New World's Resolutions

As 2014 begins, children, parents, students, and teachers have an opportunity to find new opportunities for international, and even out-of-this-world, involvement. Here are some suggestions. (In parenthesis, there are references to related, earlier blog posts.)

     1. Prepare for the Winter Olympics, February 7-23, by going to a map or Russia to locate Sochi, where the winter games will be held. ("Wide World of Sports")

     2. Name a new doll, action figure, or plushie toy for an international icon, such as Malala or Mandela. ("What's in a Name?")

     3. Find an outgrown clothing item to pin or tape to the country on a wall map of the world where the item was made. ("Fashion Forward")

     4. Get ready to give children coins in red envelopes in honor of the cheerful and exciting Chinese Year of the Horse, which begins on January 31. ("Go Holiday Globe (S)hopping")

     5. Mark the end of September on your calendar to remember to learn if a space probe sends information back from Mars, when it lands on or comes near the planet. ("Space Explorers")

     6. Make a contribution to or plan a fundraiser for an international cause, such as Kids in Need of Desks at unicefusa.org or Operation International Children at operationinternationalchildren.com. ("Hope for the Future")

     7. Go to ePals.com to find a joint project to work on with a class in a foreign country. ("Getting to Know You")

     8. Read a book with an international theme. ("Talk With the Animals," "This We Believe," "Travel the World with Summer Reading")

     9. Get in touch with the world's environment by planting a tree. ("A Healthy Environment")

    10. Learn a few words in a foreign language. Say "Thank you" in German, danke; or greet friends in Japanese, konichiwa." By December 25, 2014, you'll be wishing everyone Milad Said (Mee-LAHD Sah-EED) in Arabic. ("How Do You Say?")

   

Santa's Checking His List Twice

In preparation for the holiday gift-giving season last year, I wrote the blog post, "Go Holiday Globe (S)hopping." Many of the gift suggestions in that post are still available. UNICEF (unicefusa.org/shop) and SERRV (serrv.org) again offer Advent calendars. For children who celebrate Hanukkah, SERRV also sells Kosher certified dark and milk chocolate foil-wrapped coins from the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana, Africa.

     This year, there are gifts that enable youngsters to sample the world's latest technologies. Using a LED touchscreen, kids can change patterns on Barbie's new "Digital Dress." A variety of robot toys are sold at YoungExplorers.com, mindware.com, Museumtour.com, and shopng.org. Since the American Red Cross Field Radio and Phone Charger from shopng.org uses both solar power or hand cranking to recharge, it can go high tech or low.

     A variety of approaches to geography update a familiar subject. Maps, a new book by Aleksandra and Daniel Mezielinska, associates fascinating facts with illustrations of every region of the world. By touching one of 39 sections on the "Global Glowball" from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art store (store.metmuseum.org), children can activate a song from that part of the world. Based on the latest facts about every country in the world, the geography game, "Where in the World?" from Museumtour.com is fun for 2 to 6 players 8 years of age or older. Using pieces shaped like countries, children over 4 also can put together a "World GeoPuzzle" from Museumtour and those 12 years of age and up can build Museumtour's 4D puzzles of Berlin, Hong Kong, London, Osaka, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, Sydney, Tokyo, or Toronto. For free, go to "google maps" and introduce children to the way they can use a computer to tour countries, such as France, and cities, such as Nairobi, Kenya.

     Several new gifts provide the kind of indoor activities youngsters need to amuse themselves during the winter. Games, stencils, stickers, and crafts come with The National Geographic Kids: Animal Creativity Book. In Dawn Casey's book, The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales, stories from around the world are coupled with related activities. In the virtual world, students can build the world's landmarks with the Swedish video game, Minecraft. Or they can paint Paris and London in watercolors with Ravensburger's Aquarille World Cities Arts and Crafts Kit, which comes with all needed art supplies and instructions for different painting techniques.

     Paris seems to be a popular destination this holiday season. Chavonne, the African-American "Journey" doll at Toys R Us, is about to travel to Paris. Madeline is already there in her new book, Madeline and the Old House in Paris.  In Paris! Recipe for Adventure, a book by Giada DeLaurentiis, Zia Donatella takes a brother and sister to a French cooking school to show them home-cooked meals are better than fast food. (The same author also visits Naples! Recipe for Adventure.)  Students can build Paris' Eiffel Tower with National Geographic's 3-D puzzle or the more difficult to construct 5-foot tall model that uses the same engineering principles as the real landmark. (At shop.nationalgeographic.com, National Geographic also offers a 3-D puzzle of Big Ben and a 4-D Cityscape puzzle of London.)

     For teen age girls who want gifts with a touch of Parisian glamour, artisans around the world are creating original jewelry just for them. The SERRV website (serrv.org) and Shop For Social (shopforsocial.com) provide many options.

     What would be the ultimate gift? Book an international family vacation with AdventuresByDisney.com, journeys.travel, AAA.com/ExploreMore, worldwildlife.org/travel, or hfholidays.co.uk.

    Best wishes for peace and joy throughout the world in this holiday season and every day in 2014!

Picture the Continents

Over a year ago, I wrote the blog post, "Picture the World," to suggest how young people could begin to see what the world looked like and how people around the world lived. While I was thinking about how writers put together ideas for a TV show or a book by arranging notes on a cork board or wall, it occurred to me that blocks of space for continents could be assigned on a wall at home or on a black board at school. Pictures from various countries could then be placed in the correct continents to not only help kids visualize the world but also start some of them thinking about becoming foreign news, fashion, travel, or nature photographers.

With the Winter Olympics coming up early next year in Sochi, Russia, there soon will be a lot of photos to put under a wall's European heading. Blank spaces under other continents will motivate kids to scour publications for photos from around the world. Many used book stores have old copies of National Geographic that are a prime source of international photos. But any magazine, newspaper, alumni publication, brochure from a travel agency, or corporate annual report is a likely resource.

I have noticed more and more art museums are mounting exhibits of photographs. The Corcoran Art Museum in Washington, D.C. has an extensive collection of photographs, some of which are printed on postcards that could be used in a young person's own continental wall exhibit. Perhaps kids also could use photo copies of pictures from Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity, the collection of Susan Bright's non-traditional pictures of motherhood around the world, which was displayed at an art museum in London and is now a book.

Of course, children also should be encouraged to ask relatives and friends who travel to foreign countries to send them postcards and to take pictures that they can post in their panorama of the world. Should they be the lucky ones to travel to a different country, they should not only post their photos at home or school, but they should ask their parents and/or teachers to visit ngkidsmyshot.com to get information about how to submit their photos for possible publication in National Geographic Kids. Such an opportunity may be the beginning of a career that takes them around the globe.

The Write Help

Similar to the way Kids for Kids uses children's art from India to raise money for children's causes there (See the earlier post, "Global Drawing Power.") CAB (Conversations Across Borders) Magazine publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by an international roster of authors to fund international schools and literacy projects.

Recipients can use CAB Magazine donations any way they want. Grand Ntumwa school in Uganda bought school supplies and paid teacher salaries. An orphanage for Kenyan children who lost parents to AIDS is using CAB Magazine money to build a high school

Diverse authors express various points of view. Bolivian author, Daniela Cortes del Castillo, contributed a story about a girl who outwitted male repression. According to Dennis Vannatta's essay, "we are the sum of our prejudices." Other authors have submitted works from Mexico, Odessa, Honduras, and the United States.

CAB Magazine is a quarterly. Full issues sell for $10; online pieces are $2 each. Information about applying for funds and submitting works is available at conversationsacrossborders.org.

Star-struck Realities

What dancers, singers, and actors have in common is the opportunity to perform anywhere in the world. Since producers, agents, managers, and casting companies around the world can watch YouTube videos, singers, songwriters, musicians, bands, and actors in every country have a global platform for discovery, record deals, films, TV shows, advertising projects, and tour engagements.

     Books about an eighth grader who makes it to Broadway, Tim Federle's Better Nate Than Ever and Five, Six, Seven, Nate, can inspire young performers, but competition is intense. For evidence, consider the number of young people who try out for TV shows devoted to dance: Dance Moms, So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, Breaking Pointe, Bun Heads; for TV shows devoted to singers: Glee, American Idol, The Voice, X Factor; and for professional and amateur performances around the world. The little girl at the right is performing in a play in Montevideo, Uruguay.

