Something for Summer Lessons: Learning Is a Lifelong Activity Each of the INSIDE Online Guides Has a Theme with Suggested That Does Not Take Summer Breaks

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Volume 8, Issue 10

SOMETHING FOR

Summer

PHoTos BY lINDA DAVIDsoN, GeRAlD mARTINeAu — THe WAsHINGToN PosT; sANDRA leAVITT leRNeR, BeN CHAPmAN FoR THe WAsHINGToN PosT

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In education Program A Word About Something for Summer Lessons: Learning is a lifelong activity Each of the INSIDE online guides has a theme with suggested that does not take summer breaks. activities for use in two or more disciplines within different grades. The newspaper can be a key partner in In this June guide we just want to have summer fun as we read The developing an interest in many areas of Washington Post and learn. knowledge. Find physics at a baseball game, swimming pool or amusement park. Take a road trip to lighthouses or count dragonflies. Celebrate Level: Low to High a lunar walk and witness a solar eclipse. Many of the articles are Subjects: English, Science models for writing. Read about an icon or observe a group at a Related Activity: Health swimmin’ hole. Then write about an experience. The content reflects the diversity of subjects, approaches and sources that can be found in every issue of The Washington Post. Activities are suggested to inspire reading, writing and learning through a stroll down the street or short excursions of the imagination. The Post Sports section is exploring swimming coverage with more depth by giving every metro-area swimming team a page on a new Web site. Take the electronic plunge at http:reachforthewall. com. e- Think e- you are so e-busy you might miss Post coverage of an Replica eventReplica or topic? SetReplica up an e-Replica alert.

NIE Online Guide Editor — Carol Lange Art Editor — Carol Porter

Available Online All Washington Post NIE guides may be downloaded at www.washpost.com/nie.

Send comments about this guide to: Margaret Kaplow, Educational Services Manager, [email protected]

Cover Design: Collage by Carol Porter for The Washington Post

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

Something for Summer Beaches

Learning does not stop when the academic year ends. The Washington www.epa.gov/beaches/learn/pollution.html Post reports on many worthwhile activities, provides calendars Beach Pollution of events and includes maps for a Road Trip. This guide includes Environmental Protection Agency overview articles to inspire writing, reading and experiencing summer in the of causes and sources of water pollution at Metropolitan area. beaches

Do a Crossword section. Older students may find www.epa.gov/owow/oceans/ Homophones sound alike and titles there that they will enjoy. Oceans, Coasts & Estuaries give some students problems EPA clearinghouse for programs and latest with spelling. After discussing the Find a Fossil information meaning of “homophone,” including Did you know that Maryland has its Greek root (homophonos: a state fossil? So does Virginia. www.nrdc.org/water/oceans/qttw.asp homos, same + phone, sound), give A KidsPost article, “X Marks the Beach Pollution students “Sounds Right to Me.” Fossil,” gives a new way to enjoy Natural Resources Defense Council Q and A Answers are found at the end of a walk along the beach and cliffs on beach pollution, press releases, stories and these suggested activities. lining the shores of the Potomac links to recommended sites Six pairs of homophones are River and Chesapeake Bay. found in the crossword puzzle. Discuss the article and locate the www.nationalgeographic.com/features/00/ Students might list the pairs of places mentioned on a map. Have earthpulse/reef/reef1_flash.html homophones found in the puzzle. any students found fossils? If you Great Barrier Reef For the remaining words, they have access, bring in examples of Take a National Geographic virtual dive off are to provide the homophone fossils to share. the northeastern coast of Australia correctly spelled. Students may also Visit the Smithsonian’s National be asked to provide three to five Museum of Natural History to view www.oceansatlas.com/index.jsp additional pairs of homophones. a much larger collection. Online UN Atlas of the Oceans Use the homophones in sentences select The Life of a Vertebrate Uses, issues and geography of the globe’s to distinguish them in meaning and Fossil (http://paleobiology.si.edu). oceans spelling. Encourage students to find a fossil during the summer break. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ Read a Book artsandliving/travel/ Summer is a great time to read Celebrate Lunar and Solar Events Travel just for fun. Books can be read to Two special events take place in Washington Post travel article archives; look follow a theme, explore an interest the summer of 2009. for articles about travel to islands and shores or learn about other people. Take July 20 is the 40th anniversary Flight, in the sidebar, provides of the Apollo 11 mission’s moon recent titles that celebrate the landing. Neil Armstrong took his 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 “small step” after the “Eagle” had mission, lunar landing and walk on landed on the surface of the moon. the moon. He and “Buzz” Aldrin collected KidsPost Reading Club in 2009 lunar samples for 21 hours, focuses on nonfiction books. Read then docked with the Columbia biographies, works about discovery, command module in which Michael history and science, animals and Collins had been orbiting the moon. plants. Visit the official NASA site Although The Post no longer has (www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ a Book World Sunday section, book reviews are found daily in the Style continued on page 4

