CAASPP (1) 2019 April 22-26 Monday April 22 JUNIORS- English Language Arts at 800am. Tuesday April 23 JUNIORS- English Language Arts at 800am. Wednesday April 24 JUNIORS- Math at 800am. Thursday April 25 JUNIORS- Math at 800am. Friday April 26 SENIORS- CAST Science at 800am.


text:
Press + Influencer contact
Successful ... for 25 years
Since his youth it was the dream of company founder Oliver Redschlag to become an entrepreneur. With his products, he wanted to offer solutions that would inspire. As a demanding person, he set the bar very high right from the start. One of the reasons, why consistently in Germany one produces.
Innumerable success stories pave the 25th anniversary of the firm history. For example, JOYDIVISION has made a name for itself with the development of the world's first 100% natural and only CO2-free lubricant BIOglide and Europe's most popular lubricant brand AQUAglide. Soft-Tampons have also become the benchmark for threadless tampons and the best-selling product of their kind worldwide. Oliver Redschlag still has many goals and dreams today, so consumers can look forward to products that enrich their lives in the future as well.
The success story of JOYDIVISION begins with the first love swing and opens up a new market. A total of 36 magazines report on the JOYDIVISION love swing to millions of readers. To this day, JOYDIVISION sells thousands every year all over the world.
JOYDIVISION moves into its first business premises in Hanover, with an area of 80 m².
Since the business premises have already become too small, JOYDIVISION moves into new business premises with an area of 300 m². Hiring of the first full-time employee.
BIOglide (www.BIOglide.de), today world-famous and renowned, is the world's first 100% natural lubricant to be born.
The journey continues ... First in German bedrooms, then throughout Europe: Soft-Tampons (www.Soft-Tampons.de) set a new standard. The stringless lifestyle product line is now the world's best-selling product of its kind. Specially designed for those special moments so that you don't have to do without sports, sauna, swimming or sexual intercourse during your menstruation.
JOYDIVISION goes online with the first internet presence www.JOYDIVISION.de
JOYDIVISION moves to its premises in an industrial estate in Hanover.
The office, production and warehouse are now located on 2000 m².
JOYDIVISION launches AQUAglide (www.AQUAglide.de) on the market. Meanwhile AQUAglide is sold millions of times and is one of the most popular lubricants in Europe.
The first television advertising for Soft-Tampons flickers on German screens - demand rises in a flash.
JOYDIVISION launches the eatable massage oil "liebe Sünde BODYkiss" as licensee of the erotic TV show "liebe sünde" (broadcast on VOX and Pro7).
In cooperation with the well-known cartoonist and author Ralph Ruthe (www.Ruthe.de) JOYDIVISION launches the funny illustrated lubricant WONDERglide.
The threadless Soft-Tampons are advertised by Stiftung Warentest (www.test.de) as "the real alternative".
The first decade of JOYDIVISION – and also JOYDIVISION's first product – the love swing – celebrates its 10th anniversary.
The renowned market research institute Wickert (www.Wickert-Institute.de) confirms the popularity of the Soft-Tampons with a study.
JOYDIVISION introduces its own high-quality silicone vibrator line under the trademark "Joystick". These are the world's first premium toys with a 5-year warranty.
JOYDIVISION becomes a stock corporation. The growing JOYDIVISION Produktions- und Vertriebs-GmbH became the grown JOYDIVISION international AG – with customers in more than 50 countries.
JOYDIVISION introduces the claim "perfect Lovestyle! as a supplement to the JOYDIVISION logo.
The Soft-Tampons, which had been sold millions of times before, are the first tampons in the world to be equipped with an integrated return loop, which makes removal even easier.
The JOYDIVISION international AG expands the area of the business premises to 2500 m² with a storage capacity for 1000 pallets.
BIOglide celebrates its 10th anniversary. JOYDIVISION expands its product line with BIOglide safe, which can be HP virus-inhibiting. This has been confirmed by an international in-vitro study.
JOYDIVISION launches the particularly high-quality luxury massage centre line Femme Fatale on the market.
JOYDIVISION is the first German manufacturer to have all its toys TÜV tested in order to offer users even more safety.
JOYDIVISION celebrates its 15th anniversary and is more successful than ever before.
AQUAglide celebrates 10th anniversary.
JOYDIVISION introduces Lean Production to increase the efficiency of in-house production, which is essential for premium products "Made in Germany".
With the Joystick micro-set product line, JOYDIVISION launches the world's first "Bullet" vibrators with a standard AAA battery.
The company JOYDIVISION and all products shine in a new look. The new corporate design including the new logo stands for the "new look of seduction". The company claim is changed to "my Lovestyle!" to express more closeness to the intimate products.
In the meantime, the number of sales countries has grown to 60.
It gets even better ... JOYDIVISION presents the Soft-Tampons with an innovative, optimized design for even easier insertion and removal.
After several years of development, JOYDIVISION launches the Joyballs secret as the world's most discreet pelvic floor training balls: not only the patented return loop, the innovative material, and the extraordinarily effective trampoline effect make them unique.
Soft-Tampons celebrate their 15th anniversary.
Due to the permanent growth, JOYDIVISION has expanded the area of its business premises to a total of 3000 m².
The innovative ribbonless Joyballs are not only the most discreet love balls, but have also been awarded a design prize. They are rewarded with awards for excellent design by red dot, universal design and DELTA Design.
JOYDIVISION celebrates its 20th anniversary.
JOYDIVISION expands into the USA and founds subsidiary JOYDIVISION (North America) LLC in Atlanta/Georgia.
JOYDIVISION together with BDiH has developed a new seal of approval "Natural Product - Standard approved by BDiH" for medical devices. Finally there is a reliable standard that guarantees the naturalness of a product. After a thorough test, BIOglide is the first medical device to bear the test seal.
In addition, BIOglide is the world's first CO2-neutral lubricant.
Since CO2 emissions cannot be completely avoided during the production of the natural lubricant, the released carbon dioxide emission is compensated by the high-quality CO2 climate protection project "ArBolivia".
Another three JOYDIVISION products are awarded design prizes. Joyballs, Joystick Findus and Joystick Sailor score with the universal design award.
AQUAglide celebrates its 15th anniversary.
JOYDIVISION introduces the XPANDER (www.XPANDER.com), the world's most innovative prostate stimulator.
XPANDER receives several awards in the USA and Germany. The XPANDER is now the prostate stimulator with the most awards.
AQUAglide becomes test winner with test-vergleiche.com
BIOglide celebrates its 20th anniversary and is rated "very good" by ÖKO-TEST.
JOYDIVISION is awarded as "Best European Manufacturer".
With BIOglide glide and massage oil, JOYDIVISION launches the world's first 100% biological combination product of this kind on the market.
Test-vergleiche.com rates clean'n'safe as "very good" and recommends the customer favourite as "best product" in comparison with other toy cleaners.
JOYDIVISION international AG celebrates 25th anniversary.
The Soft-Tampons are awarded by vergleich.org with "very good" as "winner price-performance" / "winner of comparison".
The company moves into new office- and warehouse facilities. JOYDIVISION has now a separate warehouse near the business rooms.
JOYDIVISION-Favourites
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


NOTE:- i dont know if this is worth to mention it or not , but the i2p and java that i was using are portable.
Note that system information, log timestamps, and log messages may provide clues to your location; please review everything you include in a bug report.
STATUS | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | Copyright (C) 1999-2014 Tanuki Software, Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | Launching Startup thread.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | Startup thread started.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | Attempting to verify the binary signature.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | The file "C:\Users\ehrecep\Desktop\I2PPortable\App\I2P\I2Psvc.exe" is not signed.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | Startup thread stopped.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | Using tick timer.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | Preparing to restart with mode 1.
DEBUG | wrapperp | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | server listening on port 32000.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Running a 32-bit JVM.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Implementation Vendor: Tanuki Software, Ltd.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Load native library. There are multiple possible file names and the first to be found will be used. Errors loading non-existing files is normal and is only a problem if they all fail.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Attempt to load native library with name: wrapper-windows-x86-32.dll Result: Success!
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Successfully loaded native library.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Loaded localized resources.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Calling native initialization method.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperJNI Debug: Initializing WrapperManager? native library.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Control event monitor thread started.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Startup runner thread started.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: Communications runner thread started.
DEBUG | wrapperp | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | closing backend server.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | Start Application.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperManager? Debug: WrapperListener?.start runner thread started.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:21 | WrapperSimpleApp? Debug: start(args) Will wait up to 2 seconds for the main method to complete.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:22 | JVM signaled a start pending with waitHint of 5000 millis.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:23 | WrapperManager? Debug: WrapperListener?.start runner thread stopped.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:23 | WrapperManager? Debug: Startup runner thread stopped.
DEBUG | wrapper | 2016/09/27 21:13:23 | JVM signaled that it was started.
INFO | jvm 1 | 2016/09/27 21:13:33 | INFO: BOB is now running.
I2P REPORT.docx (27.5 KB) - added by anonymous maybe 2 years ago.
Create that directory. I don't know how you set up the "portable" settings, but that directory didn't get created.
This has nothing to do with I2CP or SSL.
Thanks for the link. That's a downstream 3rd party installer, please report the bug to them.


