Improve Your Communication Skills
What is the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos)?
On 1st and 2nd of November, Mexico celebrates its Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). This is a festival that begins on 28th October and ends on a public holiday on 2nd November. During this time, Mexicans believe that the deceased have permission from God to visit friends and relatives on earth, and once again enjoy the pleasures of life. It isn’t seen as a time of sadness and mourning but as a celebration of life.
Where Does the Tradition Come From?
The Aztecs believed that death was just a part of the circle of life and offered gifts to the goddess Mictecacihuatl (“Lady of the Dead”) for deceased children and adults. This tradition was incorporated into the Catholic celebration of All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day when the Spanish conquered the country. You might know All Saint’s Day by its other name – Halloween!
Vet Against The Odds
Hello! My name is Lauren, I’m 22 and I’m at university training to be a vet. Like most vet students I like science and animals, what makes me a bit different is that I am partially deaf in both ears. I wanted to write about what it’s like to go to university and move away from home when you can’t hear properly.
My parents found out I was deaf when I was 5 years old, just after I started school. My sister is also hearing impaired and Mum had inadvertently taught us both to speak properly, which meant that doctors didn’t realize there was anything wrong. When I got older mum told me that she was really worried at the time that being deaf would affect what I was able to do in life, but so far it hasn’t.
6 Things Kids with Special Needs Wish EVERYONE Would Do
When we published our article 6 Things Parents Wish Their Kids Would Do … and 6 Things Kids Wish Their Parents Would Do, one of our readers got in touch to say we should do one for the things that kids with special needs wish EVERYONE would do. So we asked our followers, and came up with this list.
It was a bit tricky to put the list together, because there are so many different kinds of “special needs”. For some children, their disability is quite well manageable with medication, or with assistance and therapy, and you’d hardly know they had any additional needs. You may have heard of autism or Asperger’s Syndrome – these are part of the autistic disorder spectrum, a range of conditions that affect how people communicate and relate to people around them. You can’t tell by looking at someone if they have ASD.
Other children have disabilities that are apparent when you meet them, such as those with Down’s Syndrome, which we have covered in more detail here. Or they might use a wheelchair to get around.
What thing do they all have in common? They sometimes get asked really silly questions, and get treated badly by people. Make sure you aren’t one of them, by listening to what the kids (and their parents) had to say!
Be a Good Communicator
Have you ever said something that was misunderstood by the person you were talking to? Do you know anyone who sometimes says things in a way that seems rude and abrupt? It is not always the words used, but the way in which they are used.
Good communication is very important. Carolyn Ward explains what it is and how to be a better communicator.
Awesome Science Resources for Kids
Where else can you find great Science Resources for Kids? You can browse our archives here on Jump! Mag or you can check out the following sites.
We will update this list in the coming months, and will concentrate on resources you can access online – lectures, TV Shows, YouTube channels, online archives, websites and blogs with science tutorials so that you can roll up your sleeves and get stuck into science.
We will update this list regularly, so if you have something cool to add, let us know.
SPARXX
Sparxx is an initiative bought to you by the Women’s Engineering Society (WES).
Their aim is to bring you all the latest news, views, events, opportunities, careers, interesting stuff, fun stuff and freebies to help girls find inspiration for future careers. Sign up for their newsletter here.
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
The CHRISTMAS LECTURES® are entertaining and informative science events for young people, broadcast on UK television every year. You can watch them online here. Prepare to be amazed
UPDATE
The Royal Institution have just launched Experimental, a series of YouTube videos with great and simple experiments for parents and children to try at home. Find their YouTube Channel here.
Zooniverse
Real science, online – The Zooniverse is home to the internet’s largest, most popular and most successful citizen science projects. You can choose to help researchers characterize bat calls, or explore Mars, without leaving your house.
Crash Course
Six awesome courses in one awesome channel: John Green teaches you US History and Hank Green teaches you Chemistry. Check out the playlists for past courses in World History, Biology, Literature, and Ecology
Bill Nye the Science Guy
Bill Nye is a scientist, engineer, comedian, author and inventor. His mission is to make science fun, and help people understand the science that makes our world work. Here are the Home Demos, the experiments you should try at home sometime. Keep clicking around and you’ll find the Episode Guides.
EdHeads
Edheads is an online educational resource that provides free science and math games and activities that promote critical thinking. You can design a mobile (cell) phone, repair a weakened aorta or learn about simple machines, and much more.
Science Projects for Kids
This is a site that links to lots of other sites – we loved the Amusement Park Physics – design your own roller-coaster but be careful because if you get the science wrong… DISASTER!
Silvia’s Show
Silvia is a young girl from California, USA and she’s been making Super-Awesome webshows on making cool stuff since 2010. She demonstrates science experiments, and great craft projects. You’ll never be bored, when Silvia is around!
NASA
The kids pages on Nasa are awesome, and that is before we get to the videos of ELMO at NASA. Science and Sesame Street. It doesn’t get much better than this.
Veritaseum
Veritasium is a science video blog featuring experiments, expert interviews, cool demos, and discussions with the public about everything science – these are at times more advanced, but well worth a look.
SciShow
We love the short and snappy servings of science from the SciShow team.
Minute Physics
We just had to include this one, as the solar system explanation is so brilliant even our science dunce editor understood it!
Engineering is Elementary
Engineering is Elementary is a project of the National Center for Technological Literacy at the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS). They have fantastic resources for teachers and home-ed families, on a range of topics. Some of the content is free to use, and the teaching guides and stories can be purchased on the site.
Further resources
The National Science Teachers Association has a great list of books about science
National Geographic is a great website with a huge range of articles and fun stuff
Cool music and science from They May Be Giants and the Here Comes Science CD
Woodlands Resources Science for educational and fun activities
How Stuff Works – well, just that really
This is a bit of a niche Science subject, but really cool – Skateboarding Science
If you like computers and want to learn how to make your own programmes, BBC had this cool game toolkit so that you can make your own games and Code.org can teach you to code, as can Scratch
If your parents are on Twitter, get them to follow @realscientists – a rotational twitter account featuring real scientists, science writers, communicators and policy makers talking about their lives and their work. Tweeters from different fields of science and science-related fields.
How To Grow Your Own Geek is a podcast created to share a love of geeking and parenting, and to provide advice on how to combine the two. Check out their Science and History Podcasts for Kids
Coding Resources by DeVry Bootcamp has plenty of interesting resources for older or more advanced students.