Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Daily Reminder - I May Hate Them But They Can Be A Fantastic Educational Tool


Did you know that:

Tree octopuses have eyesight comparable to humans. Besides allowing them to see their prey and environment, it helps them in inter-octopus relations. Although they are not social animals like us, they display to one-another their emotions through their ability to change the color of their skin: red indicates anger, white fear, while they normally maintain a mottled brown tone to blend in with the background.

I read it on the Internet, so it must be true!

Really, it’s important to be a skeptical consumer of information, especially given the fluidity of the Internet. Kids need to learn that not everything that they read on the Internet — or through other media — is true. And so this website was used as part of an experiment that examined the critical thinking skills of seventh graders.


Fantastic idea. I am adding this to my teacher bag of tricks.

http://www.neatorama.com/

4 comments:

Sarah said...

I had an english teacher do something similar in high school. She sent us to a page talking about the failing velcro crop in California.

It was terrible. High speed winds were entangling fields of loops with fields of strands!

What a mess.

Kal said...

That is a great story. I did the same with 'Pepsi Man'. I convinced the grade six kids that Pepsi had a cadre of superheroes that fought against the evil that is the Coca Cola Company. Six years later I was on the trip the high school kids took to Japan and one night I hear screaming coming from one of the rooms and several kids are calling my name. I run into the room only to see them sitting slack jawed on their beds watching a 'PEPSI MAN' commercial. I just smiled and said, told you so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fajYEF2UJgA&feature=related

DrGoat said...

We have flying scorpions here in AZ.

Kal said...

Sure you do.