     The audition is all important, when it comes to being discovered. What goes into this little showcase is the choice of a perfect performance piece that highlights your talent without boring the "judges." Hunting for new audition material is a necessity throughout a career. A middle school student who wowed the audience playing Miss Hannigan in Annie cannot use a song or monologue from that role to audition for an age appropriate part in the real world. Young performers also need to seek out  honest appraisals of their talent from others than Aunt Gertrude.

     Looks matter. Yes, Danny DeVito and Dustin Hoffman made it, but tall guys like Ben Affleck and George Clooney always will be the most desirable leading men and country western singers. A stage actor may be able to get away with less than perfect skin but a film star can't. What does Sofia Vergara have that you don't? A hair style like "the Rachel" may set you apart the same way Barbra Streisand's nose does. But how many roles are there for other chubbies like Rebel Wilson and Gabourey Sidibe?

     One piece of advice I heard given to a young performer merits repeating. If you see a long line of actors in front of you, start trying to find a shorter line. That may lead you to form your own garage band or to develop original material, like a Taylor Swift or Tina Fey. Original YouTube performances have launched careers the way Meagan Cignoli's six-second Vines have launched hers. In her book, Pamela D. Pollack asks and answers the question, Who Is George Lucas? Reading about the creator of Star Wars is a sure way to inspire creative youngsters to consider their own new ways to develop special sound and visual effects and even to become film producers, screenwriters, and directors.

     The need to stand out could lead to crazy stunts, like twerking, tongue-flapping by Miley Cyrus or outrageous costume-wearing by Elton John, that may or may not get the kind of attention you want. At one audition, a singer got rid of a long line by lying to those waiting. He said he had been asked to tell them there wouldn't be any more auditions that afternoon, because the pianist had another engagement.

     Performers need to beware of scams. When its performances were canceled, a Russia ballet company ended up in the U.S. State of Delaware with no way to get home. Always make sure to get round trip tickets (and don't surrender your passport to anyone) before leaving on a foreign, or even a domestic, tour.

     Change is rapid in all fields of business these days and the business of show business is no different. When my daughter was a child actor, we co-wrote the book, Stars in Your Eyes...Feet on the Ground: A Practical Guide for Teenage Actors (and their Parents!). It is one of many books that gives advice to young actors. But just like diet and self-help books, one "size" does not fit all. Each performer has to craft together bits and pieces of advice and, most of all, hope for a lucky break. It helps to understand the business of show business, too. Sweden's Academy of Music and Business is a model for other schools that could teach performers how to turn their talent into a career.

Climate Control

One of the most surprising things I learned about Thomas Jefferson, when I visited his historic home near Charlottesville, Virginia, was his interest in weather. He kept a daily diary of weather conditions, a practice every student could imitate. By keeping such an annual diary, for example, students could check the dates when they see the first robin. Are northern migrations getting earlier each year? Could this be an indication of global warming?

     Although an individual's record of temperature changes over a lifetime cannot predict a long-term climate trend, an interest in weather has a wide variety of global applications. Young people already are interested in weather and its many facets according to the number of children's books on sun; clouds, storms, lightning, and hurricanes; wind and tornadoes; winter and snow; global warming and climate change; how to dress for the weather; and weather experiments. When my granddaughter was younger, she put snow in a jar, measured it, let it melt, and compared how much "rain" made how much snow. Children also can monitor the direction of wind using weather vanes, windsocks, and flags and record how the temperature changes or a storm develops after wind strengthens. In a trivia contest, I learned that the official measure of wind velocity is taken 33 feet above ground and that a flag flies straight out when wind is blowing at least 25 miles per hour.

     Of course, most students already know how Benjamin Franklin demonstrated that lightning was electricity. Lightning occurs when air can no longer prevent the attraction between oppositely charged drops of moisture in a cloud and the earth. Flying a kite tipped with a metal point into a thundercloud, Franklin watched a door key attract lightning's electric charge travel down the kite string. During a storm, since the static electricity discharge from a cloud seeks out the nearest points on earth, lightning strikes tall trees and buildings. As a practical application, Franklin suggested mounting a pointed metal rod, a lightning rod, on tall buildings to neutralize lightning's electrical charge and therefore prevent buildings from catching on fire.

     Weather has long played an important role in military maneuvers. Armies have attacked with the daily sunrise behind them in order to blind their enemies. Russia's winter defeated Napoleon, just as fog prevented him from knowing British Admiral Lord Nelson's navy had slipped between his fleet and his planned attack on Egypt.

     According to the Bible, even God has worked His will with weather. In the story of Noah and the Ark, God showed His displeasure with man's evil deeds by causing a flood that destroyed everything on earth. After the waters subsided, God said that a rainbow would be a sign that He would never again use a flood to destroy the earth. Some Czech citizens still honor Our Lady of Hostyn and the Christ Child in gratitude for the fierce lightning sent in response to prayers for prevention from a Mongol attack in 1241.

     In her book, Weather of the Future, Heidi Cullen tells how an ambulance driver named Lewis Fry Richardson set out to forecast battlefield weather conditions in World War I. He used values for the atmosphere's pressure, temperature, density, water content, and east, north, and up wind in 12,000 columns (3 degrees east-west and 125 miles north-south) in Central Europe. Without a computer, however, his calculations required too much time to be of any use for generals, and the data he used were too incomplete. Nonetheless, his book, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process, made a groundbreaking contribution to meteorology. Students like Richardson, who develop an interest in predicting the weather, might get a start on a career by reading Instant Weather Forecasting by Alan Watts. Using pictures of various skies, he explains his technique for relying on cloud studies that are more accurate for countries in the temperate latitudes than in the interior of Africa and the Caribbean.

     Research by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is raising major concerns about the effects of rising earth surface temperatures, higher sea levels, and decreasing glacier melt and snow cover. Methods for attacking these problems, which are attributed to the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, are suggested in the earlier blog post, "A Healthy Environment."

Robot Revolution

Children all around the world have a similar interest in robots. Check ePals.com to find schools in a wide variety of countries where students are eager to collaborate on robotic projects.

      The word "robot" was first used in Czechoslovakia by the playwright, Karel Capek, to describe human-looking machines that could do the same job over and over again. Nowadays, robots utilize software, computer chips, sensors, microphones, lasers, video screens, wireless communications, remote controls, solar power, nanotechnology, and gyroscopes. Robotic devices can replace injured body parts, like legs and arms; load and unload ships; install and weld parts on an assembly line and under water; work in outer space; operate on the human body; enter the body to fight disease and diagnose illnesses; carry supplies around offices and hospitals; perform dangerous tasks like checking for bombs and hunting for survivors buried in rubble after an earthquake; hit military targets; and create special effects for theme parks and movies. Now, they are about to work alongside people in electronics factories, too.

     Some robots are human-shaped, humanoids that move like persons; others look like machines. YoungExplorers.com, mindware.com, and Museumtour.com offer both varieties. With the help of a detailed manual, children can use the programmable rover they sell to make a robot that avoids obstacles and works for them.

     Usually, robots prefer perfectly predictable conditions. The Roomba robot, for example, can scoot around the floor sucking up dust and dirt, but, when we tried to use it in a women's clothing store, it would get stuck in the dressing rooms. Children can see if they can clean a floor with their own "Brush Robot" from mindware.com.

     Students (and adults) from all over the world who design their own robots enter competitions. Details about these events are available at robogames.net and robotbattles.com. A variety of websites offer free robot designs to get you started. Also, teens 13 to 18 can enter the annual Google Science Fair by going to googlesciencefair.com. Submissions this year are due by May 12, 2014.

     Scientists are trying to design robots with artificial intelligence that can think on their own and human cyborgs implanted with robotic parts connected to their nervous systems and the outside world. Some argue that a machine may have the appearance of having conscious understanding without actually having it. Creating an ethical and legal system to deal with artificial intelligence and cyborgs could be a job robots cannot handle.

     An article in Time magazine (September 9, 2013) noted three types of jobs that will not be replaced by robots: 1) solving unstructured problems (writing a persuasive legal brief or designing a corporate strategy); 2) working with new information (driving a truck in the fog on a rain slicked road); and 3) performing non-routine manual tasks (styling hair or fixing plumbing).

     One further note. In the October, 2013 issue of The Futurist, the magazine of the World Future Society, Julie Carpenter, a researcher at the University of Washington, discusses the relationship between military personnel and the robots they use on the battlefield. Ms. Carpenter is concerned about the human, emotional attachment that can develop. She found that some soldiers name their robots for their girl friends. A soldier whose robot had saved his life may not want the robot to return to danger on the battlefield. And if a robot is damaged or fails to perform correctly, a soldier may get angry with it or think of it as a "poor little guy" that needs a proper funeral.

