Jenny Bristol | Education

An Unexpected Email From SETI

Last week, I received an unexpected email from a scientist at SETI. Long ago, my vision of the work SETI did involved little green men and radio signals from the sky. But they are actually working on all kinds of research with more immediate results.

Mar 19

Vi Hart: Geek Math Hero

Unless you've been living under a rock, if you're in the geek world, you know who Vi Hart is. But just in case you aren't already aware, she's a Geek Math Hero, to me and to the rest of my family. Her videos on hexaflexagons and twelve tone music, among others, have enthralled us and inspired us to dig further into the awesome world of math.

Mar 6

Kurt Vonnegut and Story Shapes

Kurt Vonnegut's rejected master's thesis was on the shapes of storylines.

Feb 28

Isolated For 40 Years

Imagine, my whole life (as I am 40 years old at present), isolated from the outside world, knowing only five other people, ever.

Feb 26

Platonic Love: Playing With Solids

Platonic solids are well known in the mathematic world. But now some mathematicians are re-evaluating some three-dimensional solids (I know, that's redundant) and believe they belong to a whole new class of solids.

Feb 25

Cutaway of the Saturn V Rocket

Above is the glorious Saturn V rocket, the one that took men to the moon during the Apollo program, the one that launched Skylab into orbit around the Earth, less than a month after I was born. It was a useful, consumable rocket used from 1966-1973.

Feb 21

Weird Books: Codex Seraphinianus

I like weird things. I like weird people. Always have, always will. I was a huge fan of Salvador Dalí when I was a kid. I still appreciate his work. I don't believe Antoni Gaudí's work is gaudy (see what I did there?). But this book is weird. Really weird. It goes beyond Dalí and Gaudí to include the grotesque.

Feb 18

Breastfeeding: Why Does it Weird Some People Out?

Biologically, breastfeeding is how you feed your baby. Procedure: Have baby. Baby feeds from the breast, first on colostrum and then, about three days later, on breast milk. It's always the right temperature, it's always available, and the body produces the right amount. Simple, yes?

Feb 12

Sojourner Truth: “Ain’t I A Woman?”

I knew of Sojourner Truth long ago. At least in college, if not earlier. I took more than one women's history class, and various women's conventions would come up in such classes. Women's rights—including property, voting, and other kinds of rights—are a big topic in women's history. And while there are many amazing, strong, resourceful women in history, Sojourner Truth was magnificent.

Feb 11

The Periodic Table of Storytelling

I found this table a few days ago, and was quite taken with it. There is a lot to storytelling that I don't quite comprehend, even after being forced to read Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth in college.

Feb 10

Chilling History: Footage of Fat Man, the Bomb Dropped on Nagasaki

The bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II, made a fascinating history, but it is obviously a bit dark and creepy, knowing just how many people died that day, and would die and be affected in the days, weeks, and years to come.

Feb 8

Useful Resources 2 – iCivics.org

iCivics.org is a non-profit organization that was started by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. It is designed for classrooms, but is quite easy to use for homeschooling. It is filled with printable lesson plans, research quests, and extremely well done games. And not games where the learning is secondary to the game play. The games include activities such as deciding how to set up the federal budget, or which side to decide for in a Supreme...

Great, Good, Very: Writing Traps to Avoid

When you write for a living, you find yourself falling into ruts, using the same words over and over, stringing the same phrases together in different ways to say different kinds of things. I'm no different. (And, apparently, I use the word "different" far too often.) But there are some words that we should all try to avoid using altogether.

Feb 4