This tweak is out for a while now despite the fact that a very few of us have not even started surfing with the web for free and unlimited! MTN zero naira tweak just got extremely slow while others claimed it's not working anymore, whatsoever the case might be, MTN Magic sim is here to stay and save you the hassle for a while.
To Activate The MTN Magic Sim is very simple and straight forward… See steps below.
Recharge N250 on your MTN sim.
Dial *131*1*4*1# to subscribe for MTN 2 hours data plan. This service cost N250 and it will be deducted from Your SIM immediately.
Rightly after your MTN sim have been activated for that plan, you should get a message as seen below… Quickly, switch on your mobile data and make sure you browse for about 5 or 10 minutes.
NB: You don't have to be on any special tarrif plan to use this, so far your sim is MTN then you're good to go!
Next up, is to remove your MTN SIM from your phone and keep it for 24 hours. NKH folks calls it "Incubation", Incubate your sim for 24hrs+!
Immediately after 24 hours, Insert the Sim back into your phone then switch on your data.
No need for IP and PORT.
When you insert your sim back into the phone and try to browse but it refuses. Kindly restart your phone. It should start browsing afterward.
NB: This sim can be used on any device, ranging from PC modem, Android, Windows, iPhone, symbian and the rest. Most importantly, it doesn't even require any form of Simple server/Netloop VPN, Psiphon and the likes.
There is absolutely nothing in life without any form of risk, if you're scared of loosing your N250 naira then you're not ready to try! I've personally tested this and I must admit! There's nothing like it! Enjoy while it last.
Get free 300MB on MTN Music Plus and how to configure Psiphon and NetLoop VPN to work with it.
Browse with Zero naira on your MTN Sim using Psiphon or Simple Android Server.
Am sure a lot of you are using this MTN magic sim trick already and here is a solution on how to reconnect your internet connection when it has disconnected or stops connecting to the Internet.
Switch off your data and switch it back on, it should pick up.
Switch on and off the Airplane mode.
If you've followed one and two and still the same, restart your device.
Done 1, 2 and 3 still no changes… Go to settings >> Access Point >> try to toggle between different "Access Point" on your phone. Then finally activate back the MTN default access point. It will work!
Enjoy yourself and remember fair usage policy applies. Make una take am easy! Nothing lasts forever.


The Florida Conservation Planning Atlas community includes groups that allow members to easily share content and collaborate, as well as access to the broader community of users in Data Basin.
The Florida Conservation Planning Atlas (CPA) is a data discovery, visualization, and analytical platform for stakeholders throughout Florida. With the Florida CPA you can search for spatial datasets, visualize supported projects, and learn more about landscape scale conservation science and design in the region.
We welcome your feedback. Please contact us to let us know what we can do to make this viewer more useful for you, or to report any bugs.
We welcome your feedback. Please contact us to let us know what we can do to make the Conservation Actions Tracker more useful for you, or to report any bugs.


Ringwood beers: Boondoggle, 49er, Best and Red Boar.
Just a quick warning to any musicians looking to play at the Inn on the Furlong. Following two incidents of drunk audience members falling into the band and damaging equipment I stongly recommend leaving your quality equipment at home and use cheap stuff that has no value to you. From personal experience I can say that the landlord believes such damage should be accepted by the musicians as part of gigging life and any complaints will fall on deaf ears (and will probably get you barred!) A shame, as the ale is good here.
Use your Les Paul and Boogie here at your peril!
The pub rating is for landlord attitude. For a quiet weekday drink I could see the Furlong being a pleasant place to be.
I was in the Furlong last weekend with a group of old school friends. We'd been going to this pub on and off for 15 years on trips back to Ringwood. After the take over of the little brewery by the big brewery (Ringwood-Marstons) I suppose it was to be expected that some corporate, characterless gloss would be applied to all their pubs. Bar staff in uniforms, 'offers' being advertised like its some kind of supermarket and 'policies'. It was summed up by an amazing situation after the very first round where a latecomer joining our group went to the bar to buy a coke and was then asked for ID. He's 34, so didn't have any ID on him, so the bar staff, who all looked much younger than him, then asked him to leave the pub. This then meant all 8 of us had to leave. All because he wanted to buy a coke! They must be doing better business than I thought to force a large group away that was going to sit there all evening spending money. It was unbelivable.
However this seems to be the way in pubs run by big companies where nobody uses any common-sense and people blindly follow procedures, leaving the place souless.
A shame because the Furlong could be (and was) a really good pub. None of us will be going back. I just hope the brewery doesn't go down the pan too.
Good atmosphere, Ringwood Boondangle, Best Better, forty Niner.& old Thumper. 2x Larger Tv Screens.
my partner and i have started to use this pub about 18 months ago, the pub is spotlessley clean, and a very attractive place to drink.The staff are always helpful, and have a great knowledge of the beers, and ales, and the Landlady and Landlord are always happy and make you feel very welcome. We have eaten here on several occasions and the food is fantastic, and amazing value for money. This pub has changed since the new couple took over, and may i say for the better,long may it continue.


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Home/Science/Electronic waste: Toxic metals are seeping into our BONES, study warns
Electronic waste: Toxic metals are seeping into our BONES, study warns
DUK Editor Team Send an email August 17, 2021
Toxic metals released during the production of technology like batteries, smartphones, solar panels and wind turbines could be seeping into our bones.
This is the warning of experts from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who studied lead pollution in the remains of 130 people buried in a cemetery in central Rome.
The burial site under the Palazzo della Cancelleria was in use from around 12,000 years ago — before the advent of metal production — through to the 17th century.
The team found that as worldwide lead production increased over time, so did the rates of lead absorption into the bodies of the people buried in the cemetery.
Lead is breathed in from the atmosphere, the researchers explained, meaning that the pollution affected even those not involved in the toxic metal's production.
The findings — in tandem with the increasing demand for toxic metals like lead for assorted technologies — raise wide-reaching public health concerns.
Historically, lead production received a boost 2,500 years ago with coin minting, an uptick which peaked during the Roman period before declining in the Middle Ages.
Production rose again 1,000 years ago, prompted by silver mining in Germany, then the New World and finally to meet the demands of the Industrial Revolution.
The study builds on previous works which showed that rates of lead production are also documented in environmental archives like lake sediments and glaciers.
Toxic metals released during the production of technology like batteries, smartphones , solar panels and wind turbines could be seeping into our bones (stock image)
The findings — given increasing demands for toxic metals like lead for technologies including smartphones (left) and batteries (right) — raises wide-reaching public health concerns
The warning comes from experts at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who studied lead pollution in the remains of 130 people buried in a cemetery in central Rome (pictured)
The burial site under the Palazzo della Cancelleria (seen here from the outside) was in use from around 12,000 years ago — before the advent of metal production — to the 17th century
Lead poisoning can occur when lead enters the body.
Signs can include fatigue, pain, memory loss and headache.
In most cases it's small amounts of lead consumed over time that build up and cause health problems.
Most people's risk of lead poisoning is very small as nowadays lead generally isn't used in paints, petrol or food containers.
This has resulted in a very low exposure to lead for the majority of people.
However, one of the main potential risks can be through drinking tap water if your property has lead pipes, a lead water tank or lead pipework fittings.
In a small number of cases this can result in lead contaminating the water supply.
SOURCE: NHS INFORM
The study was undertaken by geochemist Yigal Erel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and colleagues.
'This documentation of lead pollution throughout human history indicates that, remarkably, much of the estimated dynamics in lead production is replicated in human exposure,' Professor Erel explained.
'Thus, lead pollution in humans has closely followed their rates of lead production. Simply put: the more lead we produce, the more people are likely to be absorbing it into their bodies. This has a highly toxic effect.'
In total, Professor Erel and colleagues analysed bones fragments from 130 people who were laid to rest in the burial ground.
The team was able to calculate the level of lead pollution in each individual by analysing the composition of their bones.
They found that this recorded pollution closely tracked against estimated historical rates of worldwide lead production.
'The close relationship between lead production and lead concentrations in humans in the past suggests that without proper regulation we will continue to experience the damaging health impacts of toxic metal contamination,' Professor Erel said.
Those at the greatest risk from lead poisoning are those with the most exposure to the toxic metal, including miners and workers in recycling facilities.
The team found that as worldwide lead production increased over time, so did the rates of lead absorption into the bodies of the people buried in the cemetery. Pictured: excavations within the central courtyard of the Palazzo della Cancelleria
The study builds on previous works which showed that rates of lead production are also documented in environmental archives like lake sediments and glaciers. Pictured: the central courtyard (left) of the Palazzo della Cancelleria (right), which lies above a burial grounds
Lead is breathed in from the atmosphere, the researchers explained, meaning that the pollution affected even those not involved in the toxic metal's production. Pictured: the excavations of the burial site at the Palazzo della Cancelleria
However, lead can also be found within various forms of electronic hardware from batteries to the latest generation of solar panels.
Through disposal and deterioration, these objects can release their toxicity into the atmosphere we breathe and and the soil within which we grow our crops.
'Any expanded use of metals should go hand in hand with industrial hygiene, ideally safe metal recycling and increased environmental and toxicological consideration in the selection of metals for industrial use,' Professor Erel concluded.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The burial site under the Palazzo della Cancelleria was in use from around 12,000 years ago — before the advent of metal production — through to the 17th century
HEAVY METALS LIKE LEAD CAN POISON BIRDS
Birds are easily poisoned by the heavy metals found in their environment.
Each heavy metal causes distinct symptoms and affects birds differently.
The three heavy metals which commonly poison birds are lead, zinc, and iron.
Common symptoms that a bird is suffering from heavy metal poisoning are:
Constant thirst
Regurgitation of water
Listlessness
Loss of coordinated movements
Zinc and iron are present in food and are required in small amounts for a healthy bird.
When abnormal amounts are present in the bird's body, the same heavy metals can lead to poisoning.
Lead poisoning is no longer as common as it once was thanks to increased awareness of the dangers.
Heavy metal poisoning with iron can lead to iron storage disease, which causes the the nutrient to deposit in the internal organs of the body.
This can lead to liver problems and damage other organs.
Source: PetMD
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You Will Never Change Your Life Until You Change Your Routine…
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Congratulations to each of our recipients!
PAEOP's 2012 Holiday Auction which was held on 11/08/12 was one of our most successful Auctions to date! Due to the quantity and quality of the amazing items that were auctioned, we were able to raise an amazing amount, $2,173.00 profit for our Pauline Huneke Memorial Scholarship Fund! Many deserving students will be able to benefit from this event.
Vicki and I have updated our auction checklist for next year, we learn each year of ways to improve on the pre-Auction things that need to be done.