     To keep up with developments in the field of robotics, check the library for Clive Gifford's How to Build a Robot, Mark Beyer's Robotics, and later books. If you want to draw a robot, like I did for this post, pick up the book, You Can Draw It! Robots, by Maggie Rosier and illustrated by Steve Porter.

Dairy Cows on the Moove

From the newly opened "Millions of Milkshakes" in Bahrain to everyone's need for bone-building calcium, there is worldwide consumption of milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, skim milk powder, and whey products from dairy cows. Once prosperity led to better nutrition options in India, for example, current production of milk, formerly a scarce commodity, reached 132 million tons, compared to 22 million in 1970, according to TIME magazine (November 18, 2013). Members of dairy cooperatives, many with only one or two cows, have now made India the world's largest milk producer and a dairy exporter.

      Young 4H members, dairy farmers, and international dairy cow shippers, such as Dens Ocean Livestock Express (livestock@densocean.be) and the ones used by T.K.Exports (livestockgeneticsbytke.com), have a prosperous future. The U.S. has become the world's largest cheese exporter. And with more women working the decline in breastfeeding has led to a boom in baby milk powder sales. West Coast dairy processors in the U.S., as well as a companies, such as Mengniu in China, are taking advantage of this increased demand in China and other Asian countries. There also is a growing world market for whey-based ingredients used in infant formula and human and animal nutritional supplements that is offering new opportunities for dairy products.

     Just outside Harbin in Shuangcheng (northeast China), Nestle has invested in a $400 million Dairy Farming Institute. The aim is to train about 700 students annually to become the dairy farmers, managers, and agribusiness suppliers who will meet China's growing demand for milk in a sustainable manner. In the past, China's dairy industry, which had reported sales of $28 billion in 2014, has had tainted milk problems from poor sanitation and deaths from infant formula.

      In the United States, dairy farmers have an outstanding research facility at the University of Wisconsin's Babcock Center for Dairy Research, named for Dr. S.M. Babcock. The Center is  the largest dairy research institution in the United States. Along with studying how to increase milk production,  students learn how to be business competitors, not only with dairy farmers in Wisconsin, California, New York, Arizona, and Texas, but also in the world market. Since the Center has an outreach program, it provides technical support and information about findings that help dairies, suppliers, government regulatory agencies, and domestic and international dairy organizations.

     Profitability, in the dairy farming business, relies on forecasting demand and careful record keeping and analysis of the cost of the feed cows need to maintain their size and health and to produce milk before excess feed just becomes manure. New Zealand's dairy giant, Fonterra, for example, reported that although more milk was processed into milk powder which has a higher return, rising input costs caused a 53% six-month drop in net profits. The desire to control all aspects of raw material to final product, there is some cross-country vertical integration in the dairy industry. For example, the Chinese company, Pengxin, has acquired both dairy farms in New Zealand and corn farms in Bolivia. China's state-owned Bright Food Group also has controlling interests in dairy producers in New Zealand and in Israel's Tnuva.

    Wisconsin's Dept. of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection distributes $200,000 in annual grants to farmers to finance studies of dairy feed, housing, and other factors that improve milk production. By calling 855-943-2479, dairy farmers and processors can find out about resources and technical assistance available from the State of Wisconsin. Currently, the State also is offering a $50,000 "Grow Wisconsin Dairy Processor Grant" to a licensed Wisconsin dairy processing plant that writes a proposal that would benefit the industry. The application form, due by February 21, 2014, is available at GrowWisconsinDairy.wi.gov.

      In recognition of Dr. Babcock's contribution to the milk industry, he received awards from dairymen in New Zealand and the Wisconsin legislature. In the future, an award may be given to someone who solves the problem of reducing the climate changing greenhouse methane gas released by cow flatulence. Considering a cow, by chewing its cud, expels 4.42 pounds of carbon dioxide for every gallon of milk it produces, methane is a serious concern. Phosphorus runoff from the cow manure that pollutes lake and other water sources also becomes a major problem when the number of big storms increases. But there also are uses for cow poop, check out the 251 facts in Dawn Cusick's kid's book, Get the Scoop on Animal Poop.

     The Financial Times (April 9, 2014) reported that the major impact of methane on global warming has motivated companies and research institutions, such as the following, to study ways to reduce methane emissions from cows:
     - The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in Illinois
     - C-Lock Company in South Dakota
     - The National Institute of Agricultural Technology in Argentina
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is funding a $10 million, 5-year study to determine how the dairy industry can reduce greenhouse gas from methane 25% by 2020.Promising ideas about how to reduce cow-produced methane include: anti-methane grains and dietary supplements laced with basil or garlic, an improved digestive system for cows, scanners that monitor the gas content of cow burps, a strap-on-backpack connected to tubes that collect methane gas from cow stomachs, and a reduction in the world's cattle herd (In the U.S. there are 88 million cattle). To date, these ideas are too expensive to be practical. The Resources Defense Council did mention that methane from cows could power cars and refrigerators, if it could be harnessed.

     Methane is not the only cow-related problem. Phosphorus runoff from manure is a major contributor to water pollution, since it causes the growth of harmful blue-green algae. Limited phosphorus reduction is now achieved by digesters that use an anaerobic process to separate liquids from solids and then capture and burn off methane gas to generate electricity. Another machine that relies on a nutrient concentration system is also being used to remove excess phosphorus. Thus far, however, most raw manure remains untreated.

     It is interesting to note, according to Laurie Winn Carlson, in her book, Cattle: An Informal Social History, that Dr. Babcock never took out a patent on the machine he developed to measure the fat content of milk, because he believed it should be available to all. His invention prevented milk diluted by water to be sold for full price and enabled cows to be ranked not only by the quantity of milk they produced but also by the fat content of their milk. A cow that produces milk with a high fat content is doubly valuable because her eggs can be harvested and sold for artificial insemination. Cattle of the World by John Friend describes the process of harvesting fertilized eggs from dairy cows and freezing semen from bulls known to produce outstanding calves. In the frozen form, semen from desirable bulls can be exported to improve and/or provide cross-breeding with dairy cattle herds anywhere in the world.

     The variety of dairy cow characteristics John Pukite mentions in his book, A Field Guide to Cows: How to Identify and Appreciate America's 52 Breeds, suggests reasons why farmers import specific dairy breeds out of the world's approximately 920 different cow breeds. The Holstein-Friesian dairy cow, found in at least 125 countries, produces the largest amount of milk, but she feeds on a concentrated diet of grain/corn, lives in an environmentally controlled barn, and needs regular veterinary care. In contrast, quite a few dairy breeds, such as the Canadienne, Galloway, Jersey, and Brown Swiss, graze in pastures out-of-doors. The Brown Swiss, like the Jersey, Guernsey, Pinzgauer, and Ayrshire, produces milk with a high butterfat content and also is second only to the Holstein in terms of milk yield. Multipurpose breeds, such as the Maine-Anjou, MeuseRhineYssel, and Normande, are bred for both milk and beef throughout the world. The hides of the Galloway and Pinzgauer also are known for their good quality leather. All dairy cows are usually easy to handle. Some, like the Salers and Simmental, have good mothering instincts. The South Devon, Red Poll, and a few other breeds have long lifespans.

     Whereas, the ships that carried beef cattle across the Atlantic Ocean to England in the 1880s were overcrowded and filthy, health protocols now cover the ventilation, watering, feeding, and manure handling conditions of live animals when they are in transit by ship. Cargo planes also are specially fitted to ensure the safe, humane transit of livestock. At livestockexporters-usa.com,
the online newsletters of the Livestock Exporters Association (LEA) provide dairy cattle exporters with information about policies of the U.S.Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) regarding, among other information, the health certifications of livestock exports and insurance underwriting guidelines for ocean transit of animals, as well as information about new markets, such as Jordan and Iraq.

     Dairy cows are not just traded among agriculturally developed countries. Through the not-for-profit Heifer International organization, children, scout troops, schools, and parents can donate cows to impoverished families around the world. Just go to the heifer.org website to contribute the $500 it takes to donate a cow, or $50 for a share of a heifer, and see some of the happy recipients who have learned to care for their gifts. Since families who receive a cow from Heifer International agree to pass on the first calf offspring to another needy family, each donation is a part of an endless chain devoted to eliminating world hunger and poverty. In Kenya, Heifer International also holds a 40 percent share in a plant that cools and processes milk and seeks new markets for the 6000 households that gain a secure monthly income by bringing their milk to the plant.

