How Kids Can Learn the Geography And Climate Of Israel

For those who wish to learn a good deal about Bible backgrounds, a quick pictorial study, apparently developed for children (but useful for adults too), can be found at:

http://members.cox.net/tei3/E5_03GeographyAncientIsrael.pdf

There will, of course, be differences between the modern and ancient Israel, but the climate and land have changed the least of any two elements of Bible backgrounds one might choose. Here, you learn that about 60% of Israel's land consists of the Negev desert. Who knew.

You can become familiar with those places where David ran from Saul, where Joshua conquered the trespassing 7 nations in this or that battle, and the like. Even when you do not know the cities of the Old World, you still can learn the regions and have a fair idea of what it would have been like to live there.

Have fun looking around at all the diagrams and charts, where you might just learn a good deal more about your Bible in a very short span than you have in a long time.

How Bats Fly Without Pulling an Evel Knevel

You remember E.K., the stunt man who often crashed spectacularly after attempting surprisingly daring jumps across a sea of buses from his high-power motorcycle's saddle. Well, just as cats seem impossibly always to land on their feet, bats being as blind as Daredevil, still manage not to hit things when they fly.

They fly about as well as Evel Knevel rode on his more alcoholic days. If you ever take time to observe them (I have), you will notice they are the craziest pilots around, exhibiting flight patterns similar to - but more exaggerated than -- those of the butterfly. This is aviation mayhem at its finest.

How do the bats keep from slamming into unsuspecting telephone poles? They use a rather sophisticated system for navigating that bounces very high-pitched noises they "screech" from their mouths, using the echoes to locate their position in relation to the oncoming "whatever."

In other words, they -- after a fashion -- scream at the world and honk the horn loud as they can. It's like New York City with wings, fangs and ears. And by the noisy feedback they get, they can tell which yellow taxi, tree, or what have you to dodge next.

Here is a great page that describes the process of "echolocation" used by bats to get along in the world. God has given the wisdom of instinct and special biological equipment to these critters, which scientists do not fully understand. But they know enough to have some really cool webpages on it, and tell you how it basically works.

Here, you can see the wonder of God's wisdom invested in the lower creation -- even if in this case it comes in a shape just a little creepy to the human eye -- but hey -- whatever it is that eats bats, it has to eat too. Humans use electronic systems many ways similar to those by which bats fly to forecast weather, identify enemy aircraft or ships, and a host of other weather tracking and other meteorological activites.

They may fly like Jehu drives, but they do fly. And that itself it fairly marvelous. Here is the page on echolocation and bats for further study:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/bat2.htm

Have fun with biology and physics at the same time.

U.S. History Timeline For Developing Didactic Chronologies

Here is a U.S. history chronology, for use in making a historical overview chart or some other clever device that let's you see the major trends at a glance in U.S. history. Of course, these are highly selective in the nature of the case. This does not make them less useful since you can adapt data from other sources to render their chronological skeletons more balanced. Notice here, there is not ONE reference to William Shatner of Star Trek fame. Hollywood is underrepresented. To the picket lines already.

This one leans heavily to the economic side of history. Others prefer technological timeline events. Better any than none. You learn more that way, and begin to relate one historical notion to another, or events to trends. This leads to analytical thinking about causes and effects, and critical evaluations of the value (long-term or short) of historical actions. Intelligent concepts and thought processes could erupt. This must be stopped.

Here is a fairly good starter kit.

http://www.duke.edu/~charvey/Country_risk/chronology/us-events.htm

Enjoy.