World-Welcoming Holiday Gifts for Kids

Creative Hanukkah, Christmas and Chinese New Year gifts present an opportunity to welcome kids to their world. Although the illustrated, 32-page My First Atlas of the World from National Geographic and a squishy fabric Hugg-A-Planet Globe come as a $42 set for kids 3 and older from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (STORE.METMUSEUM.ORG), bookstores also carry child-appropriate atlases, globes and world wall maps separately. The World Wildlife Fund caters to the love kids have for animals that roam over the world. A $50 donation for worldwide conservation efforts comes with a choice of a plush animal from 50 species, from the popular Tiger to a Narwhal. For additional animal-related gift ideas, visit WWFCATALOG.ORG. Adults would have to do a little explaining to show kids how they can help the world with a gift to Heifer International, World Vision or kiva. Using the HEIFER.ORG/CATALOG online, kids and adults would learn how a $10 or $25 donation for an alpaca, goat, sheep, pig, flock of chicks/ducks or water buffalo would help a foreign family. World Vision (worldvisiongifts.org) offers a similar way to provide needy families with livestock, plus medicines, bed nets to prevent malaria. school supplies, soccer balls, fishing kits, fruit trees and clean water. Older computer-savvy students, with only a little adult guidance, could put their own $25 kiva gift card to work online by choosing to make a loan to someone in one of 80 countries. Go to Kiva.org to purchase the gift card a student would use to make a loan. Finally, in what has become a trying year, a child might like to be able to transfer or forget concerns about school, friends and other matters. UNICEF helps children and adolescents in 190 countries and territories with funds from sales of a variety of items, such as a set of six handcrafted worry dolls from Guatemala, who are ready to receive all the concerns kids transfer to them, and a wooden handcrafted 3D Tic Tac Toe set from Thailand, that kids can use to demonstrate their ability to overcome a challenge. The dolls and wooden game are each $29.95 at unicefmarket.org or by calling 800-553-1200.

How Globalization Can Be Fun

When I taught selling, before each class I used to assign a student to come up with news of the day or another topic (never the weather) he or she would use to engage a customer with some small talk before making their sales pitch, if they were on a sales call that day. I was reminded of this device, when I read about a Latin teacher who begins classes by asking if anyone has a silly question to ask the class in Latin.

     With a globalization twist, I thought parents and teachers could ask young people, "Who can stump the family/class with a question about world affairs?" They could ask questions, such as, "What percentage of the Russian electorate voted in the March, 2018 presidential election?"
"Where does the Nile River split into the Blue Nile and the White Nile?"
"What is the native language of Kim Jong Un?"

     MindWare, which claims to sell "brainy toys for kids of all ages," has another fun way to stimulate interest in the world. The company sells a line of dot-to-dot activity books with an "extreme" number of dots to connect to reveal: 1) world folklore, 2) world architecture, 3) the world's cats, and 4) the world's dogs. Each dot-to-dot puzzle is on heavy paper that can be colored with markets after the picture is completed. For more information, call 1-800-274-6123.

     The earlier blog post, "Talk with the Animals," also suggests ways animals prompt a student's  interest in the world.

Lots of Summer Fun

National Geographic magazine has put together a collection of ideas that kids can enjoy for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, or a half hour. You can find all this fun by going to "national geographic family field guide" and entering "6 ways to turn your kids into geniuses" in the search box.

I especially liked taking the personality quiz to find out what genius I am most like. A reporter who likes to ask questions to find the truth. There's a chance to win $25,000 for an idea.

You also are invited to join the National Geographic Kids and Family Panel.

Play Book: Retell Tales with a Twist

Tell the same old stories in a new way at a campfire, a party, in class, or at a sleepover. Trent Hergenrader came up with the idea of involving children in Role Playing Games based on familiar books. Although characters, plot, setting, and objects retain some elements of the original stories, "what if" questions challenge kids to go off in new directions.