Discover Africa

The African continent is three times the size of the United States and nearly three million square miles bigger than Europe, including the Asian portion of Russia. By 2100, the U.N. estimates Africa will have 3 billion more people than it has now. Future opportunities in this vast and growing continent need not be overlooked because of the world's somewhat warped historical viewpoint. A new guide, Emerging Africa, by Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu dispels some of the assumptions about lack of development on the continent. And in 2015, one of the discussions in the Foreign Policy Association's Great Decisions program will feature "U.S. Policy Toward Africa."

    Headlines do not tell the whole story of what is happening in Africa. News reports rightly warned that the Ebola virus was out of control in West Africa. In April and May of 2014, the world heard that over 200 teenage girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group in northern Nigeria. Since then, the group has taken additional girls and women as wives, cooks, and suicide bombers; young men and boys have been abducted to serve as soldiers. On January 15, 2019, al-Shabab terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda would kill at least 21 in an attack on a hotel/office complex in Nairobi, Kenya. In April, 2015, jihadis from al-Shabab killed 147 in a raid on a Kenyan university. Earlier,  terrorists attacked at a Kenyan mall.

     Europe's scramble to colonize the continent between 1876 and 1912 left independent African countries in the 1960s with an uneducated population, some leaders who exploited their people in imitation of former colonial administrators, disease, and transportation ties to Europe rather than each other. To this day, Fastjet is still having trouble launching its plan to provide affordable African flights.

     But just like Pablo Picasso in 1907, when he first saw the African artifacts that caused him to create a new form of art, young people are in a position to look at Africa in a new way. Beginning with the book Ashanti to Zulu, kids can learn the alphabet and 26 African traditions at the same time. With the help of ePals.com, classrooms can connect with African students in several languages by email, Skype, and project collaborations.

     Students need not see Africans only as impoverished children who can live on 50 cents per day donations. According to trendwatching.com, 65% of Africa's 8- to 18-year-olds have access to a mobile phone. In Gambia and Ghana, trendwatching.com reports entrepreneurs run solar-charging kiosks where the public can charge their mobile devices for a fee. In addition to social contacts, mobile devices are facilitating education and job-hunting in Africa. By 2060, trendwatching.com expects there will be 1.1 billion middle class Africans. Already, the SABMiller bottler and Coca-Cola have joined forces to profit from Africa's growing middle class.

    Africa's growth is attracting $24 billion in foreign investment this year. In fact, the Financial Times (April 4, 2014) reported that return from private equity investments in Africa is comparable to the return on investments in China and Latin America. No wonder the Rothschild Fund is looking to invest $530 million in African projects that have a long term social development aspect to them. And the Swedish risk capital firm, Swedfund, is investing in a partnership between the H&M retailer and Ethiopian textile firms that manufacture according to high social and environmental standards. (Also see the later blog post, "Never Too Young to Invest in the Future.")

    Forbes magazine listed 27 billionaires in Africa. Today's richest African is Aliko Dangote of Nigeria, who makes his money from the cement used for construction throughout Africa. Recognizing the potential for African construction, Dubai has invested $300 million in Dangote Cement. Other riches have been made in areas, such as oil, sugar, flour, banking, media, telecommunications, luxury goods, diamonds, supermarkets, and pharmaceuticals. Looking past the current drop in oil prices, Dangote increased his oil refinery investment from $9 billion to $11 billion in December, 2014. (Nonetheless, his estimated $21 billion fortune has taken a $5.4 billion hit due to sagging oil prices.) Stephen Saad of South Africa, founder of Aspen Pharmacare, is making his fortune by manufacturing generic drugs. Isabel dos Santos, Africa's first female billionaire, a former head of Angola's state oil group, and the daughter of Angola's president, is a major player in the banking industry. She seeks to block Spain's CaixaBank's attempt to assume full control of the Portuguese bank, BPI, where she is the second largest investor. As an alternative, she has proposed a merger of BPI and Portugal's Millennium BCP bank to reinforce their presence in Africa's Portuguese-speaking Angola and Mozambique. (As of President Joao Lourenco's election as President of Angola, Ms. dos Santos no longer heads Angola's national oil company and the former president's son has been charged with fraud for transferring $500 million out of the country.)  Bob Diamond's Atlas Mara, founded to invest in Sub-Saharan African financial institutions, continues to expand with its latest interest in a 45% stake in Banque Populaire du Rwanda.

     African startups also are winning outside support. IBM's "Project Lucy" coordinates the work of local universities, development agencies, startups, and others who want to create ventures that solve key African issues. BiztechAfrica reports that, as part of its 4Afika Initiative, Microsoft has made five innovation grants to the following startups: Uganda's access.mobile, which facilitates information sharing in the fields of agriculture and healthcare, Kenya's Africa 118, a mobile directory service, and Kytabu, which rents textbooks on tablets (A US entrepreneur just found funding for a similar project on the TV show, "Shark Tank"), and Nigeria's Gamsole, which creates games for Windows, and Save & Buy, which facilitates e-commerce purchases.

     In a long entry in March, 2014, " trendwatching.com's African" described how African governments and developers are facilitating areas, like Ghana's Hope City, Nigeria's Eko Atlantic, and Kenya's Konga Techno, that invite entrepreneurs to set up shop. Better than being  unemployed, business-minded young adults are responding by using crowdfunding platforms, such as Globevestor; developing tech applications, such as Nigeria's bus travel website (bus.com.ng); entering competitions (South Africa's First National Bank holds an "Ideas Can Help" competition for inventors, Yola sponsors a build-your-own website contest, there's a Anzisha Prize and a TechCabal Battlefield prize); and formalizing Africa's informal economy of outdoor markets, street hawkers, and resellers. Kenya's e-commerce Soko platform, for example, now connects global shoppers with local jewelry artisans who use natural and upcycled materials. FirstBank Nigeria is one of the firms that facilitates secure online payments.

      Projects involving the rich history of Egypt are already a staple of school curricula. Tracing Mansa Musa's religious pilgrimage from Timbuktu, the West African city in Mali, to Mecca in 1324 introduces an African mogul who distributed gold on his journey and returned with an architect to build a great mosque and scholars who created the Sankore University. A video about Shaka Zulu can introduce students to a military genius.

     Looking back through previous blog posts, Africa is mentioned in a variety of contexts.

• There are T-shirt designs from Swaziland and a U.S. artist who studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa ("Global Drawing Power")
• Somali children were featured in Asad, the live action short nominated for a 2012 Academy Award ("See the World at the Movies")
• Paul Simon's "Graceland" recording incorporated the township rhythms of South Africa ("Music of the Sphere")
• Ghana's kente cloth was mentioned in "The World of Fashion" and Ghana's chocolates tempted taste buds in "Pizza, Plantains, and Moo Goo Guy Pan."
• In 2004 Wangari Maathai of Kenya won a Noble Prize for mobilizing a campaign to fight global warming by planting trees and launched the U.N. project to plant a billion trees around the world ("Hope for the Future" and "A Healthy Environment")The website, About.com African History, has a list and description of Africa's 25 Nobel Prize winners. 
• Students located the African countries that produced the products they found in their scavenger hunt bags ("Games Children Play")

Just like the missionary, David Livingston, who happened to come upon the African falls he named for Queen Victoria, Africa still is open for discovery. China has discovered Africa's many minerals, such as iron ore and copper, and is building railroads to transport them to ports for export. French-speaking Chinese students have followed Chinese companies to work for them in former French colonies. Oprah Winfrey has founded a school for girls in Africa. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has set out to help eliminate malaria and HIV in Africa. George Clooney sent up a satellite to watch for atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. And, like Alexander McCall Smith, the author of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana, there's still the possibility of finding riches by writing one of Africa's fascinating stories.

I'm A Little Airplane

Singing children running through fields with arms outstretched, kids flying kites, and youngsters folding paper airplanes all are following in the tradition of inventors around the world who looked up at birds and tried to imitate their ability to fly.

     We know the Greek myth of Icarus whose feather and wax wings melted when he flew too close to the sun. In Renaissance Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, who designed an airplane but lacked an engine to fly it, had such respect for the birds his design mimicked that he bought the caged birds he saw in Florence in order to set them free.

