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Looking for an outside-the-box geography enrichment resource this summer? The Atlas of Geographical Curiosities might be just the ticket: https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Territorial-Curiosities-Jonglez-photo/dp/236195530X/
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Any rock collection can be a great start to a study of geology but a RADIOACTIVE rock collection?! Even cooler. The free PDF cited in this article from Atlas Obscura guides readers in (safely) collecting radioactive rocks. www.atlasobscura.com/articles/radioactive-mineral-rock-collectors-guide
Planning a road trip or local getaway? This article highlights what editors consider to be the best state parks in the U.S. (The eagle-eyed among you might recognize a few of the photos on my website were taken at some of the state parks profiled.) www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/national-parks/best-state-parks-in-us
Looking for a new verbal game? Merriam-Webster offers a variety of free vocabulary-based games, from a four-at-a-time wordle puzzle to farm idioms and famous last lines of literature: www.merriam-webster.com/games
Teens interested in learning more about stock investing might want to check out the Top Trader Competition being offered by the University of Texas at Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management this summer. Rising 9th-12th graders compete to maximize returns on $1M in virtual cash. The registration deadline is May 26; there's an early-bird discount until April 28. jindal.utdallas.edu/events/top-trader/
Winter showers bring spring flowers. For those planning a field trip to southern California or Arizona soon, this article provides details on when and where to see the desert wildflowers that are expected to be blooming in abundance after the region's wet winter: www.nytimes.com/2023/04/01/travel/california-arizona-spring-wildflowers.html
The National Archives has a great line-up of history-related events throughout the year, in person for those in the DC area and online. Later this month, for example, there's an author talk about Sarah Kidd, the wife of a pirate, a lunchtime series about challenges faced during the Eisenhower administration, a panel discussion about Black baseball players before Jackie Robinson, and a living history program with "Albert Einstein." www.archives.gov/calendar
Visit a marshmallow Peeps factory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: www.justborn.com/who-we-are/how-our-candy-is-made/
Mastered Statele* already? This daily quiz from the makers of Worldle* and Statele features images from U.S. states and challenges participants to identify where the photos were taken: wheretakenusa.teuteuf.fr/
*Statele: statele.teuteuf.fr/ *Worldle: worldle.teuteuf.fr/ The cherry blossoms near the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC, are at peak bloom now. If you can't get to Washington, DC, you can still see them via this live bloom cam: www.bloomcam.org/ Prefer to check in on Japan's cherry blossoms? Try this live bloom cam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P9DlrY8xXc
The Montgomery County (MD) Gem, Lapidary, and Mineral Society's annual gem, mineral, and fossil show is this weekend at the Montgomery County fairgrounds. For details about hours and to get a discount on admission, see www.glmsmc.com/show.shtml.
Understanding a place requires so much more than being able to find it on a map. The makers of Worldle and Statele have a new daily game, WhereTaken, that promotes a different kind of geographic literacy by challenging users to identify images associated with various countries: wheretaken.teuteuf.fr/
MIT's Beaver Works Summer Institute program is now accepting applications from current high school juniors interested in engineering: beaverworks.ll.mit.edu/CMS/bw/bwsiapply
Practice your logical deduction skills with the old-fashioned code-breaking game Bulls and Cows. The game is like Mastermind except there can be no duplicates: www.mathsisfun.com/games/bulls-and-cows.html
Today is the beginning of the 2023 Great Backyard Bird Count, an annual citizen science project sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (The first day of the bird count used to be one of two official home school holidays for us :-)) All the info, including birding resources, here: https://www.birdcount.org/
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore has a series of free videos and downloadable activity packets to encourage children to make art, linked to the Walters' collection, at home: thewalters.org/experience/virtual/adventures/
Cursory. Misnomer. Squall. Abjure. Those are recent words featured as the New York Times Learning Network's word of the day. During the school year, the site offers a new word each day (M-F) along with examples of the word's usage from The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/spotlight/learning-quizzes-crosswords
January 25 is Robert Burns Night, a worldwide celebration of the Scottish poet. If you are looking to learn more about Robert Burns or Burns Night, check out https://www.scotland.org/events/burns-night. If you would like to find a local Burns Night celebration, Google "Burns Night event near me" -- you may be surprised how many options turn up.
The University of Maryland is now accepting registrations for its summer Terp Young Scholars program for smart, motivated high school students. This is a three-week program for college credit, with options to participate in person (as a commuter student) or online. (Unfortunately, there is no residential option this year.) oes.umd.edu/pre-college-programs/terp-young-scholars
The Folger Shakespeare Library is hosting a monthly online book club that is free and open to everyone. (The club's target audience is adults, but teens are absolutely welcome to participate.) The next pick, for Feb. 2, is Booth by Karen Joy Fowler, historical fiction woven around the family of John Wilkes Booth. The March pick is A Tip for the Hangman by Allison Epstein, "an Elizabethan espionage thriller." For more information or to register, see https://www.folger.edu/events/book-club-february-2023
Practice your knowledge of U.S. geography with the daily Statele quiz: statele.teuteuf.fr/
Have a fledgling engineer? Or curious yourself? The EngineerGuy website has loads of free videos explaining the engineering behind everyday items: engineerguy.com/videos.htm
Private i History Detectives, from the folks at iCivics (founded by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor), encourages elementary school students to develop critical thinking skills while solving history "mysteries": www.icivics.org/products/privatei
Try this devilishly difficult U.S. geography quiz! On a blank U.S. map, click on where you think the state named is. If you're right, the game continues. If you're wrong, the game ends and you need to start over. (Hint: if you're able to get past about 35%, the going gets easier.) www.sporcle.com/games/mhershfield/us-states-no-outlines-minefield
Explorer Classroom offers free webinars for K-8 students with National Geographic Explorers. Upcoming sessions focus on plants, on sustainability, and on ancient Egypt, including a live talk with an archaeologist based in Alexandria, Egypt. For more information or to register, see https://www.nationalgeographic.org/tickets/explorer-classroom/.
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