A classic grade school science (or is it art?) activity calls for charcoal briquettes, ammonia, salt, water, food coloring, and bluing. What is bluing? Bluing is a dye used to treat clothing that has yellowed with age and use. Here is copy from the website for Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing:

Desertification, the degradation of arable land into un-arable desert, is an under recognized international crisis. “Chief causes are deforestation, overgrazing, overdrafting of groundwater, increased soil salinity, overagriculture, and global climate change, all fundamentally caused by the burgeoning human population.” (E.O. Wilson, The Future of Life, 2001)

Jim McLaughlin is part of a research team working with the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) to study the connections between learning in the arts and learning in other content areas - mathematics, literature, writing, and world languages - in twelve Chicago public schools. But he is not only a researcher. He is also a learner. He recently participated in a poetry writing institute led by established living poets.

One of the ways to understand the once and future role of the arts in school improvement is to poke around in the iconography of schools themselves. What is the history and meaning of bell schedules, of the intercom, of desks in rows, of asphalt playgrounds, of chain-link fences, of pencils, of erasers, of cursive writing, of blackboards, of whiteboards, of calculators, of computers, of notebook paper? Investigating the images and artifacts of public education maps the subjective terrain that arts education advocates work within.

Bela Legosi’s Count Dracula, perhaps the most famous creature of the night, was filmed entirely during the daytime. The same movie set for the daytime Dracula was inhabited at night by an entirely different cast and crew to shoot the Spanish language version of Bram Stoker’s classic tale.

Is there any lead in lead pencils? Not a bit of it. So why are they called “lead pencils”? Wikipedia reveals all:

Who knows what long term subtle brain damage is caused by falling asleep in the glow of the cathode tube rays of cable television? I do it often enough to eventually find out. I usually make it through half of the “Daily Show” on Comedy Central, and then wake up in the middle of the night to unfunny paid advertisements for various questionable products.

As part of my work in arts education, I spend a lot of time traveling to conferences and meetings in other cities, which means I spend a lot of time in airports. I love flying, but like an albatross, I’m fine up in the air, but all too often have an awkward experience on the ground. My departure gate is frequently moved at the last minute to the far other end of the airport. If I have a layover, I end up waiting for the shuttle bus to my connecting flight (boarding in a few minutes - the last flight of the evening), wondering whether it is going to show up at all, let alone on time.