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 3 Just as Metro section reporters Take Flight were assigned to select and apollo/40th/index.html) for more write about an icon of summer, Bizony, Piers information. Set up an e-Replica ask students to select an icon of One Giant Leap: Apollo 11 Remembered alert to read Post coverage of the summer and write an essay. You Zenith Press, 2009 anniversary. determine if they are to include Space historian Bizony selected stunning “Apollo 11: One Giant Leap” is description, interviews (formal and images; essay and quotations provided for students to place the informal), and facts from research. 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 The entire Icons of Summer Daniels, Patricia mission and moon landing into series may be read at http://www. The New Solar System historic perspective as well as washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ National Geographic, 2009 think about the future of space content/linkset/2008/06/26/ On the 50th anniversary of NASA, guide exploration. LI2008062602770.html. The icons explores Earth’s planetary neighborhood; On July 22, a total solar eclipse included BBQ, mosquitoes, the photographs, diagrams, essays, fact boxes will take place. According to the hula hoop, swimwear and garden NASA Web site (http://eclipse. hoses. Teachers may wish to give Jacobs, Robert gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2009/ additional articles to students to Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts TSE2009.html), the “path of the analyze the approaches taken by NASA and Abrams Books, 2009 Moon’s umbral shadow begins in these reporters. Apollo missions 7-17, using photographs India.” Visit the NASA site and read selected by each of the 21 surviving Apollo The Post for coverage of this event. Count Birds and Dragonflies astronauts; foreword by Stephen Hawking Another summer activity in which and his daughter Lucy Write About a Summer Icon to be engaged — observing and During the summer of 2008, keeping a count of birds, dragonflies Platt, Richard and David Hawcock Metro’s annual summer series and butterflies — takes place in the Moon Landing: Apollo 11 40th Anniversary focused on the icons of summer. D.C. metropolitan area. Teachers Pop-Up Reporters were instructed to find may encourage students to be Candlewick, 2008 a story about a summer icon. Each involved in one of these activities NASA photographs, illustrations, pop-ups; had to determine a symbol of or establish your own count of flora dreams to technological reality summer and find the story. In this and fauna on school property and guide, we have included “Diving neighborhoods over the summer. Ross, Stewart Into the Mystic Waters of Memory,” What a great way to get to know Moon: Science, History and Mystery the reader’s chose for favorite story. students who will be in your classes Scholastic, 2009 Define “icon” and make a list of in the next academic year, establish The moon’s myths, influence on culture and examples under the categories of some protocols and have data to use the story of the preparation, journey and religion, culture, automobile and in the future. landing of Apollo 11 music. What qualities do the people Read “Life, on the Wing: and items listed as icons share? Dragonfly-Counting is a Reston Thimmesh, Catherine How do they differ? Lead discuss Ritual That Adds Up to Something Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed from these symbols to icons of Greater.” Dragonflies do not get Apollo 11 on the Moon summer. the attention that butterflies and Houghton Mifflin Books, 2006 Add another column labeled cardinals and rare wildflowers Historic flight from the perspective of the summer. Brainstorm possible receive, but in this piece readers behind-the-scenes people who made it events, items and members of the gain an appreciation for the insect. happen animal kingdom to list. Readers who are drawn to this Read “Diving Into the Mystic feature by the appealing photograph Waters of Memory.” A reproducible, or the idea of a local ritual, find that “Icons of Summer | Swimmin’ the writer’s observation “adds up Holes,” is provided with questions to something greater.” This is more for students to answer. continued on page 5