     The idea is to ask questions that lead children to develop their own story twists. If Cinderella didn't go to the ball with her step sisters, what could she have done to improve her situation if she stayed home? Why might Cinderella's fairy godmother be too busy to come to her aid with a gown and coach? Instead of getting free help from the elves, what changes could the shoemaker make in his business in order to hire employees for pay?

     Thought provoking questions can be based on any book a child reads. In his text, The Multiplayer Classroom, Lee Sheldon goes so far as to show how to convert stories into foreign language games. I prefer to use fairy tales to introduce what some may consider fan fiction, fiction by readers who write their own versions of a book. Every country has its own fairy tales, and, since generation after generation has read them, young and/or old can participate in the "what if" process.

     In the musical, Wicked, Gregory Maguire's take on the Wizard of Oz, good friends were recast in later life as good and bad witches. Cinderella's slipper wasn't glass until Disney magic changed it. (What if she had worn sneakers?) But Maguire and Disney should not be the only ones to reimagine beloved childhood tales. Critical thinkers around the world can come up with their own modern twists. It's fun. And, as the Finnish saying goes (See the earlier post, "Learning Can Be Fun."), "Those things you learn without joy you will forget easily."

Santa's Helpers

As the holiday season approaches, let's find some gifts that help those in need around the world.

You can help the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana that provides the delicious Divine Chocolate in the advent calendars and bags of foil covered coins sold by SERRV (serrv.org). Request a SERRV catalog to find other gifts from less developed countries.

Two organizations give children an opportunity to choose how they would like to help others overseas. With a donation as little as $25, children can go to kiva (kiva.org) to pick out a borrower they would like to help. For a donation of $10 or more to Heifer International (heifer.org) you can send honor cards to children telling them how much they have to contribute to the purchase of an animal for a family in need.

At wwfcatalog.org, when you donate $55 to the World Wildlife Fund, you can choose a plush version of over 100 symbolically adopted animals for a child and become a partner in a global conservation effort that establishes new protected areas for animals, stops wildlife crime, finds innovative ways to safeguard marine life, ensures healthy freshwater systems, and provides a sustainable future for our planet.

Gifts from unicef (unicefusa.org) not only help save and protect the world's most vulnerable children, but unicef's rolling carry-on plastic suitcase (12" tall x 18" long x 8" deep) can start kids thinking about how they can travel to a foreign country some day. Until then, they can ride or pull their durable suitcase, which holds up to 75 lbs.

Speaking of foreign travel, maybe it's time to give a youngster his or her own passport. Many US post offices can help with the process or go to travel.state.government/passports.html for information.

To keep youngsters from getting bored on a trip, American Stationery (americanstationery.com) offers personalized, 100 sheet game pads printed with tic-tac-toe, hangman, and dots you connect to make squares.

Of course books are one of the best ways to help children develop an interest in their world. Entertainment Weekly magazine recently mentioned two new picture books that would help parents and teachers introduce youngsters to adventures around the world: Atlas of Adventures by Rachel Williams and Lucy Letherland and The Safari Set by Madeleine Rogers. Another gift-worthy book, Max, Mia and Toby's Adventures Around the World, from Little Passports (littlepassports,com) comes with 7 souvenirs. This site also offers other global gifts, including a World Coin Collection of 20 real foreign coins and a booklet of coin related activities and trivia for kids 6 and over.

                                             Wishing you all a joyful holiday season!

Convert Stories into Foreign Language Games

Screenwriter, Lee Sheldon, wrote a story that was incorporated into an alternative reality game where students learned Mandarin Chinese by interacting with Mandarin-speaking actors. That was just the beginning. Since then he has created plot lines for over a dozen more games. Students are excited to participate and college class attendance soared. Teachers can learn how to turn classes into games by reading Sheldon's book, The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework As a Game.

Several finalists for 2015's Children's Choice Book Awards have international and intergalactic themes that could become classroom games.