KATHMANDU, Sept 8: Nepal is finally set to get access to four seaports via China, ending its sole dependence on India for transit access. This, according to government officials and private sector executives, gives Nepal better trade options and opens new avenues to begin trade through the northern neighbor.
The finalization of the draft protocol to the Transit Transport Agreement through a bilateral meeting in Kathmandu on Thursday is a move toward implementing the transit agreement signed two years ago with China when Nepal was facing a months-long Indian blockade and resultant humanitarian crisis.
The draft protocol also allows Nepal to have access to four sea ports – Tianjin, Shenzhen, Lianyungang and Zhanjiang – as well as use three dry ports namely Lanzhou, Lhasa and Shigatse.
Sainju is also the spokesman for the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Industries. Wang Suiping, director general of Chinese Transport Service Department, was the leader of the Chinese delegation.
Both the private sector and government officials have welcomed the decision. However, the private sector representatives said they were yet to realize how these new avenues would be competitive and useful in the immediate term.
Using the four Chinese sea ports – Tianjin, Shenzhen, Lianyungang and Zhanjiang – may reduce cost of trading with some countries, and opening of the new routes would provide new options for a land-locked country, private sector representatives have said.
Using those ports and the Chinese trade routes will soon be possible as both the governments of Nepal and China are likely to endorse the draft protocol soon.
The protocol has charted out an action plan and procedure for allowing Nepal transit access as per the Transit Transport Agreement signed during KP Oli's China visit during his first stint as prime minister. The bilateral talks have finalized the mode and process of transportation and customs clearance.
Executive Director of Trade and Export Promotion Center Sarad Bikram Rana termed the decision a milestone.
Traders say these new avenues of trade for Nepal may force Indian ports mainly Haldiya and Vishakhapatnam currently in use to become more competitive. Traders have emphasized on the use of this transit through better connectivity including inside Nepal.


text:
Skara Brae: Close Encounters with Stone Age Man
Pilot Guides Facts, Great Britain, History, Northern Europe, Scotland
History Facts
Where: Bay O'Skaill, Sandwick, Orkney Islands north of Scotland, Great Britain
When: 3000 BC
History: Advanced settlement of Stone Age man remarkably preserved
Go There For: A glimpse into the life of primeval man
Where It's At
Skara Brae is Northern Europe's most well preserved prehistoric village. In Orkney's Bay O'Skaill in Sandwick, this is the central site for visitors to the remote Northern Islands of Orkney off the coast of Northeast Scotland. The whole community was hidden under sand until 1850 when a massive storm blew away the sand and exposed this historic site underneath. The site became known as Skerrabra. Four ancient houses were uncovered in the sand which were thought to have been inhabited for at least 600 years. It was at the time thought to be an Iron Age settlement but recent radio carbon dating dates the period much earlier to Neolithic (Stone Age), around 3,000 BC. Because of the protective sands and cold temperatures, the remains are remarkably well preserved with even the original walls and stone roofs remaining intact. Skara Brae is always a threatened site because of the fierce Orkney weather but it is being preserved.
People of Skara Brae
The people of Skara Brae's main source of food came from the seas – whale, fish & shell fish as well as domestic animals like cows, wild boar, red deer and venison. They were advanced people for their time, and developed a sophisticated drainage system pre-empting the toilet. The houses were sunk in the ground to protect against the harsh Orkney winds and provide insulation. Everything was constructed from stone, from the dry stone walls to beds and other furniture as Orkney is a land devoid of trees. Visiting the site today you can see ancient furniture made out of stone, and other artefacts made from whalebone, timber and skins. The people of Skara Brae were artistic, producing pottery called Grooved Ware, which was highly-decorated large vessels with moulded rims and designs cut into the surface.
Getting to Orkney
Orkney is remote and expensive to get to, but well worth the effort. It's a 90 minute flight from Glasgow or Edinburgh to Kirkwall Airport on the Island or you can fly from Aberdeen or Inverness. It's also easy to make the connection from further south in Birmingham, London & Manchester airports. During the summer, flights can get heavily booked out and there are no flights on Sundays so don't get caught out – book in advance.
Within Orkney flights between the islands are operated by Loganair on behalf of British Airways. There is also a "flying visit" to Fair Isle. For inter-island reservations Tel: + 44 (0)1856 872494 or 873457.
From the mainland, you can take a ferry from the city of Aberdeen or a small cruise from Pentland Firth or Scrabster on the Coast. If you're travelling by car, the closest crossing is Gills Bay in Caithness or foot passengers can take a ferry from John O'Groats – the Mainland's most Northern point.
There are plenty of B & Bs, hotels and holiday flats to stay in – but book well ahead, this is a popular attraction.
The hearth place was the centre of village life, as people would gather in each other's dwellings to wile away the long winter evenings. The houses in the village were all linked together so you didn't need to step outside to visit your neighbours. This was a close knit community of around 100 – 150 people. It is thought that the village wasn't abandoned overnight but slowly subject to migration as the close clan culture of the Stone Age began to fall apart in favour of individual settlements in the Iron Age.
One unusual theory is that the original settlers came from Egypt around 3 – 4,000 BC, ending up in this far flung corner of the world accidentally during a ship wreck and were unable to escape as no trees or shipbuilding materials were available. This would explain how these people were so far evolved. They built their look-out where they landed either for better protection, or hope of rescue. Egyptian hieroglyphics translating as "MER" meaning both pyramid and Egypt in Egyptian are found in the settlements. This theory remains somewhat speculative.
Orkney Jar
Preserving the heritage of the Orkney Islands.
Links to accommodation, travel links & tourist resources.
By Susi O'Neill
← Vhavenda People
Slavery and Sugar Cane in the Malaita Province, Solomon Islands →
Discovering Napoleon in Ajaccio
A Short History of Rubber
Portuguese Castles of the Moors


Do you want to visit 10 beautiful places where you can learn the ancient history and see the natural wonders from the coastline to the middle of Anatolia in 10 days?
You will be amazed at these unique areas and you will live emotional and attractive moments that you never live before. The stupendous Turkey tour package offers an unbelievable holiday opportunity the combination of natural and cultural sightseeing.
06:30 am ─ We will you pick you up from the hotel in Istanbul, and time to depart for Gallipoli Area. You will arrive at Eceabat where you can have lunch at a local restaurant that you can find any food for your taste. And also, this place is one of the most emotionally and touching places in Turkey, the World War I Battlefields of Gallipoli. We will visit the Anzac Cove, Lone Pine, Australian Memorial, Johnston's Jolly, the Nek, Chunuk Bair, New Zealand Memorial and Turkish Memorial. At the end of Gallipoli Tour, we take a ferry across the Dardanelles.
17:00 ─ The Gallipoli tour will be over.
08:30 ─ You will have breakfast at the hotel. The tour will begin early hours of the morning in the ancient city of Troy, where you can see the replica of Trojan Horse, which had an important role in the Battle of Troy about Beautiful Helen and Paris, the Prince.
12:00 ─ The Troy tour will be over. You will be transferred to the Çanakkale bus station. Bus transportation to Selcuk via Izmir. Upon arrival to Selcuk. Pick you up and transfer to hotel. Check into the hotel. Rest of the day.
You will have breakfast at the hotel. Rest of the day, you will be free. You can spend this free time relaxing on the beaches, joining boat tours, horseback riding safaris (extra charge).
08:30 am ─ You will have breakfast at the hotel. After that, you will be transferred to the Ephesus tour area.
Then you will visit the ruins of the Temple of Artemis that you can see the ancient structure made entirely of marble. After taking beautiful photographs you will visit the best-preserved ancient city, Ephesus and its Agora, Odeon, Curettes Street, public toilets, Celsius Library, Hadrian Temple, Roman Baths, Grand Theatre, Marble Street. After a break for lunch, you will get a chance see the House of Virgin Mary where the shrine of Virgin Mary located.
17:00 ─ The Ephesus tour will be over.
08:00 ─ After taking breakfast at the hotel, you will be transferred to Priene. You will visit the ancient cities like Priene, was a member of the Ionian League, whose central shrine, the Panionion, lay within the city's territory; Miletus was the greatest Greek city in the east; Didyma, owner of the ancient sanctuary and seat of an oracle of Apollo.
16:00 ─ The PMD tour will be ended.
08:00 ─ You will have breakfast at the hotel. Now, you will be ready to see the 'Cotton Cliffs' which is unique natural wonders of the world and its calcareous water rises from the ground at a temperature of 35 C and drop down the mountain from a height of 100 meters, forming a myriad of pools. This view will give you an unforgettable experience. Then, you will visit the ruins of ancient city, Hierapolis, just lying over the travertines, with its basilica, theatre, Roman Bath and Necropolis which is the largest cemetery of Anatolia.
16:00 ─ The Pamukkale tour ends.
You will be transferred to the Pamukkale Bus Station.
17:00 ─ You will have a bus trip to Antalya which will take 4 hours and has breaks for your personal needs.
21:00 ─ Arrival at the Antalya Bus Station.
You will have breakfast at the hotel. Rest of the day, you will be free. You can spend this free time by relaxing on the beaches or joining boat tours (this can take extra charge).
08:15 ─ You will have a breakfast and check out from the hotel. Afterwards, you will be transferred to Perge.
This city is a nearly completed and self-preserved city with its antique theaters, Hippodrome, baths, agoras, and townhouses, which had lived before 2000 years ago and St. Paul stopped here on one of his journeys during the time. Perge was an important city of ancient Pamphylia. The next stop is Aspendos which is the open-air theater with the world's best acoustical system. From the middle of the scene, someone can easily hear your voice at the top of the stairs. The galleries, stage decorations, and the acoustics all reflect the success of the architect. You will have a lunch break at a local restaurant and the route will continue to Side which is a very nice and quiet place, you can visit historical places from one side while you are making holiday from one side, Side antique theater takes you to ancient ages, and also a place to be seen. When you visit the old historical ruins, you will both make holiday, entertainment, historical travel.
17:00 ─ The Perge, Aspendos, and Side tour will be ended.
You will be transferred to the Antalya Bus Station.
21:30 ─ The first class overnight bus travel will begin to Cappadocia.
Overnight bus trip to Cappadocia.
08:30 ─ Arriving at Cappadocia bus station. Pick you up from the Cappadocia bus station with your name sign board and transfer to our office to meet with your tour guide.
09:30 ─ You will be transferred to the first location of the Cappadocia tour.
The tour will begin by visiting unique fairy chimneys of Devrent Valley. After visiting the mushroom-shaped formations of Pasabag Monks Valley, we will drive to Avanos, a place where the earth arouses hands of masters. You will have lunch and then, Goreme Open Air Museum where you really cannot hide your confusion when you are on the move and you are fascinated with the frescoes in the caves. After seeing the Rock-Castle of Uçhisar, you will be completely captivated by the slope caves.
17:00 ─ North Cappadocia tour will be over.
You will be transferred to your hotels in Cappadocia.
09:30 ─ You will check out from the hotel after breakfast. After that, you will be transferred to the first destination of the tour.
Today is the last day of the stupendous Turkey tour package 10-Days.
The first place is to visit Red Valley where red tuff formations will attract you. Then, the route will continue through the ancient Çavuşin Village which houses rock-cut dwellings and stone houses had several hermitages. There are two most important churches in the village, the first is the Great Basilica dedicated to St. John the Baptist Cavusin church or the "Great Pigeon House" commemorating a visit of the famous Cappadocian Emperor Nicephorus Phocas. You will have a lunch before visiting Pigeon Valley that you can see a lot of pigeons. After all, we will visit Kaymakli Underground City which is one of the unique proofs of how great the need for security and shelter of mankind and how he has endeavored for it. On the way back visit the natural castles at Ortahisar.
17:00 ─ South Cappadocia tour will be over.
19:30 ─ Flying to Istanbul.
20:50 ─ Landing to Istanbul.
You will be transferred to your hotels in Istanbul if needed.
10 days Turkey tour will be ended, thank you for choosing the best agency!


