Doing What I Love about Teaching

Last night and this morning I tried to work on grade reports, but I really needed to do something more satisfying, so I looked up EarthWeek and planned a lesson around that.  I sent my students a message in hopes that it would alert them and give them reading practice even reading my message.

Dear ESL 140 Students,

Earthweek for the week previous to March 21 is now online, and there are a lot of interesting reports.  I'm busy with midterm reports right now, but if I have the chance, I'll put some guiding questions on our website.  In the meantime, here are some interesting things to find out:  

What are "invisible" flashes coming from, and who sees these "invisible" things better than we humans do?

Speaking of humans, how do chimps feel about us if they've had good experiences with humans in the past?  What are three examples Earthweek gives of things we've done to chimps?  (How have we used them in ways that have hurt them?)  There's also a funny part about yawns.  Are yawns contagious?  (As a teacher and as a former student, I really enjoyed learning about this!)  

What caused the death of 40 dolphins?  Where did this happen?

Where is the world's largest solar thermal power plant that employs generating towers?   When did it open?  What's a possible problem with it?

I know everyone is also interested in the plane that disappeared.  By the time you read this--and certainly by Tuesday when we meet again--we may know the answers to these questions:  What is the object the satellites spotted that is almost 80 feet long?  Where did they spot this and a 14-foot object?

Have a good time reading this weekend, and be happy that the temperature in the Bay Area is neither 113.4 degrees F (45.2 degrees Celsius) as it was last week in the Sudan nor minus 92.4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 61.1 degrees Celsius) as it was at Russia's Vostok Antarctic research station!

Tina

To be continued!