• Temple Run: Race Through Time to Unlock the Secrets of Ancient Worlds by Tracey West takes readers on a quest to uncover the clues that will lead them safely through ancient civilizations
• I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World follows the Nobel Peace Prize winner as she worked to overcome obstacles to women in Pakistan
• The Return of Zita the Space Girl by Ben Hatke is an adventure that requires Zita to break out of a planet's jail

Global Search for New Antibiotics

Throughout the world, as many as 700,000 people die from drug-resistant infections each year. Since so-called superbugs have become resistant to the antibiotics that have cured cholera, pneumonia, tuberculosis, and other infections from bacteria since the 1940s, there is a two-pronged approach: 1) to reduce the overuse of antibiotics which reduce their effectiveness and 2) to find new antibiotics.

     Antibiotics can be overused unless hospitals monitor the incidence of antibiotic-resistant cases, pharmacists supervise use of antibiotics, and patients are not tested to see if their infections are bacterial or viral. On viruses, antibiotics are useless. Even when infections are caused by bacteria, conventional oral antibiotics, such as penicillin, need to be tried first to cure staph skin infections, C diff bacteria infections in the gut, bronchial infections, and urinary tract infections. Other treatments, such as more expensive daily shots and IV hookups in the hospital, need to be used sparingly and held back as a last line of defense.

     Since overuse of antibiotics contributes to their resistance, the antibiotics farmers use add to this overuse by humans through the food they eat. Because farmers have been using antibiotics as a way to stimulate faster growth of livestock and to prevent disease on factory farms where overcrowding spreads illnesses, under the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, proposed federal legislation would regulate antibiotic use on factory farms. A dozen or so manufacturers that produce antibiotics for livestock already have voluntarily agreed to change the directions on their labels to stipulate use for medicinal purposes not artificial growth.

      Once new FDA guidelines are implemented by January, 2017, a licensed veterinarian will have to supervise the use of antibiotics in livestock feed and water to treat and prevent disease and to promote growth. Since treatment of some diseases in cattle and dairy cows now requires low-level feeding of antibiotics, farmers and veterinarians are working to keep animals healthy with improved sanitation and nutrition as well as new vaccines. Pear and apple growers who spray trees to prevent bacterial blight infections also are looking for alternatives to the antibiotics now in use.

     Agricultural use of antibiotics, estimated to be 70% of all antibiotic use, has begun to cost farmers money. Denmark's ban on growth promoting animal antibiotics prevents beef imports from countries still using them. Since consumers are demanding meat and poultry free of routine antibiotic use, suppliers, such as Perdue, have stopped their use. While McDonald's plans to serve only antibiotic-free chicken in the US by the summer of 2017, consumers in other countries will not have this guarantee. Nowhere are McDonald's consumers guaranteed antibiotic free beef or pork.

     Since patients take antibiotics only for a short time, pharmaceutical companies have a greater incentive to develop other drugs rather than new antibiotics to replace the older ones that have lost their effectiveness. To stimulate research for new antibiotics, the National Institutes of Health's Center of Excellence for Translational Research (CETR) has put a $16 million grant behind the effort. When soil studies no longer uncovered new antibiotic microbes, researchers found new sources among ants, plants, and sponges in Florida, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. For example, the microbes in the milky white bacteria that cover some ants produce antibiotic compounds that fight different causes of infection. In the lab, scientists look for compounds with chemical structures that are different from known ones. Genomic sequencing of bacteria also helps determine whether they contain antibiotic-producing microbes. Using CETR grant money, a team of investigators headed by Dr. David Andes, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin Hospital, and Cameron Currie, a University of Wisconsin bacteriology professor, have found 15 potential new antibiotics.

     On a side note, the following are three games that teach how viruses spread:
Pandemic is a tabletop game for four players who experience success and failure as they work together to stop the spread of diseases.
Plague, Inc. is an app game where players can see graphs of how lethal contagions are considering health care systems in various countries and global travel.
Pox: Save the People is a board game that uses blue vaccinated and red infected chips.