Frozen Waterfall . Beautiful frozen Waterfall deep in the forest.
Blue Ridge Mountains Sunset . Sunset viewed from a Blue Ridge Parkway overlook.
Waterfall in the mountains , Great Smoky National Park , Tennessee .


text:
La nazionale di pallavolo maschile delle Maldive è una squadra asiatica e oceaniana composta dai migliori giocatori di pallavolo delle Maldive ed è posta sotto l'egida della Federazione pallavolistica delle Maldive.

Risultati

Campionato asiatico e oceaniano

Collegamenti esterni

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Emma, Kwegyir-Afful, LamminpääReeta, SelanderTuomas, GisslerMika, Vehviläinen-JulkunenKatri, HeinonenSeppo, SallmenMarkku, and RäsänenKimmo. "Manual handling of burdens as a predictor of birth outcome—a Finnish Birth Register Study." The European Journal of Public Health 28.6 (2018).


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You are here: American University School of Public Affairs Center for Environmental Policy Faculty Publications
CEP Home
About CEP
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About ECN
cepolicy@american.edu
Center for Environmental Policy 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20016 United States
Faculty Publications and Working Papers
This listing includes publications and working papers by the Director, Faculty Associates, and research assistants of the Center for Environmental Policy that relate to the themes of the Center and the general topic of environmental governance.
Publications are products in final form and have been published in a journal, book, or by a research organization. Working papers are still under revision or development. The authors welcome comments and suggestions on the working papers. However, they should not be cited or quoted without the author's permission. Reports are outputs of Center work products.
Climate Change, Science, and the Politics of Shared Sacrifice
Center for Environmental Policy Director of Research Todd Eisenstadt and Stephen MacAvoy, chair of the Environmental Studies Department at American University have published one of the first interdisciplinary undergraduate textbooks seeking to integrate climate change science and policy, Climate Change, Science, and the Politics of Shared Sacrifice (Oxford University Press, 2022). The two taught an inter-disciplinary course to honors students and in 2016 were challenged by their students, frustrated by the lack of a US national climate policy after the 2016 presidential election, to write this book after lamenting the lack of a broad and interdisciplinary text.
The text, finished during the COVID lock-down, seeks to offer "hands on" exercises and case studies in addition to chapters addressing the scientific evidence, technological developments, international diplomacy, national and subnational policies, and economic issues surrounding climate change mitigation and adaptation. Eisenstadt has used the text to guide development of the curriculum for his summer 2022 course, GOVT 496/696: A Planet of Villages: Climate Change Policy from the International Level to Local Communities.
SPA graduate students are writing new case studies, based on the methodology used in the book, on issues such as the possible roles of Senator Manchin and his coal interests on President Biden's US climate agenda, myths and facts relating to "green grocery stores" and climate emissions, and climate governance and the multilateral Arctic Council. The CEP hopes to make these cases publicly available soon on the Center's website.
Articles and Book Chapters
Baehler, K.J.; McGraw, M.; Aquino, M.J.; Heslin, R.; McCormick, L.; Neltner, T. Full Lead Service Line Replacement: A Case Study of Equity in Environmental Remediation. Sustainability 2022, 14, 352.
Eisenstadt, T.A.; Olawole, I.; Toman, M.A. Climate Adaptation Finance in World Bank Economic Development Programs: The Challenges of Systemic Transformation via "Scaling Up". Sustainability 2021, 13, 10553.
Fiorino, D. (2018). Teaching environmental policy in an era of polarization and misrepresentation. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 8, 179-182.
Eisenstadt, T., Fiorino, D., Stevens, D. (2018). National environmental policies as shelter from the storm: specifying the relationship between extreme weather vulnerability and national environmental performance. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 1-12.
Fiorino, D. (2014). Streams of Environmental Innovation: Four Decades of EPA Policy Reform. Environmental Law, 44, 723-760.
Fiorino, D., Bhan, M. (2014). Supply Chain Management as Private Sector Regulation: What does it Mean for Business Strategy and Public Policy? Business Strategy and the Environment, 310-322.
Liang, J., Fiorino, D. (2013). The Implications of Policy Stability for Renewable Energy Innovation in the United States, 1974–2009. Policy Studies Journal, 41, 97-118.
Fiorino, D. (2011). Explaining national environmental performance: approaches, evidence, and implications. Policy Sciences, 44, 367-389.
Robert F. Durant. National Defense, Environmental Regulation, and Overhead Democracy: A View from the 'Greening' of the U.S. Military, Public Organization Review: A Global Journal, vol. 10:3 (September 2010), 223-244.
Daniel J. Fiorino. Sustainability as a Conceptual Focus in Public Administration, Public Administration Review, vol. 70:s1 (December 2010), 78-88.
Daniel J. Fiorino. Voluntary Initiatives, Regulation, and Nanotechnology Oversight: Charting a Path (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2010).
Eisenstadt, Todd, and MacAvoy, Stephen. Climate Change, Science, and The Politics of Shared Sacrifice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021.
Eisenstadt, Todd, and Jones West, Karleen. Who Speaks for Nature? Indigenous Movements, Public Opinion, and the Petro-State in Ecuador. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Fiorno, Daniel J., Can Democracy Handle Climate Change? Hoboken, NY: Wiley 2018
Fiorno, Daniel J. A Good Life on a Finite Earth: The Political Economy of Green Growth. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Meadowcroft, James, and Fiorino, Daniel J., eds. Conceptual Innovation in Environmental Policy. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2017.
Durant, Robert F. The Greening of the U.S. Military: Environmental Policy, National Security, and Organizational Change. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007.
Fiorino, Daniel J. The New Environmental Regulation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT, 2006.
Durant, Robert F., Fiorino, Daniel J., and O'Leary, Rosemary, eds. Environmental Governance Reconsidered: Challenges, Choices, and Opportunities. Cambridge, MA: MIT. 2004.
Bahler, Karen, Weted, Carley, and Laguna, Theo Affonso. Lead Pipes and Environmental Justice: A study of lead pipe replacement in Washington, DC. March 2020.
Reeder, John. MOVING FORWARD: Future Directions for EPA and Environmental Protection. December 2019.