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 4 selected Sunday Source Road Trip Read About It maps may be found online (www. than a story of public service by washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ The American Association for the unconnected individuals. content/linkset/2005/04/07/ Advancement of Science recommends Questions about the article would LI2005040700365.html). the following works in its science book include: Road Trip includes drives to awards. • Why conduct a count of wildflowers in the Shenandoah dragonflies? [paragraphs 4-5] Mountains, history and mystery in Arnosky, Jim • What is the difference between Richmond’s Church Hill, literary The Brook Book “civic duty” and “cherished inspiration in D.C. and homemade Dutton Children’s, 2008 ritual”? cookies and sweets north of Guide to making observations, activities; • What information does paragraph Baltimore. Note that some of the includes safety while exploring a brook 3 provide? suggested drives have two files to • In what way(s) does Brendan download. One file has the map and Bishop, Nic illustrate the aphorism “Don’t one file has the narrative. Spiders judge a book by its cover”? Scholastic Books, 2007 • Summarize the stories of Play Baseball Arachnophobes and enthusiasts will find Catherine Linberg, Niko Rabin, “Thrown for a Loop” was up-close photographs and informative text Brendan Honeychuck and Cynthia published in 2006 in the Sports to give another view of spiders O’Connell, and Kevin Munroe. section. It provides some • What is the unifying device used background information about Collard, III, Sneed B. Robin Brickman, illus. in the opening and closing? Boston Red Sox player Daisuke Wings • The dragonfly is a concrete insect Matsuzaka who had signed a Charlesbridge, 2008 that is being counted. How is it six-year contract with the team. Covered with scales, feathers or bare skin, also a metaphor? Discuss the terms of the contract. wings allow insects, birds and bats to move What do students know of through the air; colorful collage illustrations Take a Road Trip Matuzaka’s current status? Has Read the narrative and map found he been a good investment for the Davies, Nicola. Neal Layton, illus. in “Road Trip — Beacons of Coastal team? What’s Eating You? Parasites — History.” Students might be asked Follow “Dice-K” during the the Inside Story to locate this portion of the map summer, keeping a log of his wins- Candlewick, 2007 on a larger map. This Road Trip losses, batting and other stats. How Zoologist Davies explains the small easily accompanies the reading does he compare with other major parasites, some benefits for their hosts and of nonfiction and fiction (To the league pitchers? means both use to survive Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, The Physics teachers (theory of Lighthouse in the Adam Dalgliesh “double-spin mechanics,” gravity) Herz, Rachel mystery books) books that feature and baseball fans (importance of The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic lighthouses. pitchers to the game) might discuss Sense of Smell Have students plan a Road Trip. the mechanics involved in pitching Morrow, 2007 They could be asked to map the and achieving the gyroball, in Research, neurobiological principles, stories route by car, write about five to particular. Use the informational and personal accounts; from basic sense to six stops along the way to the graphics to guide your discussion. electronic noses destination and what theme guides Although readers learn about the choices. Mathematics could be Matsuzaka, the article focuses on a Sitarski, Anita. added in plotting the miles between pitch, one that may or may not be Cold Light: Creatures, Discoveries, and stops and planning a budget for the thrown by this pitcher. Questions Inventions that Glow round trip. would include: Boyds Mills Press, 2007 Road Trip appeared in the Sunday • What does the reporter mean: Chemical and biological sources of Source weekly until May 24, 2009. “New pitches come along in luminescence, discoveries from 1602 to It is now found once a month in today; intriguing photos the Travel section. An archive of continued on page 6