     Birds have inspired the realistic drawings of John James Audubon and the new stylized paintings of Dutch artist, Jeroen Allart. Gardeners plant a mix of trees, shrubs, grasses, vines, and flowers to attract a variety of bird species and to protect them while they feed. Guided by experts from World Birders (worldbirders.com) in the UK, bird watchers, known as birders, travel the globe to see as many species as possible, especially those that are endangered.

     Earthbound people have found ways for birds to help them. As far back as 2200 B.C. there is mention of the Chinese use of trained falcons. Marshaling their birds' speed to fly high, dive onto prey, and kill with beak and sharp talons, hunters have taken to the field with falcons and hawks to procure a wide variety of game birds, hares, and even small deer and wolves.

     During wars, soldiers have used the natural instinct of pigeons to return to a home loft to carry messages that deceived the enemy (Read Double Cross by Ben Macintyre). Today, drones (See The Art of Intelligence by Henry A. Crumpton) and the robotic spy drones that are shaped like hummingbirds seem somewhat like descendants of the homing pigeon.

     Nowadays, kids who send messages in helium-filled balloons follow in the tradition of the French Montgolfier brothers who showed people they could fly by filling a large silk bag with heated air in 1783. Flying balloons drifted at the mercy of wind and air currents until the Brazilian, Alberto Santos-Dumont, powered his dirigible, or airship, with a gasoline engine in 1898. Germans used dirigibles in World War I, and, when the war ended, airships began to carry passengers across the Atlantic Ocean. Famously, the Germans' hydrogen-filled Hindenburg burst into flames in 1937.

    The Pilot and the Little Prince by Peter Sis not only tells young readers 6 to 8 years old about the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince, but also covers the early days of aviation. In the years following the brief flight of Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1903, military, passenger, mail, and freight use of airplanes and helicopters has expanded. There have been constant improvements in engines, pilot and flight attendant training, flame resistant plane interiors, safety regulations, and "black boxes" used to determine what went wrong in the case of crashes. All these areas present career opportunities for young people interested in aviation. (Those interested in a career in space, might enjoy my earlier post, "Space Explorers.")

     Understanding the broad appeal of flight, even to those whose career interests are not in aviation, filmmakers have tapped a variety of sources to make Superman movies, tie balloons to a chair to go Up, create a flying suit for Iron Man, and play on national stereotypes in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Disney/Pixar's film, Planes, has inspired a line of remote control planes, such as Mattel's Dusty Crophopper.

Master Math Skills with World Population Problems

Over the summer, students often forget some of their math skills. One way to keep up is to practice by solving the following problems.

     Which continent will add the most people in the next 88 years?______________

     Which continent will have the biggest population decline in the next 88 years?___________

     The world's 10.5 billion population projection in 2100 comes from the United Nations. The World Almanac provides the latest 2012 figure of 7 billion people in the world and includes the Caribbean in Latin America's population.

     By how much will the population increase or decrease between 2012 and 2100 on the following continents?

Asia

      4,710,000,000 (2100)
   -  4,220,000,000 (2012)

Africa

      4,180,000,000 (2100)
   -  1,070,000,000 (2012)

Europe

        740,000,000 (2012)
    -   639,000,000 (2100)

North America

        513,000,000 (2100)
    -   348,000,000 (2012)

South America

        596,000,000 (2012)
    -   467,000,000 (2100)

A challenging game requires players to arrange from highest to lowest populations a mixed up list of countries or major world cities, such as:

Countries                      2012 Populations

Argentina                        (53,511,274)
Bangladesh                     (250,155,274)
Netherlands                    (17,906,594)
Greenland                      (49,356)
Egypt                             (137,872522)

Cities                            2011 Populations

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil    (11,959,700)
Delhi, India                    (22,653,600)
Tokyo, Japan                 (37,217,400)
Beijing, China               (15,594,400)
Mexico City, Mexico    (20,445,800)






  



    

It Takes a World to Raise a Child

When I saw umbrollers in London over 40 years ago, I couldn't wait to get back to the U.S. to tell my sister who just had a baby how easy they were to maneuver and collapse compared to traditional strollers. Since then, many U.S. parents also have adopted the baby slings and wraps that working mothers have worn when they were taking care of babies in Mexico, Peru, Ethiopia, Korea, China, Japan, and elsewhere. And what mother with a new baby wouldn't want to visit one of Japan's cat cafes? There, she and her baby could be among the customers, many who can't have pets at home, who come to talk to, play with, and chill out among cats while they drink tea. Hillary Clinton once wrote that it takes a village to raise a child; perhaps it takes a world.

     As an international marketing student at American University in Washington, D.C., I had a professor who told us one of the benefits multinational corporations enjoy is access to new products and ideas in one country that they can adapt for use in other countries. In these days, even without world travel, mothers have online access to global innovations.  To give just two examples, there is Internet information on international adoption and crowdfunding websites that finance or even find volunteers for their projects.

     On trendwatching.com, I was reminded of how women have expanded the yard sale concept to become sellers on eBay, Amazon, and other platforms. Kids in Nigeria, like they could in other countries, now play local versions of Monopoly. According to trendwatching.com, the "City of Lagos" version has local locations and, to reflect Nigeria's challenges, chance cards that say things like, "Pay a fine for attempting to bribe a law enforcement agent."

     In my earlier blog post, "Hope for the Future," you may have seen how the Grameen Bank and Kiva have helped women start businesses to support their families and finance their children's educations by providing micro-loans. When I read on trendwatching.com that the idea of selling meals through Thuisafgehaald in the Netherlands is spreading to the US, UK, Germany, and Sweden, I realized, with or without a micro loan, that mothers who are good cooks have an opportunity to specialize in selling nutritious home-cooked, peanut- and gluten-free, birthday party, and other types of meals.

     Mothers who do volunteer work for child-centered, not-for-profit organizations, like the March of Dimes, might be able to adopt a version of what trendwatching.com reports "The Exchange" is doing in South Africa. Consumers only are allowed to shop for its clothes and accessories donated by designers if they first sign up with an Organ Donor Foundation.

     T-shirts proclaim the slogan, "Changing More Than Diapers," on mothers who visit momsrising.org. Though mainly focused on the United States, the site promotes activities mothers around the world could adapt to work for fair wages, flexible workplace schedules, maternity and paternity leave, better childcare, and environmental health.

     The site, vitalvoices.org, already identifies women's issues, works toward solutions, fosters connections across international boundaries, and awards progress. On vitalvoices.org, viewers can see how women in Africa increase the continent's economic potential, how Latin American women strive for gender equality, and how female leaders in Eurasia are combating human trafficking. Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani woman who recovered from being shot in the head because she wants girls to attend school, currently is featured on the site.

     Making international connections that foster innovation in education is the aim of the WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education) Educational Leadership Program in Qatar. The leaders in education from the more than 100 countries who attend WISE summits discuss ideas about funding, curricula, assessment, and improving the quality of education, ideas that could suggest new directions worth considering by parents, guardians, and teachers around the world.



    

The Bees and the Birds

The children catching and releasing fireflies this summer may know they are running after beetles rather than flies or gloworms, and they may be training to protect the world from disease-carrying insects or from dangerous insecticides. While some kids panic at the sight of bees, spiders, and cockroaches, others watch caterpillars walk up their arms and might become the inspectors who keep dangerous insects out of countries or observe, as Rachel Carson did, how deadly an insect repellent like DDT can be.

     Angela Banner, the UK author of the Ant and Bee little board book series, viewed insects as friends. Since the early 1960s, her books have taught children to read, count, and tell time; and to identify animals, colors, and shapes. In the book, Around the World With Ant and Bee, her insects are globe trotters.

     Of course, while some insects are friendly, others carry disease and cause crop damage around the world. As climate change and globalization spread tropical diseases that have become resistant to insecticides, British researchers now have developed genetically modified male mosquitoes that can kill the mosquito larvae of the unmodified females they mate with. To eliminate fungus-causing Dutch Elm disease, it has been necessary to cut down scores of elm trees infected by beetles. And history is filled with stories of the devastation caused by germ-carrying insects. In the Old Testament, the Book of Exodus tells of plagues of mosquitoes, gadflies, and locusts. When children hear about the Black death; the mosquitoes that spread malaria and yellow fever; typhus; the bubonic plague; the tsetse fly that carries sleeping sickness; and lyme disease from ticks, they may want to destroy every ant hill they see. It then may be time to watch The Ant Bully or ANTZ to gain insight into the life of an ant or A Bug's Life" in order to empathize with an ant colony's trouble with grasshoppers. The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins does what it can to gain respect for beetles.

