'We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering.'
This went down really well with the creationists!
He was also responsible for the cosmic calendar - a model of the life of the universe compressed into one earth year:
Graphic: http://school.discovery.com/schooladventures/universe/itsawesome/cosmiccalendar/page2.html
Find out more about Carl Sagan at Wikipedia
Similarly, this is an thoughtful presentation of the idea of reducing the population of the world to 100: http://www.miniature-earth.com/
Speaking of Wikipedia, there are now over 5 million articles of which 1.3 million are English (480 in Maori). There are 229 different language Wikipedias.
There is an ongoing discussion about the accuracy of Wikipedia. The link below points to a reasonable opinion piece on why we should treat Wikipedia as credible:
http://www.hyperorg.com/backissues/joho-jul23-06.htm
If you doubt the accuracy of an online, collaborative encyclopedia (and you should, it's worth a read.
Some interesting papercuts! Possible classroom activity? More on the website below.
http://www.giaitrivietnam.net/?showtopic=4024
And finally. Point England School in Auckland produce a weekly podcast. Their web page is worth a browse: http://www.ptengland.school.nz/index.php?family=1,871 If you have ITunes on your laptop, you can listen to their latest podcast:
http://homepage.mac.com/dburt1/podcasts/kpeep40.m4a
Link to Inquiry learning (Steve's Link)
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