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 5 Counts Ride a Rollercoaster baseball about as often as Triple Even if your school does not The Encyclopedia of Life, a 10-year inter- Crown winners; …”? How does participant in an annual Physics national project based at the Smithsonian the second part of the sentence, Day, you can appreciate physics in Institution, is asking people around the answer the question? action on various rides in theme world to help compile an Internet-based • To what does “Bruce Sutter” parks and the feature written by observatory of life as a guide to everything allude in this quotation: … Post reporter Nelson Hernandez. from pests that damage crops to sightings “we’ll see who the Bruce Sutter of Read “The Thrill of Physics” of rare birds in Canada to flowers blooming the gyroball is.” in the spirit of interdisciplinary in Australia in spring. • What are the following: collaboration. From the Style screwball, change-up, cut fastball, section, this article provides These can be observations around your slider, split-fingered fastball? models in the use of tone, allusion, home or during daily activities. If you are • After reading the article, do quotations, observation, numbers, planning to take a hike, keep a record of students believe the gyroball contrasting details, and the luck of trees, new growth, flowers, animals or exists? finding the right people to follow insects that you see. • Would students recommend that during the day. the Nationals give their pitchers a Teachers might assign students to You can get training to be a better observer lesson in the gyroball? read the quotations of the five high this summer. Check in your area for classes. Do research to find out what has school students and the narrative. happened in the use/existence of After reading, divide the class into People in the Reston area should contact the gyroball between the publishing four groups. Some of the questions RA Central Services (12250 Sunset Hill of this article and now. the groups might answer include: Road, next to the YMCA) for the following classes and information about counts that GROUP 1: TONE will take place in July and August. In the • What is the tone of the feature? How does diction and syntax of the classes, participants learn identification, first sentence establish it? behavior, natural history and conservation. • Find examples of diction, similes and details throughout the piece that re-enforce the writer’s voice. Dragonfly Class, • Does the tone remain the same to the end of the feature? Explain. July 16

GROUP 2: OBSERVED DETAIL Dragonfly Count, • Do you think the reporter looked inside the workbook that the July 19 boys carried? • Make a list of details included in the piece that came from the reporter’s observing the park. Categorize the details into the type of information the reader gets. • How does the author use the names of four rides — Mind Eraser, Roar, Joker’s Jinx, Superman: Ride of Steel — to establish realism and reflect the boys’ experience?

GROUP 3: USE OF NUMBERS • In the third sentence, the first of many numbers is given. Why was it important to give the number of students present in the park that day? • What effect is created by including mph and feet? Butterfly • Does knowing the drop and speed of the Superman ride detract Class, from or reenforce the author’s description of the boys’ responses? July 30 Place the reader in a seat on the ride? Butterfly Count, continued on page 7 August 1

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In education Program continued from page 6 Reach for the Wall

• To what extent does the writer’s use of physics terms make the piece enjoyable to read? Does one need to know physics to appreciate this slice of life piece? The D.C. Metro area GROUP 4: FIVE GUYS is a hotbed • Of the 4,000 students that enter the park, readers meet five male of youth students. Why do you think they were selected? [They were together, swimming note names that reflect possible diversity, and the 28-page workbook they and in the carry.] summer • Why do you think the reporter uses their first names? After giving the there’s a swim whole name, reporters normally use the last name. league in every • Isolate each boy’s quotations. What personalities emerge for each one? one of the • Follow Irving’s development through the quotations included and his local counties. interaction with his friends. ■ That adds up to approximately 50,000 kids, ages 6 though ANSWERS. sounds Right to me 18, participating in competitive 1 2 3 4 5 6 summer H A R E A U N T S swimming from 7 8 mid-June through I I A N T E E early August. The goal of 9 10 11 12 13 the Post’s Sports M I G H T A B A T E section’s new Web site (reachforthewall. 14 15 com) is to create an extensive online H E E H Y M N community for these area swimmers, 16 17 18 19 coaches and swim parents. R I T E K S In addition to Post coverage, each team will be given a page to add information, 20 21 22 pictures and video, quotations and stats O T L N M I T E — teams will report behind-the-scenes, 23 24 25 26 on the bench and in the pool. It will be as T E A H O U R E A easy as clicking and typing, and something 27 28 that all team members, their parents and E K N E W T E E M coaches can join in on because everyone will have the ability to post text (directly onto our site), pictures (on our flickr group) and, eventually, video (on our YouTube channel). Reach for the Wall to share this 1 2 3 4 5 6 summer’s strokes and successes with grandma in Seattle, former team members in San Antonio and folks in the entire D.C. 7 8 Metro area. ■