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Migration News
Bridge joining Bahrain base and port hailed as timesaver
Hendrick Simoes
The new bridge connecting the main base of the Naval Support Activity in Bahrain to its port facility is now open and is being hailed as a big improvement for personnel. (Steven Smith/ U.S. Navy)
MANAMA, Bahrain — A much-anticipated bridge connecting the main base of the Naval Support Activity here to its port facility across a major roadway opened earlier this month.
There was little fanfare for the opening of the $8 million, 400-foot-long tied-arch suspension bridge; however, it's being hailed as a vital piece of infrastructure for the base.
Sailors said they had been counting the days until the bridge opened.
"It makes for easy access to base facilities for daily use," said Chief Petty Officer Shawn Flynn, who works on the port side of the base known as NSA-2. He and another sailor used the bridge at lunch time Thursday to take care of errands on the main base, which has many of the support facilities such as medical, administration and the Navy Exchange.
"It is absolutely a quality-of-life improvement that the sailors have been wanting," said Capt. David Meron, base commander. He said it also improves safety and security by taking buses, vehicles and bicycles off Bahrain's busy roads.
The opening of the bridge was expected last month but was delayed without explanation. U.S. officials never publicly explained the delay but indicated it was over a customs issue which was later resolved.
The bridge reduces the travel time between both facilities from about 30 minutes to five minutes. Before the bridge opened, personnel had to go off base and travel through the city to reach the other facility.
Personnel are allowed to walk, bike and use golf carts and authorized government vehicles to cross the bridge.
Officials said the bridge will allow the base to reduce its vehicle fleet by 10 percent, which will save more than $500,000 annually. And the cancellation of the shuttle bus contract between both facilities will result in an additional $130,000 in savings per year.
Meron called the bridge "a huge step forward." It connects the main base not only to U.S. 5th Fleet's minesweepers and coastal patrol ships along the waterfront, but also to 77 acres of leased land, where the Navy has several projects under construction. These include barracks to house more than 500 sailors that is slated to open next year.
NSA Bahrain, home to the U.S. 5th Fleet, has about 8,200 U.S. personnel and is growing.
simoes.hendrick@stripes.com Twitter: @hendricksimoes
stripes Administrator


Helen Petts at Kurt Schwitters Merzbarn. © Helen Petts 2011.
The artist-filmmaker Helen Petts is interested in places, traces, textures and sounds. She is known for producing a body of work that makes musical and visual practices visible without falling into the trap of fetishising her subjects. Her films are poetic and painterly, often featuring improvised sounds.
Petts came to filmmaking via community and feminist-oriented video; her collaborative project MsTaken Identity, made with Karen Alexander and Albany Video, was named Best Foreign Video at the 1986 Turin Youth Film Festival. She has also worked as an assistant director of mainstream film drama, and as a television producer and director of arts programmes, including BBC2's The Late Show. She then went on to study fine art at Goldsmith's College, turning to painting with a special focus on minimalism, and returned to video when technology had advanced enough for gadgets to become sufficiently small and lightweight to carry around easily. This allowed her to consider the medium as a form of documenting the sensorial experience of space and sound through film. The Cutty Wren (2008) is a five-minute black-and-white shot of singer Phil Minton performing his own rendition of a 1381 Peasants' Revolt song. Ute on the Marshes (2012) is the black-and-white documentation of vocalist Ute Wassermann testing out the acoustics of the Walthamstow Marshes railway bridge underpass.
Helen Petts, Space & Freedom (2018), still. Archive 8mm film and HD. 22 minutes. © Helen Petts.
In this conversation, which is an edited transcript of a discussion that took place between Petts and myself around a screening at Manchester Art Gallery, Petts talks about how her education in painting has since fed into her approach to film. Petts also introduces Space & Freedom, a film exploring the Taiwanese artist Li Yuan-chia's legacy and relationship with the Cumbrian landscape, where he founded the LYC Museum. The film was commissioned for Manchester Art Gallery's exhibition Speech Acts: Reflection-Imagination-Repetition, which I curated with Kate Jesson (25 May 2018–22 April 2019).
Speech Acts centres on artist Li Yuan-chia's LYC Museum & Art Gallery (1972–1983), and features a stylised reconstruction of the LYC Museum (including its window originally designed and made by artist David Nash). The exhibition examines the role of public museums in telling our collective stories, through the artworks they hold and the exhibitions they arrange; it places work typically considered as 'collection highlights' alongside lesser-known pieces that are seen principally through lenses of biography and difference. The exhibition is part of the research project Black Artists & Modernism, and showcases more than 40 artists drawn primarily from four public collections in Manchester and Bradford.
Space & Freedom was commissioned in this context as an artistic response to Li's legacy, and can be seen as a companion piece to Petts' Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing (2012), a 30-minute looped film installation that follows Kurt Schwitters' journey into exile from Nazi Germany to Norway and Ambleside in the Lake District. The film—which features improvised sounds by leading experimental musicians Phil Minton, Roger Turner, Sylvia Hallett and Adam Bohman—was filmed in places Schwitters loved to go hiking, and was comissioned by the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle to be seen alongside Schwitters' Merz Barn Wall (1947–1948). That Li and Schwitters both based themselves in the Cumbrian countryside suggests a shared investment in place.
Could you begin by sharing a little bit about your film response to the life of Kurt Schwitters, Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing?
Kurt Schwitters was working in Hanover in Germany in the late thirties, and was associated with the Dada movement, but they never allowed him to join because they said he was too bourgeois. He had to escape from Nazi Germany, so he went to Molde in Norway, where he'd been many times before on holiday, and lived on an island in a little hut. When the Nazis invaded Norway in 1940 he went to Scotland, then London, and finally ended up in Ambleside in the Lake District, where he was considered to be a bit of a local eccentric and not really taken seriously.
He had been quite an established artist in Germany. I came across his work in Ambleside, and then by complete coincidence I was invited to Hanover to show some of my work and discovered his much more modernist work than what I'd seen in Ambleside. Basically, my film follows his escape route from Nazi Germany. I got on the same boat on the same route and went up the coast, and then I stayed on the same island. I also stayed in Elterwater, which is a little village near Ambleside where he transformed an old barn into a kind of installation.
Helen Petts, Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing (2012), still. HD video. 30 minutes. © Helen Petts.
The film explores the way that Schwitters related to the landscape. It was commissioned by the Cultural Olympiad for the arts festival of the 2012 Olympic Games. It was shown as an installation at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle, next to Kurt Schwitters' big piece called Merz Barn Wall (1947–1948). The film then went to Abbot Hall Art Gallery in the Lake District and then to a couple of exhibitions in Norway, later ending up at Tate Britain for the Schwitters in Britain exhibition (30 January–12 May 2013).
Why did you want to make this film, and how did you make it?
I was intrigued by the story of Kurt Schwitters' life. I'd been to the Armitt Museum in Ambleside, where there's a documentary that William Feaver made about Schwitters, so I knew the story of his life but it wasn't until Roger Turner, who's the percussionist in the film, loaned me his copy of Schwitters' biography that I thought, 'God, this is really fascinating.' I'd only seen what I call the 'chocolate box pictures' in Ambleside, which are the kind of commercial paintings he made for money.
I went and checked out the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, where the Schwitters Archive is and was blown away when I saw the collages—I kind of felt that he was speaking my language. I spoke to a wonderful artist called Jefford Horrigan, who had a studio beneath me at the time, about the idea of going to Ambleside and then to Hanover and he said you have to make a film about this. I kind of wanted an excuse to go to Norway because I'm convinced that I'm a Viking [laughs] and I had never been to Norway. And I have this passion for wild mountainous landscapes and hiking.
Was it also a kind of pilgrimage?
Oh yeah. And I just fell in love with the guy—I just wanted to follow the route he'd gone. A lot of the shots in the film are reproductions of photographs. I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, to the National Art Library, and just sat and went through the catalogue raisonné. There were lots of photographs of him wearing walking boots and many drawings of landscapes—I worked out from a map where the walks were.
It was like a pilgrimage, I guess; and to be honest the Cultural Olympiad were looking for projects and I thought this would be one that they might be interested in. By an amazing fluke, two of the people who sat on the committee that assessed it were really big Schwitters fans. They came from an opera background and they knew about the Ursonate, which is the experimental vocal piece that Schwitters used to perform at parties and events. The Hatton Gallery is the home of the Merz Barn Wall, which is Schwitters' most famous piece. It's a wall from his barn that he created in Elterwater and it was disintegrating so in the early sixties it was moved to Newcastle University's art gallery, the Hatton Gallery, and it's still there.
You actually spent a few weeks in Norway living in isolation, right?
Yeah. The hut in Norway is on Hjertøya Island in Moldefjord, where there are a number of traditional Norwegian houses. Nobody lives there; the old wooden houses have been transported and put on that island, and it's only open for two months of the year. I went there in August when it's closed, because August is like autumn in Norway. It's quite northern so it was completely empty, and I had the island to myself for a week. I was given a really nice little holiday cottage and I got up at dawn every morning and just watched and listened to the birds and recorded the sounds and filmed the light and the reflections and really felt his presence. Maybe I'm just being a daft romantic, but I was never lonely for a moment. I totally felt like he was there with me [laughs].
The film ends with a scene of you with a tiny camera. Is that the camera that you filmed most of this with? What is the significance of the size of the camera?
It's an old Panasonic Lumix that allows you to go from macro to wide angle all in one shot. I don't hold the camera; I have it on a monopod and I kind of dance with it. I've filmed a lot of musicians with it, going very close on their fingertips.
My work would not exist if there hadn't been such an amazing improvement in the quality of video footage shot on tiny cameras—it's the technical specificity of these kinds of cameras that have allowed me to do what I want to do. It's also just so much more portable and I tend to like to go on a journey and see what happens with chance events, such as the thunderstorm in the film. It started to rain and I went into a cave to shelter—and a crow appeared. And that is the cave that Schwitters and Wanty, his girlfriend, used to go to for picnics. I had a lovely encounter with the woman who was responsible for rescuing a lot of Schwitters' work, Mary Burkett, who was the first director of Abbot Hall Gallery in Kendal, and she told me they used to go for picnics there, so I had already been by accident but fortunately it turned out to be quite appropriate.
Your mode of working is very much in conversation with the improvised chance collage aesthetic of Schwitters. But also behind us on this slide are two of your early paintings from when you were studying fine art at Goldsmiths.
To my eyes, when I compare Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing and Space & Freedom, the films in Speech Acts both have a painterly quality to them. In your framing and editing, one can see your engagement with the genres of painting: landscape but also elements of still life, portraiture, and abstraction. How did you develop this approach to making film?
I've just noticed now that there are a lot of diagonals in my work—I've got a thing about diagonal lines. I worked in a gallery that specialises in minimalism, so I think that was an influence. This [pointing at a slide of abstract painting] is my graduation show at Goldsmiths.
Yes, this [pointing at an image of her painting] is really reactionary. This is Greenbergian formalism that was considered to be the ultimate in masculine heroic painting. I kept saying, 'yeah but I used to make feminist films, I got my credentials there; this is what I want to make now.' I look at the paintings that I did then and I think they're all about surface and texture—I used wax and pigment and I'm interested in what happens when you scrape away and leave a trace of pigment on the smooth white surface of gesso, and use big brushes to sort of wipe out the image and then erase edges of the image. It is similar to the images that I get with this tiny camera, which is great at macro shots, so you can go in close on a piece of bark and get a similar texture.
Is that something that you're consciously looking for?
No [laughs]. It's only looking at the paintings now with you that I see the links between them and the films and with the sound. The scratchiness in the sound is similar to this process of scratching and erasing in the image.
There was a lovely piece that David Briers wrote on Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing in Art Monthly back in 2012, and he pointed out very astutely that, just like John Cage inspired visual artists, Schwitters has inspired composers.
When I left Goldsmiths I was doing these very solitary paintings, and then I had a bit of a crisis because my partner died and I couldn't be in the studio alone any more. So I started going to gigs and filming the musicians, partly because I was broke and if I filmed them I got in for nothing. It was the early days of the internet and I was sort of one of the first people to put decent stuff on YouTube, and I was recording good quality sound as well. I met a lot of musicians in a particular area of music called free improvisation, which seemed to speak the same language as my paintings. The way I filmed those musicians developed, especially with Roger Turner. I got closer and closer and more abstract in order to concentrate on the rhythms he was creating with his fingers, with objects such as a plastic fork or a cymbal, and the shadows that that plastic fork would form.
So, Roger Turner was the man who was playing your brushes and your palette knives.
Yes. And he's the man who lent me the Schwitters book, I mean he kind of introduced me to Schwitters' work, really.
We also saw Sylvia Hallett in that memorable opening scene which looks like she is playing a bicycle wheel?
Yes it is. She plays a bicycle wheel and the sound goes through electronics. I had made films with her before but I knew it was the sound of empty fjords and perfect for those scenes. She also plays the Norwegian hardanger fiddle in a later scene. And Schwitters made a lot of works with bicycle wheels.
In another scene in Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing, Adam Bohman is playing what looks like hardware.
Yeah, he's creating sounds using found objects with contact mics attached to them. When I was in the tiny hut on the island in Norway, and it was kind of windy outside and squeaking a bit I thought: 'Adam Bohman makes the sounds that this hut would make if it were a musical instrument'. So when I got back home, I got him to improvise something to the rushes, which I then edited to. I always work that way round.
There are many structural and visual similarities between Throw Them Up and Let Them Sing and your new film Space & Freedom, but I would like to focus on the differences. The first sequence in Space & Freedom is not actually your footage: it's an archival shot by Li Yuan-chia that you came across at the John Rylands Library. Would it be fair to say that your use of archival footage is the single biggest difference between the two films?
Sadly, there is very little left to film of Li Yuan-chia at his house in Cumbria, which is now empty and very derelict. But fortunately he had done a lot of work with film and video in the later years of his life and I got permission from the LYC Foundation to use it. At the time, everybody thought that there were no sound recordings. When I went to the John Rylands Library and went through the catalogue I saw it said 'reel-to-reel tape', and I think the people who had done the archive research before didn't realise that meant sound. I brought it to London and took it to Dave Hunt, who's the sound engineer that I work with, and we got it on his big reel-to-reel tape recorder and found that there was some sound; that Lee had actually recorded his plans for converting this derelict old house into a museum. It sounds as if he was alone when he was recording this and was obviously doing it for somebody in the future to do something with. I'm getting goose pimples when I say this, because I just couldn't believe it when I found it.
And it's not just sound, there's also a video where he seems to be part performing for the camera as he is constructing the museum and showing it functioning.
In the later video footage, he's making a record of what he's done, that's at the end of his life—he's much older when he did that. And also there's the sound of him whistling and I've put that together with his own archival film footage of birds, and layered it and repeated it to go with his whistling. I can't stress how grateful I am to everybody at the Li Yuan-chia Foundation and the John Rylands Library to have allowed me access to do that—it felt like an extraordinary responsibility.
There are two Taiwanese archivists, Kaiwei Wang and Wei Yu, who have been working for five years cataloguing all of Li's work and they came around to my house and listened to the voice recording after I found it. Kaiwei just burst into tears and said, 'I've been working with his archive for five years and I'd never heard his voice before.' It was acutely gratifying to get that response.
Was it a conscious decision of yours to focus on places that record traces of an individual's existence as the subject, rather than the individuals themselves or indeed their artwork?
Yes. Well, both films are about places where there is a sort of trace of previous artistic presence—and I didn't feel it that much the first time I went to Bankside, where Li's museum is. But the second time I went, I felt it more.
I knew Li was very interested in contemporary avant-garde classical music: he made many recordings of a BBC programme called Music of Our Time. Li's voice recording was recorded over one of these programmes, which is why the quality is so bad, as it did not completely erase the piano music underneath. So the voice recording is really bad quality but I've kind of made a feature of it. It's like pentimento in painting really. But it let me know Li's taste in music so I asked Steve Beresford, who's the person who pretty much introduced me to most of the musicians I know, to improvise prepared piano pieces that punctuate the images. It adds another atmosphere to it. I worked with him when I was a television director and we've stayed friends ever since. He's a leading authority on free improvisation but also performs John Cage's piece 'Indeterminancy'.
Regarding the idea of the trace, are these two films memorials of some kind? And if so, what kind of memorials are they? Memorials have been called 'a promise to the future about the past'—does that resonate with you?
I suppose it's my personal memorial. Lots of people have made work in response to Kurt Schwitters—he's inspired lots and lots of artists. I wasn't thinking I was doing anything that hadn't been done before, but I think I was the first person to compare the landscapes of Cumbria and Norway.
But in a way it's in the spirit of musical improvisation—it's a sort of a call and response.
Yeah. Both films are very much influenced by improvisation—the whole way I work is. I respond to what I find on the day, in the moment when I'm travelling. I've got certain health problems, so it is totally impossible to plan what I do from one day to the next. I used to work with film crews and make arts documentaries for TV but I can't do that any more because I never know how much energy I'll have. So I just set out with equipment that gets smaller and smaller every year and just respond to what happens in front of me. Both films were made in that spirit and I think both those artists worked in that spirit as well, and that's probably why I've chosen them.