     Kids can learn to respect the bees, moths, and butterflies that pollinate fruit trees and vegetable and nut plants by carrying the pollen that fertilizes the cells that produce plant seeds. Hives of 25,000 bees were valued at $83,000, when they were stolen in France in 2014. Consequently, it has been a serious problem ever since honey bees suddenly began to suffer colony-collapse disorder in 2006. Time magazine (June 1, 2015) reports that beekeepers lost almost half of their colonies between April 2014 and April 2015.

     To find chemicals to replace the neonicotinoids that kill bees with alternative sprays that control crop damage from other insects has been a challenge. Since new research also suggests the glyphosate chemical in the Roundup herbicide that is an effective weed killer in corn and soy fields has the unfortunate side effect of killing the milkweed monarch butterflies feed on during their migrations to and from Mexico every year, the search for new ways to differentiate between the control of certain insects and weeds and the protection of other endangered insects goes on.

     With as much as almost a quarter of U.S. crops dependent on bee pollination, new hives have appeared in various locations, such as just off a path in the Obrich botanical garden in Madison, Wisconsin, and in the 84-acre campus arboretum at American University in Washington, D.C. In May, 2015 Washington issued a National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators that aims to restore seven million acres of the native flowers that nourish bees

      Normally, hives of honeybees that are native to Europe are rented to farmers when, for example, their apple and cherry crops are in full flower. To foster experimentation with different approaches, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has given a five-year research grant to the Integrated Crop Pollination Project that coordinates the work of government agencies, not-for-profit associations, and private firms. At Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Kelly Garbach lists a number of projects being tried. As disease reduces the European honeybee population, native U.S. bee species might be able to pollinate certain crops, either on their own or in combination with traditional honeybees. A Time magazine article, "The Plight of the Honeybee" (August 19, 2013), told how researchers are trying to produce "a more resilient honeybee" by cross-breeding species. One of the reasons native bees have been overlooked is because they are very small, only half the size of European honeybees. Another reason for bee research is changing climate conditions. If bees could live full time in one location, it would be less costly and more advantageous than trying to figure the best time for beekeepers to provide them. Dr. Garbach plans to identify innovators who can mentor others who want to adopt successful new pollination practices.

       In addition to bees, other insects also perform good works. Insects feed birds, and, of course, for thousands of years, silk cloth has been made from the threads that caterpillars use to make their cocoons. Some insects and birds also kill harmful bugs that feed on crops and live stock. Nonetheless, flies, fleas, ticks, lice, and mites can bother and infect animals. Beetles eat fruit trees and potatoes, and in their form as grubs, beetles eat the roots of corn, pasture grass, and strawberries. Children even may have seen clothes that have been damaged by moths and carpet beetles that eat wool.

    Youngsters interested in discovering which insects are helpful and which are harmful can grow up to be the entomologists that control insect pests. Edward O. Wilson, a global expert on ants, has written the book, Letters to a Young Scientist, that will interest and inspire future entomologists. On National Public Radio, Wilson said that he had a childhood love of "creepy-crawly things" and a passion and persistence to be a scientist who studied them. All children who have seen how fast ants appear on picnic tables can make sure they don't attract flies and other disease-carrying insects by leaving food uncovered in the house. Outside, they can make sure to throw food away only in closed garbage bins.

      Farmers know vast fields planted with the same crop attract swarms of the insects that like to feed on that crop. During the early 20th century, boll weevils destroyed millions of dollars worth of the U.S. cotton crop. In their own gardens, youngsters can learn the benefit of cutting down on the attraction of insects by planting a variety of vegetables and flowers. They also might look for, or hope in the future to help develop, plants engineered to be pest-resistant. (For other innovative ideas related to crops, go to the earlier blog posts, "Back to the Land" and "A Healthy Environment.")

     Artists Hubert Duprat and Kathy Kyle know just how good some insects can be. They give little moth-like caddisfly larvae, that protect themselves by constructing armor by "gluing" together gravel, sand, twigs, and other debris, gold flakes, opal, turquoise, rubies, and pearls to make beads that can be strung together into one-of-a-kind necklaces, earrings, key chains, and zipper pulls.

     As a bit more practical matter, children can be on the lookout for standing water that should be drained to keep mosquitoes from breeding. Although only a handful of the world's 80,000 species of mosquitoes bite and transmit diseases, such as malaria, dengue (black bone fever), and chikungunya, these diseases are life threatening. When kids recognize the importance of protecting themselves from mosquito bites by using insect repellent when they go outside and by installing screens to keep mosquitoes out of their homes, they can start thinking about raising money to protect African children with mosquito nets. On the Internet, the key words, "mosquito nets" lead to a number of organizations that need funds to do this job. UNICEF, for example, has an "Inspired Gift" program to provide the world's poorest children with mosquito nets. Kids and adults can find details about this program at my earlier blog post, "Hope for the Future."

    

Global Drawing Power

Show me a refrigerator, and I'll show you a child's drawing attached to it. Written for young people 9 to 12 years old, Meredith Hamilton's A Child's Introduction to Art and Stone Giant: Michelangelo's David and How He Came to Be by Jane Sutcliffe help inspire young artists by introducing them to the masterpieces, painters, sculptures, and styles of the past. The interesting thing is: all forms of art have begun to move beyond refrigerators to have an impact on communities and the world today.

     In an earlier blog, "The World of Fashion," I told how fashion designer, Iris Shiloh, founded Kids for Kids, an organization that sells T-shirts printed with artwork created by orphans and children in lesser developed countries and then contributes a portion of sales back to the organizations that support and educate these young artists. You can read about Ms. Shiloh's work in India and Swaziland and purchase these T-shirts at kidsforkidsfashion.com. Her idea could inspire schools, scout troops, and other youth organizations to raise funds for international causes by creating art with a global message that could be printed on shirts, cards, calendars, towels, etc. How about bibs and aprons with world hunger-fighting messages?

     "Shop for Social" (shopforsocial.com), which supports non-profit and social business organizations, provides international shipping of items, such as the ceramic mugs, totes, and notebooks designed by the artists with special needs, especially autism, from The Everyday Solution.

     Internationally renowned opera sopranos, Monica Yunus and Camille Zomora, saw an opportunity "to uplift, unite, and transform individuals and communities" by mobilizing singers, painters, dancers and choreographers, puppeteers, directors, makeup artists, costume designers, poets, and photographers. With a roster of these volunteers, "Sing for Hope" (singforhope.org) brings professional artists to under-served schools, community centers, and healthcare facilities in the New York City area. Outreach into these venues also is an option for young performers lining up to try out for "American Idol," audition for "Dance Moms," or strut their stuff on "Toddlers and Tiaras." The fact is: young artists in cultural centers from London to Beijing and from Mumbai to Moscow could do the same to "uplift, unite, and transform."

     There is a building being renovated in Kassel, Germany, with materials from the Black Cinema House in Chicago, USA, because of the vision of artist and urban planner, Theaster Gates.  The July, 2013 issue of W reported that Gates studied urban planning at Iowa State University and religion and fine arts at South Africa's University of Cape Town. His background prepared him not only to train workers to reclaim buildings and abandoned objects but also to form the Black Monks of Mississippi gospel band that plays a mix of spirituals and Buddhist chants. Although Gates has art on display in Hong Kong and Sao Paulo, he is considered part of a global movement that takes art out of galleries and museums and uses it as a social platform to transform impoverished areas. Viewed from this perspective, globalization gives greater meaning to the art youngsters around the world are creating, when they make villages out of cereal boxes, drums out of tin cans and sticks, or clay pinch pots to hold flowers.

    

Space Explorers

Kids everywhere in the world see the same sun, moon, stars, and comets. Astronauts can launch into space from any place on the globe, and those from different countries have lived together in International Space Stations.

     New countries are joining the U.S. and Russian space pioneers. On June 11, 2013, China sent a manned space craft  to its experimental Tiangong 1 space station from a launch pad  near the Gobi Desert. China's Long March rocket successfully launched an unmanned    8-day mission around the moon and back in October 2014, while its Jade Rabbit rover has been sending back data about the moon's surface every since December, 2013.  From Sriharikota island on November 5, 2013, India launched its first mission to Mars. The Mangalyaan ("Mars-craft" in Hindi) began to orbit its target and send back information on the Red Planet's atmosphere and to map the planet's surface on September 24, 2014. Earlier in the month, Maven (Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution), NASA's robotic vehicle launched on November 18, 2013, also went into orbit around Mars and began its mission to discover what happened to the planet's water before it became hot and dry.