(This post amplifies information in the earlier post, "Infection-Killing Bugs and Antibiotics.")

 

Learning Can Be Fun

Do longer school days and longer school years promote learning? Only, if they include time for play (and the playground is not an asphalt parking lot).

A growing body of research suggests play provides an important learning experience at any stage of a student's life. Besides, moving develops a body's core strength which enables children to pay attention and learn, and research also finds kids can develop language, math, and social skills while interacting with each other. In Finnish kindergartens, something new happens every day: Monday might have a field trip, ball game, or running activity; Friday, songs and stations of choice, such as making forts with sheets, selling ice cream (paper scoops pasted on a stick and plastic coins used for change), or doing arts and crafts.  You have to wonder about China's academic schools that do not set aside any time for gym or exercise classes. Promising Olympic athletes go to separate schools.

Finland has a saying, "Those things you learn without joy you will forget easily." When it rains a bit, Finnish kindergarteners put on their rubber boots, grab shovels, and make dams in the mud. Before entering first grade, at Swiss Waldkindergartens, Canada's all-day kindergartens, and at some schools in Washington state, Vermont, and Brooklyn, four to seven year olds have child-directed free play outdoors in all kinds of weather. In  contrast, a survey found 7 out of 10 children in the UK spend less time outside than prisoners.

Play at the Nordahl Grieg Upper Secondary School takes a different form, video games. At Mind/Shift on July 21, 2014, Tina Barseghian called attention to Paul Darvasi's article about this Norwegian high school, where Tobias Staaby uses the video game, The Walking Dead, to pose an ethical question. Of 10 survivors, who should receive the last four pieces of food? Students were asked to use what they had learned about situational ethics, utilitarianism, or consequentialism to justify their choices.

 At the same school, the history simulation video game, Civilization IV, which gives students an opportunity to make decisions that leaders have to make about setting up a government, legal system, labor laws, economy, and religious options, has been used to teach English and Social Studies. Those who were unfamiliar with the game's complexities learned from students who were pros. Lin Holvik, principal of the school, always has viewed video games as a tool to foster collaboration and an appreciation for the "art of failure."

Common Sense Graphite, a company that evaluates the learning content of computer games, gives high praise to the following:
Elegy for a Dead World
Better than other English lessons, students visit alien planets inspired by romance poets, write prose and poetry about the lost civilizations they find there, and share their literary works with other students.
Never Alone
A cultural game that incorporates stories from the Inupiat people of Alaska that demonstrate how students need to cooperate with nature to win.
Valiant Hearts
Invites students to apply facts from the history of World War I to critique war in general.

Other video games and their subject applications include:

     Portal 2: Physics
     The Last of Us: Literature
     Republia Times: Writing, Journalism, Social Studies
     Minecraft EDU: Virtual building blocks to construct a landmark or environment (Also see the earlier post, "Build a Global Icon.")

Another type of play to consider is the role playing used in the Model UN game mentioned in the earlier blog post, "Know the Issues." Also see the later blog post, "Convert Stories into Foreign Language Games."

Games Children Play

Children in different countries might speak and dress differently, but they play with similar balls, cars, tops, and other toys. In A World of Children's Games, Friendship Press (friendshippress.org) has collected the rules children aged 5 to 12 need in order to play games from 60 countries. By checking the origin of their games, youngsters will find that they are putting together Ravensburger puzzles and Playmobils from Germany, building with LEGOs from Denmark, playing Nintendo games and folding origami cats (origami-instructions.com) or flowers and leaves described in "Origami Bonsai" (signals.com)  from Japan, and building virtual worlds using the Minecraft video game created in Sweden.

     International scavenger hunts help children understand other countries. In the simplest form, kids can use an atlas, almanac (including The World Almanac for Kids), or computer to find the locations of monuments, mountains, rivers, animals, and the like. In other versions, students may be asked to find the countries where people: drive on the left hand side of the road, eat with chopsticks, and bow instead of shake hands.