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Q: Why two intersected paths can't buildcycle in MetaPost? Suppose that I have two path:
beginfig(0)
u:=10pt;
vardef randomcirc(expr O, r, w) =
  save p,i; pair p; numeric i;
    p=O+right*r;
    p for i=1 upto 9: .. (p rotatedaround(O, 36i))+(uniformdeviate w, uniformdeviate w) endfor .. cycle
enddef;
path pat[];
pair p[];
p0:=(0,5u); p3:=(-8u,0);
pat0:=randomcirc(p0,8u,.5u);
pat3:=randomcirc(p3,5u,0.4u);
fill buildcycle(pat0, pat3) withcolor red;
draw pat0; draw pat3;
endfig;

why their intersection are not filled with red color?
I think it's due to the precision of MetaPost too low, how to fix it?

A: Here is another implementation of the same idea as in fpast's answer. Instead of starting with a point on the left, you can just rotate the original circle by 180 degrees. (I also simplified the code for randomized circle a bit).
\startMPdefinitions
  vardef randomcircle(expr O, r, w, a) =
    ((fullcircle rotated  a scaled 2r) randomized w shifted O)
  enddef;
\stopMPdefinitions
\starttext

\startMPpage[offset=2mm]
  u:=10pt;
  path pat[];
  pair p[];

  p0:=(0,5u); p3:=(-8u,0);

  pat0 = randomcircle(p0, 8u, 0.4u, 0);
  pat3 = randomcircle(p3, 5u, 0.4u, 180);

  fill buildcycle(pat0, pat3) withcolor red;

  draw pat0;
  draw pat3;

  dotlabel.ulft("1", pat0 intersectionpoint pat3);
  dotlabel.lrt("2", pat3 intersectionpoint pat0);
  label.rt("aa", point 0 of pat0);
  label.lft("b", point 0 of pat3);
\stopMPpage

\stoptext

which gives

A: The plain.mp implementation of buildcycle fails to find the correct overlap between two cyclic paths if the beginning (point 0) of one of the paths lies inside the other path. For example:
beginfig(3);
  path A, B; picture p[];
  A = fullcircle scaled 2.5cm;
  B = fullcircle scaled 2cm shifted (1cm,0);

  p1 = image(fill buildcycle(A,B) withcolor .8[blue,white]; drawarrow A; drawarrow B;);

  A := A rotated 180;
  p2 = image(fill buildcycle(A,B) withcolor .8[blue,white]; drawarrow A; drawarrow B;);

  B := B rotatedabout(center B,180);
  p3 = image(fill buildcycle(A,B) withcolor .8[blue,white]; drawarrow A; drawarrow B;);

  A := A rotated 180;
  p4 = image(fill buildcycle(A,B) withcolor .8[blue,white]; drawarrow A; drawarrow B;);

  for i=1 upto 4: draw p[i] shifted (120i,0); label(decimal i, (7mm+120i,0)); endfor
endfig;

produces

In each subfigure, the arrow head is pointing at the beginning of the path.
You can see that buildcycle only works in situation 2 where neither point 0 lies within the other cyclic path.  Note that in situation 4 we get the union of the two paths.
Here's a way to correct this fault.  First you need a function to determine whether a given point lies within a cyclic path. Following Sedgewick's Algorirthms in C, you can write:
% is point "p" inside cyclic path "ring" ?
vardef inside(expr p, ring) =
  save t, count, test_line;
  count := 0;
  path test_line;
  test_line = p -- (infinity, ypart p);
  for i = 1 upto length ring:
     t := xpart(subpath(i-1,i) of ring intersectiontimes test_line);
     if ((0<=t) and (t<1)): count := count + 1; fi
  endfor
  odd(count)
  enddef;