     In November, 2014, the European Space Agency's Philae probe attached itself to a comet and began sending back images. This first time event enables scientists to look at ice and organic molecules that have survived for more than 4.6 billion years in the solar system. Could comets have carried water to Earth?

     Playground equipment lends itself to space exploration and imagination. Any object that children can crawl into, a stack of tires or a playhouse, can serve as a space station. Swinging is like flying to the moon with an adult providing the rocket blaster push. Despite danger similar to that faced by astronauts, older kids often launch themselves into space by jumping off high flying swings and teeter-totters. Then, there are the climbing domes that look like half a globe. Those who make it to the top can feel like they are sitting on top of the world looking out at the universe. Zip lines can carry a child from Earth to any heavenly destination. Climb up a slide into a rocket and slide back down to Mother Earth. Name each step or swinging step for a planet and travel through space. Orbit the Earth on a merry-go-round or spinning toy. And it's always fun for children to play the roles of various planets that orbit around a child who plays the Sun.

     The "Schoolhouse Rock" DVD provides a catchy tune kids can sing when they are pretending to be space explorers. While traveling throughout the solar system, "Interplanet Janet," a song about a galaxy girl, mentions a fact about each planet, including Pluto which has since been declassified as a dwarf planet too small to be a real planet. (However, in Steve Metzger's book, Pluto Visits Earth the former planet gets advice about size from a little Earth boy.)

     A book, such as Rand McNally's Children's Atlas of the Universe, gives even more information about the planets than Interplanet Janet does. It also explains an eclipse, stars, quasars, supernovas, asteroids, and comets. With spectacular photographs, Hubble Telescope Book and The Hubble Cosmos from National Geographic (shopng.org), look at planetary nebulae, galaxies, "dark energy," the birth and death of stars, and the expansion of the universe that this space-based telescope has seen in the past 25 years. It may have been the Hubble Telescope that enabled scientists to discover Sedna and another dwarf planet 80 astronomical units from the sun. (One astronomical unit is the distance from Earth to the sun.)

     Little ones might like the book, Toys in Space by Mini Gray, or Sue Ganz-Schmitt's book, Planet Kindergarten, which introduces children aged 3 to 5 to space travel. Older readers would enjoy the adventures of Zita the Space Girl, a series by Ben Hatke. Girls interested going into space themselves would like to read about the first women who trained to be astronauts in Tanya Stone's book Almost Astronauts. Also, be on the lookout for National Geographic's publication, Illustrated Mission to Mars. In it, Buzz Aldrin tells about the projects that could take human travelers to Mars by the 2030s.

     Not only is the 13.8 billion year old universe expanding, but it also is dying. We can help children understand the concept of an expanding universe by putting dots on a deflated balloon. As the balloon is blown up, the dots, like stars, move farther away. Scientists observe the increasing rate of expansion in the universe by measuring how fast the brightness of an exploding star dims as it dies. Since stars, quasars, and other radiant objects in the universe have been converting matter into energy for billions of years, astronomers have discovered that the energy output from 200,000 nearby galaxies is about half what it was two billion years ago. As the universe, like a star releasing its gases, has less and less mass to convert into energy, through the centuries space will become colder and darker.

      Enabled by a wide variety of telescopes, students can study the night sky. And local observatories and planetariums offer programs for the public. In Washington, DC, for example, visitors can look through the telescope at the Naval Observatory on nights of a full moon, when a lack of shadows prevents astrophysicists from studying the moon's surface. North of Chicago, Yerkes Observatory in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, home of 40-inch and 24-inch diameter refractor telescopes, offers Saturday tours and visits to its Quester Museum. Kitt Peak National Observatory also hosts day and night tours in Tucson, Arizona, and at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, there are events as well as tours.

     Researchers are finding more and more space to explore. Of the 1,010 planetary bodies said to lie outside our solar system, about 1% are in positions where water could exist in a liquid state, according to the November, 2013 issue of The Futurist, the magazine of the World Future Society.
The book, The Pioneer Detectives by Konstantin Kakaes, questions the reason why a space probe went off course and kept sending back signals even after it passed Pluto.

     Viewing outer space is best where skies are darkest away from city lights. In US locations, such as Highland Park, Tonopah, Nevada; Cherry Springs State Park, Pennsylvania; Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California; and Baxter State Park in north-central, Maine, the bright green nucleus and tail of the comet ISON (International Scientific Optical Network), which was discovered by two Russian amateur astronomers in September, 2012, easily could be seen by the naked eye before it reached the sun November 28, 2013. Indoors, some teachers use dry ice and dirt to demonstrate why comets, formed far out in the solar system before they fall toward the sun, are called dirty snowballs.

      YoungExplorers.com offers a kit that enables kids to build and launch their own Meteor Rocket and a set of die cast and plastic replicas of ten U.S. space vehicles, plus study information cards about the U.S. space program. National Geographic also sells space-oriented "toys," such as a Talking Planetarium, Interactive "Laptop" Planetarium, and Space Exploration Kit.

     Last summer's Star Trek Into Darkness (PG-13) film reminds us that TV shows and movies often transport children and adults to galaxies far, far away. Kids who once played with sticks and swords switched to lightsabers after the first Star Wars movie was screened in 1977. The Star Wars theme also is captured in action figures, like Darth Vader and the Ewoks, LEGO characters and weapons, books, comics, board and video games, and music. Star Trek fans, known as Trekkies, even dress up and attend annual conventions such as the one just concluded in Boston. Lady Gaga claims she'll be performing from space in a couple of years.

     Planet of the Apes may have given a child nightmares on an episode of Mad Men, but the story of astronauts who crashed into a world where humans were treated like animals and apes ruled has merited more than one movie treatment. In E.T., however, children learn it's possible to be friends with other forms of life.

     The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) runs a day camp for children 8 and up in Florida and works with other organizations that sponsor similar programs. One of these organizations, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, invites interested parties to sign up on its mailing list to receive information about its Space Camp programs.

     Private companies now are very much involved in space exploration. On the website, virgingalactic.com, you can follow what Virgin Galactic is doing to advance the future of commercial space travel. Unfortunately, the crash of a Virgin Galactic's spacecraft killed a test pilot and injured another on November 1, 2014. An attempt to resupply the International Space Station using a rocket from Orbital Sciences also failed when it exploded in Virginia in October, 2014. Elon Musk's privately owned SpaceX company has contracts to launch satellites for businesses and to resupply the International Space Station, but a SpaceX launch carrying cargo for the space station exploded in June, 2015. Another SpaceX craft designed to carry a satellite that would connect Africans with Facebook exploded on and destroyed a launch pad in August, 2016.  With a government contribution of $6.8 billion, NASA had hoped to rely on the private space industry to provide access to and from the International Space Station. The U.S. also planned to use private companies, SpaceX and Boeing, to run its manned space program. And the successful launch of a SpaceX rocket on February 6 2018 showed the idea of commercial space travel was still alive.

(See the later blog post, "Hunt for Moon Rocks.").

Travel the World with Summer Reading

When school's out, most children no longer have to spend their summers working on a farm. There is plenty of time to read on rainy days, in the shade of a tree, and during the hour wait before swimming after lunch. To do some reading that has a global dimension, with or without the help of adults, kids can dive into the following books.

• Among the 31 stories in The White Sail, youngsters who are learning to read will find Viking and sea adventures.
• By reading The Curse of Captain LaFook,  children in middle school can return to the time when the Caribbean teamed with pirates, buried treasure, and a curse.
• The Open Ocean by Francesco Pittau takes kids under the sea for a guessing game and education about marine life.
• With Madeline, young girls can visit Paris in Madeline and the Old House in Paris.
• In We All Went on Safari by Laurie Krebs, animals in Tanzania's Serengeti Plain help children 5 to 8 years old count to ten and learn some Swahili. Youngsters who read this book also will learn about Tanzania and the Masai people who live there.
• Like We All Went on Safari, The Rumor has wonderful illustrations that will appeal to younger children. Storytellers in the Sahyadri Mountains of India's Western Ghats repeat tall tales like the one Anushka Ravishankar tells in The Rumor.
• In Kids in Kabul: Living Bravely Through a Never-Ending War, Reborah Ellis introduces kids in grades 5 through 12 to young women who want to be educated in Afghanistan. An older woman tells how she once brought an electric bill, instead of her doctor's prescription, to a pharmacy, because she never learned to read.
• Kids in Afghanistan go from a carefree childhood to tragedy in The Kite Runner, which also is a movie.
• Crossing the Wire introduces young people to immigration concerns when 15-year-old Victor Flores attempts to flee Mexico in an effort to support his family by finding a job in the United States.
• On a bright summer day, older children may be ready to deal with some of the world's upheavals by reading The Diary of Anne Frank or Red Scarf Girl, Ji Li Jiang's account of growing up during China's Cultural Revolution.
• Students can travel the world in Lonely Planet's Not for Parents Travel Book, a collection of short descriptions of places in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Lonely Planet also publishes separate Not for Parents books on London, Paris, Rome, China, Australia, and Great Britain.
• Reading can lead to action with the help of A Kids' Guide to Climate Change and Global Warming. Besides presenting facts about climate change, this book suggests service projects kids can do to improve the world's environment.
• With the help of illustrations by Anne Wilson, Dawn Casey couples stories from around the world with related activities in The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales. Besides becoming familiar with stories told in places such as Australia, Nigeria, and Wales, children will come away from this book knowing how to grow tomatoes and how to make a pine cone bird feeder, corn husk doll, and other items.
• Every year there is a new World Almanac for Kids that provides page after page of interesting facts about animals, movies, sports, science, and other fascinating subjects. 

