Sunday, December 14, 2008

Smithsonian Turkey Gobbler!

In 1973, college graduate Jim Nollman found out that if you can hit a certain pitch while singing, then male wild turkeys will sing on cue. He tested this finding by singing the song "froggy went a-courting"to 300 male turkeys and they all sang along with him! Smithsonian magazine did a great article about this, check it out at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/music-literature/atm-jukebox-200811.html#

What makes a turkey gobble?

Scientists are conducting research that change in general makes them gobble, whether the change be weather, temperature, migration, terrain or any others.

CRAFT!

Since todays blog is about turkeys, you can draw your own!

Take a piece of paper, a pencil, any markers, glitter, stickers, crayons, string, any craft supplies you would like to decorate the turkey with.

place your hand (opposite to the one you write with) and trace around it with a pencil.

move your hand and cut out the trace, and you will have a hand shaped cutout.

Take orange pipe cleaners (2) and make legs to put on the flat part of the hand.

draw eyes on your turkey and enjoy decorating it!!!

Feel free to submit a photo of your turkey to the contest tab, we'll put our favorites up on the main page when we get enough of them :)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Radio goes Green!

There is a radio station that is on the air that has gone green!

KOST 103.5FM, Southern California's Soft Rock with less talk radio, has updated their website to "go green!"

check it out! http://www.kost1035.com/cc-common/seasonal/gogreen/

Interesting Facts!

Aluminum cans will take 80-100 years to decompose in nature if not recycled.

Glass will never wear out.

1/3 of household trash is product packaging.

Glass bottles in a landfill will take over 1 million years to decompose!

Each year, 100 million trees are used to produce junk mail.

250,000 homes could be heated with one days supply of junk mail.

Americans recieve almost 4 million tons of junk mail each year.

Americans go through 2.5 MILLION plastic bottles PER HOUR! Thats alot of plastic!

Dishwashers use less water than hand washing dishes by almost 5 gallons of water!

58% of US newspapers are recycled

American Flags

Did you know that there is a special way to dispose of American Flags after they are tattered? Its True! The United States Flag Code states that: "The Flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem of display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferable by burning." The flag is such a great symbol of our country, and therefore must be retired in a way that respects our country. The complete ceremony is listed at this website: http://www.usflags.com/index.asp?theTree=Flag+Disposal;Main+Content

For proper disposal of flags, please visit http://www.vfw.org/ :)

Did you know?

The Flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the lyrics for our National Anthem during the battle at Fort McHenry, that been carefully restitched (OVER 1.7 MILLION STITCHES!) over the last ten years and has finally returned to its home in the Natural History Museum in Washington DC! The Smithsonian Magazine has a great article about it that was featured in its November Issue by Robert M. Poole.

The article can be found at this website: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/star-spangled-banner.html

It tells how the flag was originally made in the 1800's by Mary Pickersgill on a rush order by Major George Armistead, and explains how the flag stayed intact throughout the years.

It also has interesting information that I would have never known if I had not read the article! For Example, did you know that Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner in a hotel room in Baltimore? And that it originally was a poem? AMAZING!

This is a great article to read so please, CHECK IT OUT!