MSM 660: The Dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) and Seventh Graders
Summary:
Shawn and Troy talk about charts, graphs, Dihydrogen Monoxide, and more. Dave stops.
Jokes:
Why did the pencil get flushed down the toilet? It was a #2!
Did you hear about the piece of fruit that left it’s wallet at a George Michael concert in Zurich?
- It was a Careless Swiss Pear.
Which word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
how do you tell the sex of an ant?
- Put it in water. If it sinks, girl ant. If it floats…. boy ant
Today, my son asked “Can I have a book mark?” and I burst into tears. 11 years old and he still doesn’t know my name is Brian.
To the person who stole my glasses. I can still drink from the bottle.
My mate is the biggest Beatles fan in the world.
He’s got every single they made except one.
I think he needs Help.
I’m giving my chimney away for free… You could say it’s on the house
“I’m now up to 1000 crunches a day. Between the capt crunch, cornnuts, pringles, bugles, crunch bars, crunchy general tsos, granola and bunch a crunch. I’m getting it done!”
The Swiss must’ve been pretty confident in their chances of victory if they included a corkscrew in their army knife.
I don’t get all the excitement surrounding Nintendo’s new product announcement…
My house is full of light switches!
Middle School Science Minute
by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)
K12Science Podcast: STOP Doing
I was recently reading the March – April 2025 issue of “The Science & Children”, a publication of the National Science Teaching Association.
In this issue, I read the section, “The Poetry of Science” written by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater She wrote an article entitled, “‘If We Stopped.”
When we imagine acting as Earth’s stewards, we often focus on what we can DO, but in this poem, the author challenges us to consider what we might STOP doing.
http://k12science.net/stop-doing/
I checked out birdcast.info. It is a pretty good website. It had a ton of information regarding the birds that are in the air. The only thing was that it did not go into specifics regarding species of birds. I look forward to the return of hummingbirds and baltimore orioles. For hummingbirds, I use: https://www.hummingbirdcentral.com/hummingbird-migration-spring-2025-map.htm
Reports from the Front Lines
- DHMO Project underway
- Persuasion
- Interdisciplinary
- Community Interviews
- Playing with Halo AR https://www.haloar.app/
The Social Web
What does the word creativity mean to you?
I thought I knew.
Like “making something new” but sometimes it’s making something different.
Or looking at something old from a different perspective, with a different lens.
Or sorting through a pile of maybe to find the one.
Now? Having thought about it?
I don’t know.
Word of the Day is ‘apricate’ (17th century): to turn your face to the sun and bask in its warmth.
Rick Wormeli @rickwormeli.bsky.social
New piece out today in Principal Leadership (NASSP) with behinds-the-scenes advice when talking with faculty about changes in grading practices, which can be challenging. www.https://www.nassp.org/publication/principal-leadership/volume-25-2024-2025/principal-leadership-may-2025/viewpoint-may-2025/
Resources:
Landmark Cases of the Supreme Court
Street Law, Inc. and the Supreme Court Historical Society developed and launched LandmarkCases.org to provide teachers with a full range of resources and activities to support the teaching of landmark Supreme Court cases.
https://landmarkcases.org/landmark-cases
How To Say The Number 92
https://brilliantmaps.com/number-92/
Chart of the Day
Looking for some great charts? Need examples to show kids? Want a good discussion topic?
https://www.statista.com/chartoftheday
Based on A True Story?
https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/based-on-a-true-true-story
AXIS The Culture Translator
Hard to Believe
What it is: According to Politico, being a digital native doesn’t make someone information-savvy—and Gen Z is the generation most likely to be duped by unverified information online.
Why there’s more to it: We know that teenagers, young adults, and their parents are all susceptible to being misled by wild claims shared online. (That’s why we teamed up with The Pour Over last year to make a Media Literacy Kit.) Politico gives some extreme examples of Gen Z’s credulity, including a TikTok trend from several years ago that insisted Helen Keller had faked her disabilities. The article points out that young people just don’t trust institutional sources of information, which could be part of why they sometimes don’t bother to verify facts by looking them up. But this cynicism about traditional media isn’t limited to just young people—and maybe, that isn’t entirely a bad thing.
National History Day
Is funded through 2025 and is looking for funding for 2026. States and affiliates are funded for next year.
Web Spotlight:
Responding to Calls for “Free Speech”
In reality, the First Amendment is a limit on government power. It ensures that the state cannot punish or restrict most types of speech. It does not compel private individuals, organisations, or platforms – centralised or decentralised – to host, promote, or tolerate any particular content.
Put simply, free speech in the US is a legal guarantee against government censorship, not a free pass to say anything without consequence in any context.
Most social media platforms, including decentralised ones, are operated by private individuals or communities. These platforms are free to establish their own rules, block or restrict content, and curate community standards that suit their values and needs. This is not a violation of free speech, it is a legitimate exercise of community autonomy.
Within the legal boundaries of the US, certain forms of speech are not protected under the First Amendment. The US Supreme Court has long recognised that some categories of speech carry such significant risk of harm that they may be legally restricted or punished. These include:
When community guidelines prohibit content that falls within or even near these legally unprotected categories, they are not stifling freedom, they are building safer, more inclusive environments.
https://connect.iftas.org/library/community-management/responding-to-calls-for-free-speech
People You Should Know
Mike Rowe’s Show is back . . .
“Your mission this weekend, should you choose to accept it, is to share this trailer with everyone on the planet. Or at least, with a few friends who might enjoy a show about the neighbors you wish you had. Episode one of People You Should Know drops right here on my YouTube Channel May 2nd. I don’t have a network behind me on this one, or a big production company, so you guys are my marketing and publicity department. No pressure, but the entire endeavor is in your hands.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w2y1fixzpU
Click the Play button below to listen to the show!
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