This is just the beginning of a summer reading list. Your local library has lots of other suggestions.
At scholastic.com/summer, Scholastic invites teachers and parents to help kids log in their number of summer reading minutes in order to win digital prizes. If a school sets a record for the most reading minutes in the world, its name will be published in the 2014 Scholastic Book of World Records.

Build a Global Icon

It's one thing to collect pictures of the world's best known buildings and landmarks (See earlier blog post, "Picture the World"), but learning how they were made is something else. In a non-fiction book for children, Patrick Dillon tells The Story of Buildings From the Pyramids to the Sydney Opera House and Beyond, while Stephen Biesty's illustrations show the step-by-step details.

     Now, children also can build famous landmarks. Using 3-D world monument puzzles from National Geographic (shopng.org), children can build the Eiffel Tower in Paris, London's Big Ben clock, and Russia's St. Basil's Cathedral. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (store.metmuseum.org) and many book stores sell LEGO architecture sets, such as the ones that build London's Big Ben and the Imperial Hotel in Japan. British model builder, Warren Elsmore, who has used Denmark's LEGOs to create London's red double decker buses, the Paris Louvre and Eiffel Tower, and other famous icons, shares his creative process with words and pictures in the book, Brick City: Global Icons to Make from LEGO. In the virtual world, Minecraft builders can create the Taj Mahal and other landmarks using the Swedish video game.

     Parents and other adults who probably will need to help construct these icons won't mind the fun of sharing the experience with youngsters. Working on these forms also provides an opportunity to talk about other countries and travel. While the puzzle pieces and LEGO bricks may be too little to keep around children who still put everything in their mouths, it might be worth buying the puzzles and book now to have them on hand when children are older.

     Finally, when The Lego Movie failed to receive an Academy Award nomination in the Best Animated Feature category in 2015, one of the film's directors used LEGOs to create its own Oscar statue.

Earth Day

Today is a good time to reflect on the progress and potential work still to be done to clean up the environment. Since the first Earth Day was on April 22, 43 years ago, it is clear that children living today have been exposed to information about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and declining water resources all of their lives.

     Compared to 57.06 degrees Fahrenheit in the period from 1970 to 1979, children living in the past few years have seen the average global temperature reach 58.11 degrees in 2005 and 2010, the warmest years on record. While an increase of a little over 1 degree Fahrenheit may not seem like cause for concern, the 2007 report from the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reminds us that temperature increases have a major impact on such things as water shortages and the increased violence of storms that arise in warmer ocean water. In the wake of the Oklahoma tornado and Sandy hurricane, it might be time to take these predictions to heart.

     After posting "A Healthy Environment" on August 27, 2012, I have continued to update this blog post with information about what young people can and have done to combat environmental problems. Recently I read that angels also help protect the Earth. Among the nine ranks, or choirs, of angels identified in the Bible, the rank of Virtues is said to carry God's messages and commands to the seasons, stars, sun, and other members of the universe. If true, we can only welcome their help along with all the other help the Earth gets from every source, including its children.

     The World Wildlife Federation invites young people to sign a pledge to make environmental changes in their own lives and to become advocates for social action to protect the planet. To sign the pledge, go to worldwildlife.org/youthpledge.

Airport (and train station) Outings

Every rainy season presents both a challenge for entertaining children and an opportunity to introduce them to travel. No tickets (except maybe for parking) are required to push strollers or to let older children pull their own roller suitcases filled with toys and snacks through major airports, including those that have separate buildings for international flights, and railroad stations. Since these environments cater to travelers who need information and who have waiting time to kill, they provide some unusual teaching experiences.

     Just consider the "Arrivals" and "Departures" boards with their cities, times, concourse and gate/track numbers. Help children choose a city, see the current time, figure how long it will be before a plane or train arrives or leaves, and begin the process of going to the concourse letter, gate or track number. Once there, watch people arrive or go through security. See how they might have to take off their shoes, put metal items in a basket, or how they might set off an alarm. Count how many travelers are women/men, how many carry their own luggage or wear hats/caps, how many have people welcoming them or seeing them off.

     What if a family misses the next plane or train? Check the airport's board to see how long they would have to wait for the one after that. See if there is a paper train schedule and help children study what stops a train makes, if trains have different schedules on weekends, and the cost of tickets for children and adults.

     In the area where travelers claim their luggage, see if there is a rack of brochures describing local attractions. Choose a few that might lead to your next outing. Watch luggage arrive on carousels. Look for signs that tell where travelers can get buses and taxis, go to a parking lot, make hotel reservations, exchange currency, or rent a car. Explain why someone would need a currency exchange (See the earlier blog post, "When to Buy/Sell in the World Market.") or to rent a car. And why would someone in the luggage claim area be holding a sign with a person's name on it?

     Some transportation centers might offer a bit of foreign language study. Look for signs identifying telephones and restrooms in languages other than English. What are these languages and why are they needed? At an airport or train station there also might be some attraction brochures and restaurant information printed in a variety of languages.

     The chairs and benches provided for waiting travelers give little visitors a chance to sit, have a snack, listen to announcements (or even a piano or musical group), and look for people arriving in their native dress. Once rested, there often are exhibits to visit and even playsets to climb. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the airport has a ping pong table and an exhibit of foreign coins found in the airport's "wishing well" pasted on cards with the flags of their countries. Some airports and train stations have art exhibits and display items from local museums. Then, there are the gift shops and book stores. Since these market to travelers, they have items for amusing children on trips that also can amuse them at home.

     After an airport or train station outing, when kids start thinking about taking their own trips, you'll find some family travel ideas at the earlier blog post, "See the World."

    

Young Voices

For 90 years, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards have recognized the outstanding ways students in grades seven through twelve have expressed their views of the world. When my granddaughter won a gold key this year for her modern fable about the consequences of a wolf's deception, I had an opportunity to look through the book of submissions from last year's winners that she received.

     With World Creativity and Innovation Week coming up April 15-21, this might be a good time for parents and teachers to encourage children and students to think about the world and compare what they draw and say with some of the representations and comments of Scholastic Art and Writing Award winners.

     One student disputed the stereotypes of color: yellow Asians, black Africans, brown Indians, and white Americans. She saw herself in many colors.

     World hunger was a topic that came up in several essays. A girl who wrote about villages where people "are skin and bones, their ribs visible" and their eyes always sad ended by saying that she never stops praying that, like "a blade of grass," these villagers can be "new and fresh." But a young immigrant from Laos who is a waitress in a bowling alley looks at American children in wonder when they "swallow between rounds" of arcade games and "drop food on the floor."

     Boys think about war. One made a sculpture showing a young man being persuaded to enlist in the Army. Another wrote about depth charges attacking a U-boat in World War II. A poet whose entry went from boy to old man included a stanza about being "a soldier with the callused heart mindlessly...following orders and longing for a purpose."

     Religion was a subject covered in art and word. Monks and Hindu statues caught the eyes of young photographers. One student looked at Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam and decided it was possible to start a world religion by deciding whom to exclude and what beliefs were contrary to the status quo.

     There were a number of unsettling dystopian views of the future. Meat and gems could not save a boy from a rare fever, and, when everything was plastic, only an old worn blanket could hold memories.

     For information about how students can share their voices with other young people and adults next year, login to artandwriting.org later this year.