A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

Ok my lovely tokrophers, I have returned after a bit of a long absence to the blogosphere.  We have wrapped up the natural sciences (for now) and are off in the opposite direction (or are we?) to look at History.

Your task for this week is to:

1) Find an account of any significant event in a history textbook. Look at:
o The language that is used

o What information has been included or omitted

o What details are stressed

o What analytic concepts have been used

o The extent to which selection, interpretation and packaging have been used to create historical “truth”

2) Find another history text which gives an account of the same event. Compare and contrast the two and determine which is more accurate. On what basis do you make your decision?

3) What will our own age be called far in the future? The Age of Democracy? The Age of Hypocrisy? The Age of Disaster? Or another alternative? Why? How do you sum up an age in one phrase?

4) For what reasons might future historians have a name for our age which we are totally unable to predict?

5) Identify an historic event which you believe has a single cause. What was the cause of that cause? Trace the sequence back as far as you feel is meaningful, and explain your choice of where to stop.

6) Do you think that all events have causes which are identifiable by historians?

7) It has been said that the historian is like a painter rather than a photographer. By examining the nature of painting and photography, explain to what extent you agree with this analogy.

Happy blogging!
Mrs. Mitchell

Pseudosciencey fun!

For this week's blog homework I want you to do a little scientific investigation of your own.  Below are a list of pseudoscience topics that you can choose from, research and then apply your own scientific minds to.  I want you to summarise their ideas, reflect and come to a conclusion about the 'science' behind these fields.

• astrology
• quackery
• the occult
• superstition
• ESP
• telepathy
• clairvoyance
• reincarnation
• ghosts
• witches
• channeling (astral projection)
• haunted houses
• fairies

Happy hunting!  TTFN

Scientifically Speaking

Hiya Kiddos,

Just thought I'd highlight this email I received from the head of Science at Sandringham.  Since we're going to start the AOK's in a week, this is really ideal that this lecture evening has come up.  How's that for a deterministic universe?  I would really like for as many of you to attend this as possible as I think the main feature lecture should be of real interest to what we'll be examining over the next several weeks.  I've copied the email after this little intro I've written to give you all the significant information about what, when and where its going to be held.  Hope to see you there.

Mrs. Mitchell


Dear all,
Monday March 15th is the beginning of National Science and Engineering Week and I want to highlight an event that may be of interest to you. Scientific Soapbox is an evening of short Science based lectures given by some of the staff at Sandringham on topics such as black holes, allergies in children and the impact of lucozade of sports performance.
The highlight and main feature of the evening is a lecture given by Dr. Tim Hunt who the main man (across the world) in cell division and cancer research. He won a Nobel Prize for his work in 2001 and these are not ten a penny as I'm sure you know. I'm told he is an excellent speaker and well worth watching.


The evening is being promoted to all 6th form Science classes at Sandringham and some Yr 11s but this is a public event so staff, students from your schools, friends and families are welcome. Tickets are free and can be collected from the Sandpit Theatre at Sandringham or by emailing the theatre (sandpit@sandringham.herts.sch.uk or rachel.lloyd@sandringham.herts.sch.uk) or by phoning the Box Office on 01727 370067.
It'd be great to see some of you there.
Lawrence Foster


Head of Science, Sandringham School

A Valentine for my Tokrophers

I hate (emotion) being ill (a state in which my particles are revolting against me)

Hey kiddos... well... here's the good news.  I finished marking your essays.  The bad news.  I am ill yet again and will not be in school to share your marked work with you.  More good news... I have work for you to do in my absence.

Here's what I want from your bloggy-wogs:

I'd like you to answer the following and reflect - it would be uber-amazing if we started a discussion thread on this blog about your different view points here - but failing that just blog it.

1. If you can recognise emotions in people’s faces how does it help your interactions with people?
2. Alternatively, if you cannot recognise emotions in people’s faces how does it hinder your interactions with people?
3. Can you think of examples where people cannot recognise ANY of the emotions they see in a person’s face while they interact with them (Hint - look this up).  Why is this difficult to imagine?
4. Imagine a person with no emotions. The world is neutral to him/her. That person does not engage with the world, as engagement implies one part is more important than another. That person would then have no interest in living or dying. Is that person really a person?
5. If you were emotionally limited how would it affect your access to the 8 areas of knowledge?
6. Are emotional limitations a lens or filter to our ability to “know” our world?
7. Why has emotion sometimes been seen as a less valuable way of knowing than, say, reason? Or does the value of emotion as a way of knowing depend on the kind of knowledge that is being pursued?

I expect that you will do this work during the time you would normally be in my lesson (1.5 hours) and in a homework (1 hour), so this should be easy peasy to get done.

TTFN

Lazy Tokrophers

Here's the link to your homework lazy bones!

http://www.queendom.com/tests/access_page/index.htm?idRegTest=1121


Do the quiz from the above link to see how emotionally intelligent you are and reflect on the results in your blog for this week.

Fallacies blog homework

For this week's blog work, I want you to find 5 examples of logical fallacies on the internet. They can be from any forum you like – the news, the blogosphere, twitter etc…all you have to do is copy them into your blog, identify the fallacy and reflect.  As I mentioned at the end of the lesson, there are several other types of fallacies out there, so if you'd like to do a little extra research you can use any type of fallacy you can find.

Sorry for the wackiness today...my brain hurts.

TTFN