Tip of the Day - Social Studies

On October 27, 1858, Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States was born. He was an avid hunter and naturalist. When he was growing up, his room always contained a pet mouse or a collection of stuffed birds. When he was president, zoologists recognized him as one of the best field naturalists in the country. He was also an authority on North American Game.

In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated, and Roosevelt, at 43 years old, became the youngest president ever to assume the office. He stamped the presidency with a vitality that delighted most Americans and was elected to a second term in 1904.

Roosevelt set aside land for America's first national parks and monuments.

Tip of the Day - Reading

Author, Poet, Activist - Dr. Maya Angelou

Born Marguerite Johnson on April 4th, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Angelou was raised in St. Louis and Stamps, Arkansas between her mother and her grandmother. In Stamps, Dr. Angelou experienced the brutality of racial discrimination, but she also absorbed the unshakable faith and values of traditional African-American family, community, and culture.

At age seven, she was raped by her mother's boyfriend, who was subsequently killed by her uncles. The event caused the young girl to go mute for nearly six years, and her teens and early twenties were spent as a dancer, filled with isolation and experimentation.

At 16 she gave birth to a son, Guy, after which she toured Europe and Africa in the musical Porgy and Bess. On returning to New Your City in the 1960s, she joined the Harlem Writers Guild and became involved in black activism. She then spent several years in Ghana as editor of African Review, where she began to take her life, her activism and her writing more seriously.

Dr. Angelou has written many autobiographies and published several volumes of verse.

In 1993, Dr. Angelou read On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton's Presidential inauguration, a poem written at his request. It was only the second time a poet had been asked to read at an inauguration, the first being Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F, Kennedy. In 2006, Dr. Angelou agreed to host a weekly radio show on XM Satellite Radio's Oprah & Friends channel. She also teaches at Wake Forest University in North Carolina where she has a lifetime position as the Reynolds professor of American studies.

Fun Science Facts

• There are 206 bones in the adult human body and there are 300 in a child's body. As we grow, some of the bones fuse together.


• Fleas can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms, this is equal to a 6 foot person jumping 780 feet into the air.


• Velcro was invented 50 years ago.


• The human eye blinks an average of 4,200,000 times a year.


• It takes approximately 12 hours for food to entirely digest.


• An inch of rain water is equal to 15 inches of dry, powdery snow.


• 40% to 50% of body heat can be lost through the head as a result of its extensive circulatory network.


• The ears of a cricket are located on its front legs, just below the knee.


• Sound travels about 4 times faster in water than in air.


• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

Today in History

On October 20, 1803, the Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty by a vote of twenty-four to seven. The agreement, which provided for the purchase of the western half of the Mississippi River basin from France at a price of $15 million, or approximately four cents per acre, doubled the size of the country and paved the way for westward expansion beyond the Mississippi.

The bounds of the territory, which were not clearly delineated in the treaty, were assumed to include all the land between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, at that time known as the Stony Mountains. Just twelve days after the signing of the treaty, frontiersmen Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on an expeditions to explore the newly acquired territory.

The purchase of the Louisiana Territory and the Lewis and Clark expedition marked the beginning of a century of conquest. As explorers, speculators, adventurers, and settlers pushed the territorial boundaries of the United States westward toward the Pacific coast, the notion of America as a nation always pushing toward new frontiers took hold in art, literature, and folklore.

Tip of the Week - Compare and Contrast

You may be asked to write an essay that compares and contrasts two things or ideas. Remember this:

Compare = Similarities

Contrast = Differences

When you are asked to write a "compare & contrast" essay, you should discuss the ways in which two things are the same and different. The easiest way to organize your ideas for this type of essay is by using a Venn Diagram. Just make two overlapping circles. Label each circle with one of the things you're comparing and contrasting. For example, in this diagram, we're comparing and contrasting dogs and cats. In the "dog" circle, we've listed some ways that dogs are different from cats; in the "cat" circle, we've listed some ways that cats are different from dogs. In the place where the two circles overlap, we've listed some things that apply to both dogs and cats.

Now we have our ideas all set up for three paragraphs for the body of our essay. In one paragraph, we'll talk about dogs. In the next paragraph, we'll talk about cats. In the third paragraph, we'll talk about both of them. Of course, we'll still need opening and closing paragraphs, too! Use this Venn diagram to practice writing a "compare & contrast" essay, or make one of your own!

Tip of the Week - Reading

We're once again combining the Reading Tip of the Week with Today in History! Author Terry McMillan was born October 18, 1951. McMillan was born and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. She was a single mother living in New York in the 1980s when she attended a writer's workshop in Harlem. She went on to write several novels including Mama and Disappearing Acts. Two of her novels, Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back, have been made into movies. If you haven't read anything by Terry McMillan, check out one or more of her books!

