raising greater concern about the implications of those tests. But her report, released late last month, was troubling enough that both U.S. senators from Missouri wrote to Army Secretary John McHugh demanding answers. Aides to Sens.
Train Rumbles Through Busy Thailand Market Food traders in Thailand have been filmed dodging trains that pass straight through their busy market. When the warning siren blares, traders have just three minutes to clear away their stalls and produce. Then, once the train has rumbled past, it is back to business for the fish and vegetable sellers in Mae Khrong, about 35 miles west of the Thai capital Bangkok. Eight trains pass through every day. "We have so little time (to move away from the tracks) but all the vendors can make it in time. We are used to it," said fishmonger Pailin Worakum. The market was originally behind the railway line but as it expanded, the vendors started spilling out over the tracks and their stalls now straddle a 500m stretch. It has become a popular sight with tourists who marvel at the traders' stall-clearing routine. Officials say there have been "no major accidents" since the railway market started.
A People's History of the United States The Note: This great book should really be read by everyone. It is difficult to describe why it so great because it both teaches and inspires. You really just have to read it. We think it is so good that it demands to be as accessible as possible. Once you've finished it, we're sure you'll agree. In fact, years ago, we would offer people twenty dollars if they read the book and didn't think it was completely worth their time. The disclaimer: This version is made from OCR.
Ed Resources Online - Home of the free Ed Resource Toolbar If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!  By using multi-media geography resources you can make geography lessons come alive as you virtually transport your students/children to places they’ve never been before.  Take your students on a virtual field trip through the fifty U.S. states with Awesome America, featuring: Amazing photographs and links to additional state resources (state symbols, facts, trivia, state parks etc). A great way to take a virtual field trip through the fifty states.Earthcam.com links to live video cameras throughout the world. Your kids can explore exotic sites around the world (as well as within the US) from your computer. My kids enjoyed viewing Times Square and the Osprey web cam. This site does require supervision as some of the cameras are located in areas you may not wish them to see.
The crayola-fication of the world: How we gave colors names, and it messed with our brains (part I) | Empirical Zeal “Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.” Spectral Rhythm. In Japan, people often refer to traffic lights as being blue in color. Blue and green are similar in hue. One of the first fences in this color continuum came from an unlikely place – crayons. Reconstructing the rainbow. In modern Japanese, midori is the word for green, as distinct from blue. And it’s not just Japanese. (Update: Some clarifications here. I find this fascinating, because it highlights a powerful idea about how we might see the world. Imagine that you had a rainbow-colored piece of paper that smoothly blends from one color to the other. A map of color for an English speaker. But if you think about it, there’s a real puzzle here. This question was first addressed by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay in the late 1960s.
40 maps that explain the world By Max Fisher By Max Fisher August 12, 2013 Maps can be a remarkably powerful tool for understanding the world and how it works, but they show only what you ask them to. So when we saw a post sweeping the Web titled "40 maps they didn't teach you in school," one of which happens to be a WorldViews original, I thought we might be able to contribute our own collection. [Additional read: How Ukraine became Ukraine and 40 more maps that explain the world] Click to enlarge. Further evidence that Asians colonized the Americas long before Europeans did Contrary to the claims of a recent study, the multiregional model, which states that modern humans evolved from several different groups of hominids (including Neanderthals) that interbred at some point to produce modern humans, fails to explain the genetics seen in modern humans, Neanderthals, and early modern humans. The biblical model (stating that humans arose from one lineage from a single geographic location) still fits all the data better than the multiregional model. Previous anatomical studies have cast doubt on the likelihood of Neanderthals being the ancestors of modern humans. ...Rich Deem
The 1931 Histomap: The entire history of the world distilled into a single map/chart. The Vault is Slate's history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here. This “Histomap,” created by John B. Sparks, was first printed by Rand McNally in 1931. This giant, ambitious chart fit neatly with a trend in nonfiction book publishing of the 1920s and 1930s: the “outline,” in which large subjects (the history of the world! The 5-foot-long Histomap was sold for $1 and folded into a green cover, which featured endorsements from historians and reviewers. the actual picture of the march of civilization, from the mud huts of the ancients thru the monarchistic glamour of the middle ages to the living panorama of life in present day America. The chart emphasizes domination, using color to show how the power of various “peoples” (a quasi-racial understanding of the nature of human groups, quite popular at the time) evolved throughout history.
For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of WWII Siberian summers do not last long. The snows linger into May, and the cold weather returns again during September, freezing the taiga into a still life awesome in its desolation: endless miles of straggly pine and birch forests scattered with sleeping bears and hungry wolves; steep-sided mountains; white-water rivers that pour in torrents through the valleys; a hundred thousand icy bogs. This forest is the last and greatest of Earth’s wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia’s arctic regions as far south as Mongolia, and east from the Urals to the Pacific: five million square miles of nothingness, with a population, outside a handful of towns, that amounts to only a few thousand people. When the warm days do arrive, though, the taiga blooms, and for a few short months it can seem almost welcoming. It is then that man can see most clearly into this hidden world–not on land, for the taiga can swallow whole armies of explorers, but from the air. She will not leave. Anon.
UK storms: Before and after 7 January 2014Last updated at 08:59 ET Stormy weather has wreaked havoc across the UK. A combination of high winds, rain and strong waves have battered the coastline and also caused flooding further inland. Here, a landmark rock arch in Porthcothan Bay in Cornwall, has been reduced to rubble. In Portland, Dorset, a rock stack off the coast, known locally as Pom Pom rock, has been washed away. In Portreath, in Cornwall, a section of the finger pier and harbour wall has been damaged by the waves. Flooding in the Somerset Levels has left villages cut off and roads and buildings damaged. Aberystwyth promenade was evacuated again on Monday night as the coast was hit by an 'exceptional' wave swell.
Germany Maintained Contacts with Palestinians after Munich Massacre In the busy streets of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, hardly anyone noticed the three Buick sedans that came to a stop just before the corner of Rue Verdun. Several couples got out of the cars. They were dressed casually and looked like tourists. Some of the people were in fact wearing blonde wigs and women's clothing, which wasn't recognizable from a distance. In fact, the couples were all men, members of an Israeli special forces unit operating in enemy territory. At about 1:30 a.m., they entered an apartment building. At the time, Operation Spring of Youth, carried out by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and the Israeli army in the early morning hours of April 10, 1973, was probably the most spectacular counterterrorism operation in the history of the Jewish state. 'New Basis of Trust' Operation Spring of Youth was part of a revenge campaign the Israelis waged against the backers of the Munich massacre of Sept. 5-6, 1972. The Munich attack had occurred only six months earlier.
How do you stop flooding? 29 January 2014Last updated at 05:15 ET With parts of the UK continuing to suffer the aftermath of the most severe winter floods in years, attention has focused on how flooding can be prevented or alleviated. Here are some of the main methods and principles in use. The Somerset Levels have been flooded for several weeks Dredging Farmers in Somerset claim a lack of river dredging has worsened the impact of the flooding in the area in recent weeks. But the issue of whether rivers should be dredged is not clear cut. The Environment Agency says that while dredging can improve general land drainage, it cannot prevent rivers from flooding, due to the huge volumes of water involved during major floods. The basic aim of dredging is to remove silt - a sedimentary material made of fine sand, clay and small-sized particles of rock - from the river's bed, therefore increasing its capacity to carry water downstream. Flood barriers Metal frame barriers in use at Bewdley in Worcestershire Sustainable drainage