To Build A Bridge

Back to my favorite activities after rambling about Drive. This is for younger, middle or older students who might be curious about a once popular way to build bridges. Again, I will provide some, hopefully, open-ended questions to get you started on a quest for more.

• Where was the first bridge of this type built in America? When?
• Era of covered bridges began around ___________________ and ended around ________________.
• Why would we build a bridge with a roof?
• What areas of the country built more of these than anywhere else? Why?
• Where can one visit the largest concentration of surviving "covered" bridges?
• What are the most common design styles? Which designs were best? Worst?
• What kind of wood was used? Was the wood consistent with the part of the country where the bridge was built?
• What happened to most of these bridges?
• Why don't we build covered bridges today? Think about all the bridges being repaired this summer around the U.S.
• What was the longest span ever accomplished with a covered bridge? Were piers used? I'll resist the temptation to go into the whole pier building process for now.
• Who financed the building of these bridges? Public? Private?
• How were the deck beams constructed? Best and worst designs? How thick was the lumber used for the deck?

Time to build a scale model and share your picture online?

"Big Question....Small Question"

Credit goes to the "Strategies for Awakening Your Motivation" portion of Drive. I'm still encouraging all who have not read the book to do so. Purpose provides motivation and without purpose we tend to wander about aimlessly seeking what we think we want, need, desire, etc. A whole section of narrowing activities awaits you and I would simply like to bring one to your attention.

According to Clare Booth Luce, "A great man is a sentence." "What's your sentence?"

Now, begin to ask all those small questions about yourself, your day, and whether you were more effective than the previous day. How many items of your "to do" list were completed? Did your "to do" list only contain work related items? Some of us need to include personal, family, and spiritual items on our list. These may need to be there as long as it takes for these to be part of our daily life.

"What's your sentence?"

Drive.............thanks to Dan Pink

Those who have been reading through my summer of interesting research topics.........my apologies, I am still working through Drive. I promise to post some additional topics for summer fun. Today, I want to focus on  Chapter 5 which is about Mastery and mastery has three laws:

1. Mastery is a mindset.
2. Mastery is a pain.
3. Mastery is an asymptote.

Mastery as a mindset was eye-opening. Carol Dweck, psychology professor, Stanford University, writes that some believe in the "entity" theory or intelligence that is finite and can't be increased while others believe in the "incremental" theory. Incremental intelligence varies among people but we can increase it. Now, what amazed me in her (and Pink) research and writing was the education application. The two theories lead to different roads to achieve mastery. One can use "performance goals" or one can use "learning goals." An A in your chosen foreign language is a performance goal, while mastery of a foreign language is a learning goal. "Dweck found that giving children a performance goal was effective for relatively straight-forward problems but inhibited children's ability to apply the concepts to new situations." Am I totally wrong when I see most of what we have been doing in the name of test prep falls into the performance goal category? As a retired history and geography teacher I would become frustrated year in and year out with the inability of students to apply any math principle to a problem given in my class. Latitude and longitude are a means to plotting points on a graph (map) but my students were consistently confused by the instructions. Charts and graphs provided a means to reinforce basic math principles of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and percentages but I always ended up having to walk classes through the basic math. Our goals were performance based not learning based. Common Core, I believe, is attempting to move students toward learning based goals.

Goal 2 needs no further explanation, I want to ride a century or double century on my bicycle, I must train and training isn't always fun.

Goal 3, we never quite achieve mastery. There is always something I could do just a bit better and that is what keeps me motivated to go and ride six days per week.

What I'm Currently Reading

If you have been checking this blog and noticing some "problems" that are fairly open-ended. No answers provided just some information to try and get you "motivated." I'm currently reading Drive by Dan Pink, please take some time to listen to his TED talk on motivation. The research doesn't back most of what we do in the U.S.

To Build a Boat

Imagine you are traveling by boat on the Xingu River (Google Earth search) and stop along the way to visit a small family community. While walking about the area you discover this "project." Your task today is vast (if you are curious):

• Where is the Xingu River?
• What river receives water from the Xingu?
• How deep is the Xingu? How wide at its greatest point? Compare with the Mississippi River.
• What types of marine life are found within this river?
• What would it be like to live along this river? How do the people live? What crops are grown? Where do you go for medical or dental care?
• Explain the "seasons" in this region of the world?
• Explain the division of daylight/darkness.

Now on to the next part of this task:

• How do you build a boat?
• What is the best design for river travel? Think about your research into the size of the Xingu River.
• What tools are needed to harvest the wood, move the wood from the forest site to your working area, cutting the wood into usable pieces, etc.?
• What type of wood is best used for building a boat in this region?
• Draw a step by step handbook for building a boat suitable for travel on the Xingu River. Write clear instructions for each step.
• How are the joints "packed" to reduce leaks?

 What other questions come to mind for this project?

After you have completed my listed tasks, build a model boat of your own and then share pictures with me.

Culture, Physics, Biology, Sociology, Psychology

http://www.vaguedirection.com/blog/

I have been following this trip since November. I won't even begin to list all the topics of study that could be done based on one blog post. Dave has arrived in Fairbanks, AK after beginning this journey in New York. Please check out his posts and think about miles on the road with just you and whatever nature throws at you. There might be a moose, might be rain for days on end, might be unending rollers that mentally beat you down, might be bike issues (flats, derailleurs, spokes, leaky tent, bad food, etc.), or it might be angry motorists. How mentally tough do you think you are? For your after reading task, create two questions for each of the topics above that you would really like to know and then seek to find answers. Oh, let me know what you find on your research journey.

Remember to add, solo or group bike journey, to your list of things to do before your time on earth is done.

Who am I?

Hiking at Crater Lake National Park we saw this furry little creature. Good summer activity for all of you who love animals. Dig into the who, what, when, where, why and how of this little guy. What do they eat? What elevation are they found? Do they travel higher or lower or do they stay in a particular elevation zone? When do they spend most of their waking hours? To whom are they related? Where are they usually found (Google maps)? For the really curious........how long do they live? How fast does their heart beat? Who are their primary enemies? What do they most like to eat? What most likes to eat them? How many young does the typical female have at one time? What do they do for the winter? The research is endless and hopefully it will lead to more and more questions. Make it a goal to find one of these little creatures during your life.