     Schools with a large concentration of foreign students have an opportunity to plan an advanced form of an international scavenger hunt. Parents can dress in their native clothes and set up classrooms with musical instruments, maps, dolls, crafts, foods, and other items associated with their countries. Once the classrooms are prepared students can go room to room trying to win prizes by finding the answers to a sheet of questions (possibly called a passport) based on the country displays.

     An African scavenger hunt I've played with elementary school classes involves giving each child a bag filled with African products and helping them locate on a large wall map the countries where these items are produced.
                                                     African Products

Cloves, Cocoa (chocolate candy), Coffee (coffee beans), Copper (a penny), Cotton (cotton ball), Diamonds (clear plastic bead), Gold (gold button), Peanut, Rice, Rubber (rubber band), Sisal (piece of rope), Sugar (sugar cube), Tea (tea bag), Wood (toothpick).
    
                                           Sources of African Products

Cloves: Comoros, Madagascar
Cocoa: Benin, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria,
            Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Togo
Coffee: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic
             of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia,
            Madagascar, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo,Uganda
Copper: Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia ,Uganda, Zambia
Cotton: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Mali,
             Mozambique, Niger, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe
Diamonds: Angola, Botswana, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
                  Guinea, Liberia, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Gold: Ghana Guinea, Rwanda, South Africa
Peanuts: Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan
Rice: Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Sierra Leone
Rubber: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia
Sisal: Angola, Tanzania
Sugar: Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique,
           Republic of the Congo, Swaziland, Uganda
Tea: Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda
Wood: Cameroon, Central African republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabor, Ghana,
            Republic of the Congo, Swaziland, Zimbabwe

If any students are allergic to nuts, remember to leave peanuts out of the bags, because students do enjoy eating some of  these products, when the lesson is complete.

     One game that needs no setup time encourages children to learn the names of foreign cities and countries. From A to Z, players alternate using a letter to identify a place in the world and something a traveler could bring back from that location. For example, someone might say, "Going to Kuwait for kites." The next player could say, "Going to La Paz for llamas." Since almost any item can be found in any country these days, there is no need to think about the accuracy of associations. This game is equally fun and challenging en route to grandma's by car or to Australia by airplane.

     Adults can benefit by watching children play with blocks, dolls, toys, games, playground equipment, dirt, and sticks.  According to Juliet Kinchin, curator of Architecture and Design at New York's MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), seeing kids at play enables designers (and I would add, politicians and foreign policy experts) to look past the limitations of social norms, geography, politics, and culture and to make new connections that can lead to a different, ideal future. What did Walt Disney do when he created Disneyland, a composite of his boyhood's Main Street, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Adventureland, and Tomorrowland or Epcot?
    

You Are Here

One of the easiest ways to introduce a child to the world is to hang a map. Just like seeing "You are here" on a map at a mall, amusement park, or subway, helping a child locate his or her home on a world map provides instant orientation on the globe.

     Book stores sell a wide variety of world maps. For example, the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides provide pull-out maps and additional information about 100 worldwide destinations. Free maps also are available at motor clubs and travel agencies. Satellite and aerial maps can be downloaded at earth.google.com and purchased from the U.S. Geological Survey. Since countries are prone to change their names, break up, join together, or adjust their boundaries, outdated maps and old atlases and globes frequently turn up at antique stores, flea markets, and garage sales.

     Not all maps are equal. Selecting a map would be less complicated, if the world were flat. In the process of projecting the global sphere onto a two-dimensional piece of paper, distances and shapes of countries at the nearly 25,000-mile Equator remain relatively unchanged. Toward the North and South Poles, however, flattening causes distortion. The Mercator projection developed by 16th century Flemish geographer, Gerardus Mercator, failed to compensate for distortion at the poles. His map shows Africa almost the same size as Greenland even though Africa is nearly 15 times larger. Using a technique reminiscent of the one employed by Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary in 17th century China, Arthur H. Robinson created his egg-shaped, elliptical map to more accurately reflect the size of the polar regions in relation to the continents. The U.N.'s white on blue symbol overcomes distortion by viewing the world's inhabited continents from the North Pole.

