Middle and High School ... from a Montessori Point of View
The drive from Vik to the lobe of the Mýrdalsjökull with the ice caves was spectacular in its own right, traversing a bleak, otherworldly, glacial plain left by the retreating ice. There was a small river fed by the melting ice. The guide companies have organized a parking lot for their vans near the toe Continue reading "Ice Caves in the Mýrdalsjökull Glacier"
The glaciers of Iceland have been retreating over the last 10,000 years with the end of the last glacial maximum, but the speed of their retreat has increased as a result of anthropogenic climate change. Kieran Baxter has a nice video showing the difference over 10 years for the Skaftafellsjökull outlet glacier of the Vatnajökull Continue reading "Glacial Retreat in Iceland"
We spent our first night in Iceland in Vik, a small town on the south coast. The Guesthouse Carina was most notable for its wonderful breakfast including a variety of breads, cheeses and meats in an elegant and spacious dining area that we could have used for our group debrief (if everyone hadn t been so tired after Continue reading "Vik"
Fantasy worldbuilding can be an interesting way to teach the fundamentals of geography, economics, and a lot more depending on how deep you want to go. This video by The Grainbound helps put realistic constraints on things like population size as it depends on geography (types of arable land, access to water, fisheries etc.) based Continue reading "Worldbuilding City Population Logistics"
A busy site on the southern coast of Iceland, on our drive from Selfoss to Vik. You can walk behind the largest waterfall (but expect to get wet). A short walk west along the canyon wall is a neat little crevasse where the water cascades through a skylight.
The LAVA Center is a great place to visit for an overview of volcanism in Iceland, so I m glad we were able to fit it in on the first day of our trip. The interactive exhibit was excellent.
Guðrún Bjarnadóttir is the proprietor of Hespa, a small shop in Selfos where she dyes and sells yarn using natural colors and traditional techniques. She s not so traditional that she eschews modern pots and electricity, but if you stop in you can see the yarn in their pots being processed; she had at least half Continue reading "Yarns with Natural Dyes"
It s just a short hike, up and over a single ridge, to get from the parking lot (Skeli Lot 1) to see recent a recent lava flow frozen to the side of the volcano. An interesting paper by Mathews et. al (2024) indicates the lava from this eruption is a mixture from multiple magma chambers Continue reading "Lava Flows at Fagradalsfjall Volcano"
From 2021-2025, eruptions from a volcanic fissure in Grindavik, Iceland have blocked roads, destroyed structures, and caused the construction of 8 m tall protective walls to block and divert the lava around the town. On our first day in Iceland (first stop after the airport in Keflavik) we stopped to take a look at the Continue reading " Fresh basalt in Grindavik, Iceland"
This video by Tomislav Tomasic is an excellent introduction to woodturning that I recommend my students watch when they get into working with our lathe. He starts with some useful terminology (anatomy of wood) but also goes into how to cut logs to prepare blanks for turning.
I put out a bowl of apples so my students who like to snack have a healthy option. The rules are: We re one week in and the bowl is empty and there s $3.25 in the jar. I am curious to see how it goes, but I ve already had reports that one student posted about it Continue reading "Tragedy of the Commons Apple Bowl"
This video sums up the different angle relationships you ll find for chords in (and outside) circles.