Category: science holidays
-
National Mole Day
Happy Mole Day!!! On the 23rd of October from 6:02 AM to 6:02 PM (6:02 10/23) is National Mole Day, a day of appreciation for chemistry and Avogadro’s Number (6.02 x 10^23), the basic measuring unit in chemistry. A Mole is simply an amount of substance, like a dozen. It is based on the number…
-
Child Health Month: Cough and Sneeze into your Sleeve!
October 1st is Child Health Day, but the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), once made quiet an effort to make the whole month of October mindful of Children’s Health issues. October is a great month for educational initiatives as children have settled into the school-routine and are still fresh in the academic year. In honor…
-
Powers of 10 Day
Today is Powers of 10 Day, 10/10/2007, which is a famous film made by Charles and Ray Eames in 1977 that takes the viewer from a picnic scene, off of Earth, out of the Solar System, galaxy, and into deep space. It’s a film concept that has been often repeated in films like Men in…
-
National Metric Week
First a list of resources for teachers. Base number system and culinary complaints aside (Hat tip to flyingsirkus), the English Imperial System is a complicated, verbose, bloated system of measurement that contributes to mathematical and scientific illiteracy in America. Using dual systems, standard for commoners, metric for scientists, cost us a $125 million Mars orbiter…
-
Ecological Debt Day
Today, October 6th, the world has used up all the natural resources the Earth can produce to sustain us for the year. This means that, until January 1, 2008, we are spending resources from our future and the future of our children: Global Footprint Network today revealed October 6 is Ecological Debt day – the…
-
50th Anniversary of Sputnik
“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.” – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky When I was a toddler, my parents lived in Daytona Beach, Florida, and Cape Canaveral was just 70 miles south of us. From there, we could watch NASA’s rocket launches from our balcony. I can vaguely remember…
-
Computer Learning Month
October was once Computer Learning Month, supported by the Computer Learning Foundation between 2000 and 2002. Apparently it’s now defunct, but I’m upset that I missed out on the fun, and, if you haven’t figured this out by now, I’m a sucker for modern-era holidays that serve as a celebration of scientific thought and Enlightenment…
-
Banned Books Week 2007
Madeleine L’Engle #22 on the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 A Wrinkle in Time What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted…
-
Take a Child Outside Week 2007
9.24 In honor of Take a Child Outside Week: Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction. – E. O. Wilson The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. ~ e.e. cummings God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. ~ Martin…
-
One Web Day 2007
William Gibson predicted the Internet, but his visions were barren and lifeless compared to the enchanting pandemonium we get to experience daily. Isaac Asimov predicted a world village connected with light-wave signals through satellites, but could nowhere near imagine the scope of social change, the effective mobocracy that it taking place. No futurist accurately predicted…
-
Happy Constitution Day
Working on a military base for six years has given me a certain reverence for the American flag. Many mornings I’ve watched the morning flag-raising from my truck as base police stop traffic to prevent it interfering with the ceremony, noticing those days it peaks briefly before descending to half-mast on remembrance days or the…
-
Software Freedom Day
In honor of Software Freedom Day, I am making a concerted effort to install Ubuntu on one of my computers. I would much rather be hanging out at Bug Fest in Raleigh, but I don’t have the gas money or time this weekend. Unlike all my previous attempts to install that stupefyingly complex OS, Linux,…