     Children can replicate the way J. Paul Goode reduced distortions on his flat map, if they make one vertical cut on an orange, carefully remove the peel in one piece, and smash the peel flat on a piece of paper. The sections will be irregular, just as Goode's map has irregular sections. Nonetheless, the sections can be reassembled to fit perfectly without distortion on a spherical orange or globe.

     Some atlases, collections of flat maps, are especially designed for children. Mercator was responsible for naming a map collection an Atlas, because his title page showed the mythical Greek giant holding a heavenly globe on his shoulders. For each country in the world, an atlas often includes its political divisions, such as cities and provinces, on one page; its lakes, rivers, mountains, and other geographical features on another; and its agricultural and manufactured products, power plants, oil fields, highways, and railroads on another. The new book, Maps, by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinska has great illustrations and geographical features, plus fascinating facts associated with every region of the world. Also check out the site, "Maps4Kids.com.

    Atlases might include a collection of historical maps showing how the world was divided by the Greeks and Romans, during the Crusades, at the time of the American Revolution, after World Wars I and II, and how its political pattern looks today now that African states are independent and new states have been formed out of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. At timemaps.com, maps are connected to world history in an easy-to-use interactive way. In August, 2013, under "World" at washingtonpost.com/blogs, there was an interesting entry about 40 maps that explain the world. The maps showed expected divisions according to religion and language but there also were unusual maps showing, for example, the best and worst places to be born, where gay rights are legal, and where people are most and least: loved, racially tolerant, and emotional.

     It also is easy to make maps and globes part of a child's every day life. Map motifs appear on umbrellas, shower curtains, balloons, beach balls, coffee mugs, jackets, and Signals' world map bangle bracelet and world map poncho (signals.com). Modern and antique globes are sold as informative and decorative home accessories. Soft globe-shaped pillows sold at many map stores enable children to cozy up to the countries or continents stamped on them, while they can fall asleep using illuminated globes as night lights.

     Maps and globes also are designed as toys. Youngsters who have mastered wooden, magnetic, and floor puzzles of the United States can test their skills on continent and world puzzles as well as three-dimensional puzzle globes that stand by themselves. A giant, 252-piece world map floor puzzle is a best seller at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (store.metmuseum.org). The Metropolitan Museum, National Geographic, MindWare, and Young Explorers also have interactive globes students can use to find information about country statistics: population, weather, currency, and more. Rand McNally makes an electronic game that explores the world's geography, history, ecosystems, oceans, wildlife, sports, and art. Using the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's new "Global Glowball" children six months and older can touch one of 39 areas to make the globe light up and play a regional song. A number of board games, such as Atlas Adventures, rely on maps. On a rainy day, it is handy to have on hand blank outline maps (sold at map stores and teacher supply outlets) that children can fill in with the names of countries. Older children can go to geosense.net to test their knowledge of city locations throughout the world.

     On a world map or globe, youngsters can use a star, photo of home, or another symbol to indicate where they live. They also can use a world map as a bulletin board where they tack up their outgrown clothes on the countries that produced them. Kids who follow sports may wish to tape photos of their basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, and other athletic heroes to the countries where they were born. Maps that include time zones enable children to set clocks to reflect the different times in parts of the world they would like to visit and where their relatives and friends already live or plan to travel.

     Like spelling whizzes, would-be chess masters, musical proteges, and athletic phenoms, children who have grown up interacting with maps and globes are primed to test their knowledge against the competition. Millions in grades four through eight begin their quest to win scholarships in the National Geographic Society's annual Geography Bee by checking the website,
nationalgeographic.com/geographybee. In the end, children require no board games or national competitions to send them looking for geographical answers. Locating on a map what is happening in the news is a daily challenge. Map study provides the foundation for an informed citizen of the world.