Peripheral Vision

We just learned about the Field of View.

Another part of the eye is Peripheral Vision.

When you are looking straight ahead at something, you can still see things a little bit that are on the left and right sides of your head.

The word "peripheral" means on the outside or on the edge of something.
So peripheral vision is looking at things that are on the outside edge of what you are seeing.


(from: wikipedia - peripheral vision)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Taste Buds

Ross Sea

We just learned about the Weddel Sea.

Another part of Antarctica is the Ross Sea.

This sea is on the other side of Antarctica from the Weddel sea, and it is about 246,000 square miles.
Because it is further away from other land, many scientists see this place as the last place on earth that has not been hurt by pollution.

There are many scientists who go to the Ross sea to try and study the animals and ice there, without making any changes to the Ross Sea just so we can study what the earth was like a long time ago.

A lot of animals live in this area too, like penguins, whales and seals.
Because this place has not really been touched by humans, there are a lot of people trying to keep it safe and make sure it does not get polluted or ruined.


(from: wikipedia - ross sea)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Kilkenny Castle

Vikings and Christians

We just learned about the King Charlemagne.

Another part of early Christianity is Vikings and Christians and how they lived together.

Sometimes vikings would go do a raid, and attack another group of people.
They would steal food and things, but they would also sometimes steal people.

The people they brought back were either made to be slaves or taken as wives for the vikings.
A lot of the people they took were Christian, so just by doing these raids more and more vikings would get to live around Christians.

Just by being with Christians and living with them, many vikings became Christian, and that helped Christianity grow in countries like Denmark, Sweden and Norway.


(from: wikipedia - vikings)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Muratorian Fragment

Forever Free - Edmonia Lewis

We just learned about the The Woman of Samaria (Rebecca at the Well) - William Henry Rinehart.

Another famous American sculpture is Forever Free by Edmonia Lewis in 1867.

Edmonia was born in New York in 1844, while there was still slavery in America.
Her father was part African and Haitian, and her mother was part African and Native American.

When she grew up in America it was very difficult for her because life was not fair for women, African Americans or Native Americans.
She was not allowed to go to school or get jobs that men or white people were allowed to have.
When she was nine years old, her parents died so she went to Niagara Falls to live for a while with her two aunts that were Native American, and she changed her name to "Wildfire".

When she was 15 she was sent to a school in Ohio where they allowed women and African American people. She was still not treated very nice and at one point some people tried to put her in jail saying that she poisoned some other students. They did not even let her graduate school.

In 1864 when she was 20 years old she moved to Boston and started making sculptures.
The Civil War was going on, so she started making sculptures of Civil War heroes like Robert Gould Shaw.
Later on she saved up enough money to move to Rome where she could work with other famous sculptors.

Her statue called "Forever Free" was made in 1867, just after the Civil War was over.
It shows a man standing up who was in chains but is now free.
A woman is kneeling next to him praying, and she is dressed in nice clothes.
She had the woman in clothes because a lot of sculptures of women at the time had women not wearing much, and she thought that made people only think about what women looked like.

Her sculptures became so famous that President Ulysses S. Grant asked for her to come and make a sculpture of him.


(from: wikipedia - edmonia lewis)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Ellora - Hindu Caves

Russian - I am happy

Last time we learned that the Russian words for horse, sheep and duck are лошадь (loshad'), овца (ovsta), and утка (utka).

Let's learn how to say I am happy in Russian!

We can break it up into a few words.

In Russian you don't say "I am happy", you really just say "I happy".

I - Я (ya) - sounds like yah 文A

happy - счастлив (schastliv) - sounds like shah-ss-t-lih-v 文A

Together Я счастлив (ya shastliv) sounds like yah shah-ss-t-lih-v



(from: wikipedia - russian academy of sciences)

Norwegian: jeg er glad

Greek: Είμαι (Eímai) χαρούμενος (charoúmenos)

ASL: I am happy

Italian: Sono felice

German: Ich bin glücklich

Spanish: Estoy feliz

French: Je suis heureux

Valve Types

We just learned about the Poppet Valve, and we learned about the Ball Valve before that.

There are lots of different Valve Types out there that are made for different reasons.

A Globe Valve has a body that is shaped sort of like a globe, and has a disc that goes up and down to plug the hole and stop the flow of liquid or gas.

(from: wikipedia - globe valve)

A Butterfly Valve has a circle shaped disc in the middle that spins to open or close.


(from: wikipedia - butterfly valve)

A Gate Valve has a gate that goes up and down to open or close the hole.


(from: wikipedia - gate valve)

A Check Valve is a type of valve that stays closed unless the liquid or gas pushes hard enough to open it, and then it will close again using something like a spring.


(from: wikipedia - check valve)

A Control Valve is a valve that is controlled by a computer to tell it to open a little or a lot, so that it can control the amount of liquid or gas that is coming through.


(from: wikipedia - control valve)

Valves can have have a lot more than just two holes or ports also.
Many valves have three or four ports, and some have even more!


(from: wikipedia - four way valve)

There are a lot more types of valves out there. Pretty much any way you can think of to open or close a pipe, someone has made a valve for it.

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: V-2 Rocket

Tigers

We just learned about Lions.

Another big cat is the Tiger.

The tiger is the largest of the wild cats in the group of animals called "Felidae".

Tigers mostly live by themselves, except for the mothers when they are raising tiger cubs for about 2 years.

There are a lot of different types of tigers from different places.
Some have darker or longer fur, some are a little bigger, and some have stripes that look a little different.
Just like lions, there are also white tigers!
All the different tigers are in a group called "Panthera".

Tigers have stripes so that they can hide in the tall grass when they are hunting for other animals.
They have yellow irises in their eyes, and circle shaped pupils.

Boy tigers can grow to be 12 feet long, and weigh 675 pounds! Girl tigers are smaller, only growing to 9 feet and 360 pounds.
Their tails can be 2 to 4 feet long!

Tigers used to live all the way from the country of Turkey in the west to Japan in the east.
Now it mostly only lives in parts of India and China and a few other countries.
Tigers usually live in forest areas where there is water and other animals for them to hunt.

Even though we think about cats not liking water, tigers have no problem swimming, and can swim 18 miles in one day!






(from: wikipedia - tiger)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Crown Jellyfish