Skills Tutor Update

The Skills Tutor site is experiencing technical difficulties, but they are aware of the problem and they are working on it. If you are having problems accessing the site, don't worry! Just try again later

Fall 2 Session Begins Monday

The Fall 2 Session begins Monday, October 18, and runs through Friday, December 3.

Online students-- you should have received an email with your class information, along with your usernames and passwords. You may begin working when you receive this information.

This blog is not part of your classes. It is here to provide you with helpful tips and information, plus some fun and interesting facts. Feel free to comment on posts!

Although this blog is intended for PA Distance Learning Project students, it is open to the public.

Tip of the Week -- Fractions

A lot of folks are afraid of fractions, but the truth is that we use fractions every day. Every time we use money, measure something, or tell time, we are using fractions.

A fraction is simply this: a part of a whole. The top number is the part and the bottom number is the whole.

A penny is 1/100 of a dollar, because 1 dollar and 100 pennies are the same thing. A quarter is 1/4 of a dollar, because 1 dollar and 4 quarters are the same thing.

And inch is 1/12 of a foot, because 1 foot and 12 inches are the same thing. A foot is 1/3 yard because 1 yard and 3 feet are the same thing.

A minute is 1/60 of an hour, because 1 hour and 60 minutes are the same thing. 15 minutes is 1/4 of an hour because there are four sets of 15 minutes in an hour.

The most common way that fractions are taught is with pizza. Most pizzas are cut into 8 slices, so if we have 8 slices, we have one pizza. Therefore, a slice is 1/8 of a pizza. If two friends share a pizza, and each person eats 4 slices, then each person has eaten 4 slices out of 8, or 4/8, which is the same as 1/2.

Tip of the Week -- Division of Germany

The United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union (The Allied Nations)fought together against Germany, Italy, Japan (the Axis Powers) and during World War II. Both factions included many smaller countries, as well.

When the war was over, much of Europe was in ruins. Germany was a broken country, with it's infrastructure destroyed and its people unable to help themselves. The Allied countries, with the exception of the Soviet Union, wanted to rebuilt Germany so that she could become self-sufficient again, under the Marshall Plan. The Soviet Union wanted to annex Germany as an Eastern Bloc country, so the she would be under Soviet Rule.

As a result of this disagreement, Germany was divided into two countries, East Germany and West Germany. East Germany became a socialist Eastern Bloc country under the Soviet Union, and it's official name was the German Democratic Republic or GDR. West Germany's official name was the Federal Republic of Germany, or FRG. American, British and French troops remained in West Germany throughout the rebuilding, and in 1955, the country was declared "fully sovereign," or operating on its own, with it's own government. West Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the Allied troops maintain bases there until this day, under NATO.

Throught the 1950s, many people attempted to defect from East to West Germany. The easiest place to do this at the time was in Berlin. Although the entire city was in East Germany, half of the city was controlled by the US, Great Britain and France.

In 1961, the Soviets built the Berlin Wall on the border of East and West Berlin. They said it was to protect East German citizens, but it was most likely to keep them from defecting to the West. The Wall became the symbol of the Iron Curtain, the border between the East and the West. In 1990, Germany was officially reunified, and the Berlin Wall was taken down.

Writing Tip of the Day - Spelling

This Saturday, October 9, is International English Spelling Day!

Look around for misspelled words on signs, in newspapers and magazines, and other print materials. Play spelling and word games alone or with your friends. Read a dictionary - seriously!

Check out this website: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~ozideas/spday.htm for more information. The site includes games, spelling tests, and interesting information about why we spell words the way we do. One article talks about what writing was like before we had dictionaries, and people spelled any way they wanted.

I encourage you to check it out!

CCAC Offers Bonuses for GED Students

http://www.examiner.com/personal-finance-in-pittsburgh/fee-ged-classes-for-allegheny-county-residents-come-with-bonus-at-ccac

We all know that a GED can lead to more pay, but it can also help you get a discount on college tuition!

Reading Tip of the Week: Tone

Just as we have a "tone" when we speak, writers and their characters have a "tone."

When you read, think about the characters. Tone can be detected from their words, from the way the words are delivered, and from context. For example:

Jane said, "I'm going to Joe's house."

This sentence is flat. We have no idea why Jane is going to Joe's house, or how she feels about it.

Jane exclaimed, "I'm going to Joe's house!!"

Jane's tone has changed. She's excited or happy now.

Jane rolled her eyes and sneered, "I'm going to Joe's house."

Her tone has changed again. Now she's sarcastic.

A character's tone can change throughout the story, just as a real person's tone can change, depending on the situation.

If we think of The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is a character in the story. His tone starts out calm and calculating, and slowly builds to guilt, and finally to terror and madness.

Sometimes, though, a character will have the same demeanor throughout. Let's look at Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's Dracula. The Count behaves differently with different people, just as we all do. He is a charming gentleman to Mina, a controlling monster to Renfield, and a dangerous adversary to Van Helsing, but he is always secretive, cryptic, and mysterious.