And here is an overlap function that replaces buildcycle in this special case of two overlapping cyclic paths.
vardef front_half primary p = subpath(0, 1/2 length p) of p enddef;
vardef back_half  primary p = subpath(1/2 length p, length p) of p enddef;

% a and b should be cyclic paths...
vardef overlap(expr a, b) =
  save p, q;
  boolean p, q;
  p = inside(point 0 of a, b);
  q = inside(point 0 of b, a);
  if ((not p) and (not q)):
    buildcycle(a,b)
  elseif (not p):
    buildcycle(front_half b, a, back_half b)
  elseif (not q):
    buildcycle(front_half a, b, back_half a)
  else:
    buildcycle(front_half a, back_half b, front_half b, back_half a)
  fi
  enddef;

The basic idea is that if neither point 0 is inside the other path, then you just call buildcycle, otherwise you split the two cycles up into an appropriate sequence of half cycles.  Replacing buildcycle in the above example with overlap gives this:

And replacing buildcycle in the OP example with overlap gives this:

which is probably closer to what was wanted in the first place.
Furthermore, if the two cyclic paths are running in opposite directions the behaviour of buildcycle is different again.  Here's an extended version of the first example; in the second row, the larger path is running backwards:

To deal with this possibility you can make overlap more robust by using the useful counterclockwise function (from plain.mp) which returns a copy of a cyclic path running counterclockwise.  Here is the improved version of the overlap function.
vardef overlap(expr a, b) =
  save p, q, A, B;
  boolean p, q;
  p = not inside(point 0 of a, b);
  q = not inside(point 0 of b, a);
  path A, B;
  A = counterclockwise a;
  B = counterclockwise b;
  if (p and q):
    buildcycle(A,B)
  elseif p:
    buildcycle(front_half B, A, back_half B)
  elseif q:
    buildcycle(front_half A, B, back_half A)
  else:
    buildcycle(front_half A, back_half B, front_half B, back_half A)
  fi
  enddef;

which produces this in my extended example.

A: It works here if I change slightly the definition of pat3, making pat3 start at the "left" (so to speak) of the circle and not at the "right" (to the contrary of pat0). For this, I defined another vardef macro (randomcirc_bis)
beginfig(0)
    u:=10pt;
    vardef randomcirc(expr O, r, w) =
        save p,i; pair p; numeric i;
         p=O+right*r;
        p for i=1 upto 9: .. (p rotatedaround(O, 36i))+(uniformdeviate w, uniformdeviate w)
        endfor .. cycle
    enddef;
    %
    vardef randomcirc_bis(expr O, r, w) =
        save p,i; pair p; numeric i;
        p=O+left*r;
        p for i=1 upto 9: .. (p rotatedaround(O, 36i))+(uniformdeviate w, uniformdeviate w)
        endfor .. cycle
    enddef;
%
    path pat[];
    pair p[];
    p0:=(0,5u); p3:=(-8u,0);
    pat0:=randomcirc(p0,8u,.5u);
    pat3:=randomcirc_bis(p3,5u,0.4u);
    pat4 = buildcycle(pat0, pat3);
    fill pat4 withcolor red;
    draw pat0; draw pat3 dashed evenly;
    %
    dotlabel.ulft("1", pat0 intersectionpoint pat3);
    dotlabel.lrt("2", pat3 intersectionpoint pat0);
    label.rt("aa", point 0 of pat0);
    label.lft("b", point 0 of pat3);
endfig;
end.

In this drawing I tried to reproduce exactly the modus operandi of buildcycle as explained in the MetaPost manual, p. 30 (section 9.1, "Building Cycles"). Citation:

The buildcycle macro detects the two intersections labeled 1 and 2 in
  Figure 24b. Then it constructs the cyclic path shown in bold in the
  figure by going forward along path aa from intersection 1 to
  intersection 2 and then forward around the counter-clockwise path b
  back to intersection 1.

If I understand the macro intersectionpoint correctly, point 1 is in fact aa intersectionpoint b and it is the first intersection that aa (pat0) encounters with b (pat3).
Similarly point 2 is b intersectiopoint aa, and it is also the first intersection that b (pat3) encounters with aa (pat0).
To reproduce this scheme it has been necessary to start the path pat3 at the left. Otherwise the first intersection that pat3=b would have met with pat0=aa would have been point 1. The two intersection points would have been the same, and in that case buildcycle fails.
I hope I have not been too confusing: English is not my native language…
UPDATE
I have simplified the code. My new vardef macro randomcircbis wasn't necessary. It was enough to replace the line pat3:=randomcirc(p3,5u,0.4u);in the original code by pat3:=randomcirc(p3,-5u,0.4u);. The resulting figure is the same, of course.
beginfig(0)
    u:=10pt;
    vardef randomcirc(expr O, r, w) =
        save p,i; pair p; numeric i;
         p=O+right*r;
        p for i=1 upto 9: .. (p rotatedaround(O, 36i))+(uniformdeviate w, uniformdeviate w)
        endfor .. cycle
    enddef;
%
    path pat[];
    pair p[];
    p0:=(0,5u); p3:=(-8u,0);
    pat0:=randomcirc(p0,8u,.5u);
    pat3:=randomcirc(p3,-5u,0.4u);
    pat4 = buildcycle(pat0, pat3);
    fill pat4 withcolor red;
    draw pat0; draw pat3 dashed evenly;
    %
    dotlabel.ulft("1", pat0 intersectionpoint pat3);
    dotlabel.lrt("2", pat3 intersectionpoint pat0);
    label.rt("aa", point 0 of pat0);
    label.lft("b", point 0 of pat3);
endfig;
end.

