This is a nice kid. She’s Olivia Bouler and she’s an artist with a great love for birds. She is offering her art for sale to help the birds in the BP Gulf Oil Disaster. The money goes to organizations that can help out like the National Audubon Society.
Here’s a Facebook page that Olivia’s parents set up for the project.
Salman Khan teaches math and science via YouTube video lessons. It’s called Khan Academy. He teaches a wide variety of subjects including algebra, calculus, biology, physics, chemistry and statistics. He thinks everyone should be able to get an education for free and he does not think universities are doing it properly. The education model needs to be rethought and rebuilt. Many people think so and that’s why Kahn Academy has so many students and is attracting venture capital money. He’s getting more viewers than most university web sites. Here’s a PBS NewsHour piece about him:
Here’s a lesson on adding and subtracting fractions:
A pair of surgeons who specialize in stopping uncontrolled bleeding from blood vessels have offered their solution for plugging the Gulf oil leak. It uses basic technology that shuts off high pressure leaks inside the human body.
Watch the film below, then watch the idea I presented on May 27th below that. The two ideas are very close and share a heavy top weight concept connecting to an extending narrow pipe. The surgeons have added the concept of tapering the extending pipe. Fascinating. I think that the real solution to plugging the oil gusher will be something very close to these ideas.
The idea from the surgeons:
My idea:
This is a film made in a workshop run by Quirky Pictures for the BBC Children in Need at the Downsview Special School in the U.K. It’s just insanely beautiful. These kids are learning to be free with various artistic modes and they have made something that is mysterious, magical and wonderful. They are 9 – 12 years old and they make all their paper cutouts, puppets, and props. They storyboard and watercolor and narrate. They have their own little movie studio going into operation. These workshops must be something to see because these results are something very rare. I think the BBC should put together a television show and get all these things on the air.
This animated short is by Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham. Drill baby drill! On Mars! This is what happens when you run around punching holes in things.
This is a good demonstration of an idea for helping in the Gulf BP disaster. I don’t know if the blowout preventer could withstand the downward force exerted upon it by the plug however. But there are certainly adaptations of this idea that might work if the blowout preventer were removed from the equation. The main point though is that kids are engaging in logical thinking about the problem. At this very moment, I would be willing to bet that the complete solution to the BP oil disaster is already available. It has been thought of and put somewhere. For sure. It simply needs to be found now.