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Greg will speak at Rocky Hill School on Thursday, December 8 in the Flynn Academic Center. This event is free and open to the public. Click here to reserve your seat.
Can you, for those who have not read your book, give us a synopsis of what your key takeaways are?
Greg: I wrote the book because I was curious about how young people's relationships with media were changing. I came up to your school [Cushing Academy, about which Greg wrote in USA Today] to find out how, back then, everyone was fretting about digital distraction and kids getting their own phones, but we don't talk about that much anymore. Once I started going down this road, I saw two opposite things happening: The kind of media that people were most freaked out about was video games. But some people were also excited about the way games could contribute to education. A lot of scholarship had been done by people like Jim Gee writing about the possibilities of games and learning. They seemed to be saying, 'If only people would look at this more closely, interesting things will happen.' I wondered if someone had already looked at this more closely. Are there teachers exploring the use of games, or developing games, and how do I find them? I started asking around and found that not only were there people doing this but there were more people than I could ever talk to. This world was unfolding, almost invisibly, before us. I started visiting people, talking to game developers. Almost like shooting fish in a barrel, there were so many people working on this that I couldn't get to them all. After a year of meeting people, I picked the ones I liked best and who, to me, were most representative of the movement.
It is a superb book. Has it had the impact you had hoped?
Greg: The people who find it really love it. I try not to be a cheerleader as much as I try to ask why this particular engine works well. What are the underlying principles? Why are games so appealing? Why are teachers so interested in this? The question is no longer an "if" question, it is a "how" question. Each subtitle of the chapters in the book looks at "how" people are getting things done.
The question is not whether this is going to emerge but what is best practice?
Greg: Exactly. As for the impact, I think it is still early. I don't think I'm starting a new way of thinking, but when I talk to people one on one, the ideas resonate with their lives. So many people have kids who are already gamers. Parents are starting to change how they talk, from "these kids are really into gaming" to "these kids are really into learning." Rarely do people dismiss the field as a whole anymore.
This is a rapidly expanding field. What have you seen since the book came out? What is new since you wrote the book?
Greg: Some of the phenomena I describe in the book that were breathtaking at the time are now ordinary. Pokemon Go—two or three years ago, you would have had to work really hard to describe what it was, but people just get it now. They understand that something that looks like a useless scavenger hunt can actually bring people together and get them out of the house. It is getting people with PTSD to leave the house for the first time. It is revitalizing museums, because people are there to find these creatures. Organizations are inviting these people in. Organizations may have been very wary about this a few years ago. At the same time, there is a very big, scary debate going on now: When I talk to parent groups, they want to talk about "screen addiction." We still are using words like "addiction" and it's troubling.
Do you share any of these concerns? Or is it a misplaced analysis?
Greg: When we use words like "addiction," it is not to start a conversation, but to stop it, to end any doubt about what is happening in our kids' lives and their minds. But I say that if you are concerned, let's try to find out more about what is going on. There is a school psychologist in Australia who has a very smart way of thinking about this. Jocelyn Brewer has a TED talk about Digital Nutrition that you should watch—one of the things she likes to say is that screens (iPads, phones, computers) are not drugs; they are syringes. They are the thing through which you get the drug. So let's talk about what you are putting in the syringe. People always ask, what do you think about "screen time"? But if we were talking about food, we wouldn't be talking about "plate time," we would be talking about what is on the plate. That is a more constructive way to think about it. We rarely talk about being addicted to food, we talk about how much we like it, and perhaps how we should eat more or less of certain foods.
I like that image, that technology is a delivery vehicle. The technology has rendered ubiquitously accessible the entirety of human culture.
Greg: Yes. People also ask, "Shouldn't kids be out playing, or having down time?" Absolutely. To use another food analogy, at no time in my life has food been better than it is now. Think about the restaurants we have access to now. The choice that we have is vastly better than what we've ever had. We didn't have food trucks when I was a kid. The way to respond, even if you're overwhelmed, is not to say, "Oh, my god, I am overwhelmed"; the thing to do is to pick and choose the things you like, consume them in moderation and teach your kids to do the same.
It's harder now for the people who aren't the very top classical musicians in the world to make a living, because the average consumer has direct access to the top musicians on YouTube and other venues. But the positive flip side of that is precisely that even someone in the most marginalized place on the planet can have ready access to the greatest performances.
Greg: It is not without cost. But "addiction" is the wrong way to think about it.
I started the book assuming there is a connection between gaming violence and aggressive behavior, but you make a very good argument that there is no connection.
Greg: Going into the project, I did not think I would be paying any attention to that. Grand Theft Auto and other violent games, you can make a strong case that they do not belong in schools. But when I spoke to parents, they would hear the term "video game" and say that their children could not stop playing games like Call of Duty. They would say, "I'm afraid he is going to become violent, what should I do?" These weren't parents who were uninvolved in their children's' lives, yet in this way they felt not only out of the loop but out of control; they didn't have any control over their kids' consumption of these games. I thought: If the book is for parents and teachers, I need to address this. And the research surprised me. When I read the Connecticut State Police report about Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old Sandy Hook shooter, I thought, "People need to read about this." Police looked into his social habits and found that he had played one video game obsessively, every day, for 10 years. When I give a talk on this topic, I ask people if they think they can name the game, and they very rarely can.
You talk about the role of playfulness and creativity in learning – and how important that is in the 21st century, how you see gaming in a central role as an educative tool.
Greg: I am definitely not a play scholar. I don't have a very deep understanding of what play does psychologically. But from the research and thinking that I have done, I feel like the importance of playfulness is that it changes the focus of what we are doing, changes it from a high-stakes endeavor to one where failure is O.K. Trying lots of approaches is O.K. What can you bring to this endeavor? One of my favorite concepts is "flow state," which is what happens when your abilities perfectly match with the task at hand. People understand that concept and can transport themselves to a time and place where they were in that state. We rarely think about this in schools. Teachers say, "We have a certain amount of time to get this task done, and I don't care about your state of mind." Researchers have discovered the importance of being in the zone, of making the task match the skills, of making school work not too easy, not too hard. Dan Willingham from UVA, this is one of his big ideas. Adults forget that, for young people, doing the task is not optional. If The New York Times crossword puzzle is too hard, I can put it down and walk away. But a student in school has stakes attached to completing each task, so there is a real responsibility to make the tasks match the skill. Just to be clear: Flow is not about making everything easy; it is about matching a task to a skill that you have worked very hard developing.
There is a lot of conversation around Angela Duckworth's book on Grit. A lot of grit is required to get to the next level of a video game.
Greg: Even adults experience this. I recommended a game to a colleague the other day and he later told me he hadn't gotten anything done for days, because he was trying to level up. Video games are grit machines.
Are there schools out there that are doing this in the most promising ways? In terms of the role of gaming in education, is it best leveraged educationally by a school that just does gaming or in a blended learning environment?
Greg: I'm very excited about Quest to Learn in New York. They just finished their 7th year. They started with a group of 6th graders and just graduated the first group last spring. If you had just walked in with no introduction to it, you would see a very well-designed PBL school. Interesting but not out of the ordinary. Lots of schools do PBL. One of the exciting things was that they had brought a little gaming think tank into the building, and its task for the first several years was to talk to the teachers and ask, "What are you teaching and how can we find a game that teaches this better, or how can we develop one?" They had a few really remarkable little games, and pieces of games. There was one racing game where you had to get from point a to point b faster than your opponent on a peg board. You quickly learn that you move faster when you move on the diagonal between two holes, rather than just up-and-down and side-to-side. This was teaching the Pythagorean theorem with no prior introduction to the topic. The students were not memorizing it, they were generating it. Then, when the teacher says, "A squared plus B squared equals C squared," it means something.
The students were independently discovering the Pythagorean theorem.
Would you recommend that schools redo their curricula to teach everything, or most everything, through games?
Greg: No. Schools leveraging the power of games as the only approach, I would frown on that. There is no reason to make games the only thing you do. They should be used to serve the things you need to do. If a game is not the best tool, then use something else. If a cheese grater is a better tool, use the cheese grater.
So you're not hoping that gaming will be the "next big thing"?
Greg: No. I actually hope gaming is not the "next big thing," because those always crash and burn. I hope it is the "next small thing," where it develops in a natural way. I hope that it is not on the cover of a magazine somewhere. And since the book came out, I have to say that smart people have been thinking about this in very different ways than I had imagined. Young developers at Breakout EDU took the concept of escape rooms, where you get together with your friends and you have an hour to get out of a room by following the clues in the room. They are big, embodied, live-action puzzles and they are difficult; the success rate on a lot of them is 30%. But people are not intimidated by the fact that they have failed. They keep trying, even though they have paid good money to fail. A teacher took his class to one, and the kids loved it. The kids were working together, thinking critically, focused on the goal, and the teacher thought, "How can I get this into the school building?" He decided to invert the whole thing. "Let's try to get into a box and use all the same tools we did in order to get out of the room." So you can purchase this thing; it is a wooden box that is locked six ways to Sunday and you have to figure out how to crack all of these locks. Teachers are developing curriculum around the box. They say, "Learning about this concept helps you solve this puzzle to get into the box." And they have been really democratizing this. Breakout EDU realized the potential to make this a big company, but they also realized that the market is teachers. So they said, "You can buy it for $99, but if you can't afford that, here is the list of ingredients to make it yourself, with supplies from Home Depot or your local hardware store." Teachers have written their own lesson plans and posted them online for free. It is all open source. Breakout EDU allows the teachers to sell their lesson plans, but all of the teachers have chosen to give them away for free.
Is there anything else you would like to add and what are you working on these days?
Greg: I'm talking to people about the book. I did a book group with a bunch of moms in Annapolis, Maryland. I brought my iPad and a projector, and we played a couple of games with the group and their kids. That was great fun, and it proved a key point I wanted to make with the book: The kids were having fun doing math and solving puzzles together, in a social setting. I want to get people to think and have different conversations around this topic. When it comes to gaming, digital media, we think we know what we are talking about, but my feeling is that, as parents, we almost always come to it from a sense of moral panic. If there is anything I want to get across to people, it is that you have to identify that and understand it. Nick Yee at Stanford says we should close our eyes and imagine a game played in an alternate world, a piece of real estate that is set aside for just this purpose—it has its own rules and fierce competition, and people get together once a week to compete; of course, this is football. But when something goes wrong, someone gets hurt or someone dies, we don't turn to the moral panic conversation, we try to figure out what happened and why. We don't say, "Oh, everyone is addicted to football!" That is a shift we need to make.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized on October 1, 2016 by RHS.
This is a very interesting interview! It reminds me of teaching Minecraft Camp over this summer at RHS. Since Minecraft is an open-world game, the kids were able to build whatever came into their imaginations. With a little bit of guidance, they made some truly awesome buildings.
I think the potential for game-based learning is essentially limitless. Maybe it's just because I'm a teenager who likes video games, but I do strongly feel that games have great potential for learning. For instance, I've learned quite a bit about architecture and landscaping from building in Minecraft, as well as some basic computer code from certain mechanics in the game. There's a fantastic game called Portal that uses kinematics and portals to teach kids physics so they can escape from an evil AI computer.
There are so many other games out there that teach these things in such great ways. I think gaming should be integrated into the classroom, certainly not as the main tool for teaching but rather as an additional accessory to amplify the subjects being taught. It's one thing to learn about history, but when you can build the Colosseum or meet with Napoleon, it takes on a whole new meaning. Science becomes important when it'll help you escape from zombies, and English class is vital when a murder mystery needs to be solved.
I'm starting to ramble now, but the point is that I strongly agree with the fact that games can be a great way to amplify learning. Just thought you might want a student's perspective on this topic!


text:
Home > OVERVIEW > WHO_WE_ARE > Equity & Diversity
Equity & Diversity Annual Reports
The Office of Equity and Diversity was established alongside the Equity and Diversity Council by Children's Mercy to focus on implementing strategy, supporting hospital leadership and staff in their efforts to provide equitable care, and attending to regulatory and accreditation standards.
The Equity and Diversity Council and its work groups developed a mission and vision for Children's Mercy, specifically about diversity, inclusion and cultural competence. It defines what we hope our hospital will become.
Mission: Children's Mercy is a diverse group of employees and community leaders who are passionate and committed to providing equitable, high quality clinical care to patients and their families. We continually strive to achieve this through education, advocacy, research, community collaboration, promotion of a culturally competent workforce and empowerment of families.
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Office of Equity Diversity Report Annual Report FY 2018-19
A report on equity and diversity at Children's Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, in the care it provides, the people it serves, and in its workforce. Specifically discusses the Equity & Diversity Leadership Structure, Employee Demographics, Patient Demographics, and the work being done to help realize the great potential that lies ahead.
Equity & Diversity Report 2017
A report on equity and diversity at Children's Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, in the care it provides, the people it serves, and in its workforce. Specifically discusses the Equity & Diversity Council, The Office of Equity and Diversity, Community Engagement, Care Delivery and Supportive Mechanisms, Patient-Provider Communication, Workforce Diversity and Inclusion, Leadership, Research, Public Accountability and Quality Improvement, and Education and Training.
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A report on equity and diversity at Children's Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, in the care it provides, the people it serves, and in its workforce. Specifically discusses the Equity & Diversity Council, The Office of Equity and Diversity,Patient-Provider Communications, Care Delivery and Support Mechanisms, Workforce Diversity and Inclusion, Education and Training, Public Accountability and Quality Improvement, Community Engagement, and Research.
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A report on equity and diversity at Children's Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, in the care it provides, the people it serves, and in its workforce. Specifically discusses the Equity & Diversity Council, The Office of Equity and Diversity, the Patient and Family Experience, Community Engagement, International Connections, Health Literacy, Interpreter Services, Quality Indicators and Health Outcomes, and Education and Training.
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