9 10 11 12 13

20 21 22

23 24 25 26

27 28 1 H A 2 R E 3 A 4 U N 5 T 6 S 7 I I 8 A N T E E 9 10 11 12 13 M I G H T A B A T E 14H E E 15H Y M N 16 17 18 19 R I T E K S 20O T L N 21M I 22T E 23 24 25 26 Name ______T E A H O U R DateE ______A Sounds Right to Me 27 28

HomophonesE are pronounced theK same, Nbut differE in origin, W meaning and spelling.T ThisE crossword E puzzle M in composed of many homophones, including six pairs. Read the clues to complete the puzzle.

When you have completed the puzzle, list the pairs of homophones. Use them in sentences to distinguish the meaning of each word. Be sure to spell them correctly.

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8

9 10 11 12 13

14 15

16 17 18 19

20 21 22

23 24 25 26

27 28

ACROSS DOWN 1. Similar to a rabbit, with longer ears and legs 1. Third person, singular, objective pronoun 3. Married to your uncle 2. Correct 7. First person singular, nominative pronoun 3. Indefinite article used before vowels 8. An annoyance at a picnic 4. The beehive state 9. Power, strength 5. Players form a ___ 11. Lessen 6. Perceive with the eyes 14. Sound made by a donkey, ___haw 8. Consumed 15. Song of praise sung at a religious service 10. The back part of the foot 16. Customary way of performing a ceremony 12. Preposition meaning close to, along 20. Occupational Therapy, acronym 13. Postal abbreviation for Tennessee 21. Small arachnid 16. Memorize by repetition 23. Beverage made from dried leaves 17. Suffix, meaning native to 25. Sixty minutes 18. Comprehend 26. Each, abbrev. 19. Line formed by sewing two pieces of fabric, suture 27. Past tense of “know” 21. Mass Rapid Transit, acronym 28. Swarm, full of things 22. Found on a golf course 24. Postal abbreviation for Alaska 25. Third person, nominative pronoun Volume 8, Issue 10

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

X Marks the Fossil Fossil-Finding Tricks

Beachcombers Uncover Millions of Years of History • To hunt for waterside fossils, some people use screened sifters or long- • Originally Published August 8, 2007 Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae, is the handled tools called gem scoops. Maryland state fossil. These can help sort fossils from sand Next time you walk along a sandy And what at first glance appears to and pebbles. But many people have beach, look down. You might be be an ordinary scallop shell might be just as much luck using their eyes and walking over fossils millions of years Virginia’s state fossil, the Chesapecten hands. old. jeffersonius, dating back about 5 Fossils are hardened remains, million years. • The day after a big storm and during imprints or traces of plant and animal Lauck Ward became fascinated with low tide are good times to find life that existed in earlier geological fossils when he was 8. His family fossilized teeth, bones and shells. periods. They have stories to tell — often vacationed in the Shenandoah not with a voice, but in the clues they Valley, where an 80-year-old resident • When you look for fossils, you need give us about what life, weather and took Ward, his brother and some to be patient and very observant. Be Earth’s environment were like long friends on hikes, stopping often to sure you are on public property; stay ago. point out signs of the past. away from privately owned places or Did you know that before there was Ward learned about trilobites — designated wilderness areas where a Chesapeake Bay, the region was extinct marine arthropods about fossil-hunting is not allowed. covered by a warm, shallow sea that 450 million years old that were the offered lots of nutrients and plants for ancestors of many of today’s insects. marine life? Sharks, rays and whales The fossils he found were embedded • Never lived and died in the area of today’s in shale, a thinly layered rock. dig in Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. These were life-changing outings for the dirt of As the sea’s waters receded, fish, Ward. “It’s like an idea that clicks in steep cliffs birds and other animals became your head, then gets you seeking more along the shore embedded in what are now cliffs lining information,” he said. Now, 50 years — they might the shore. Their soft tissue — muscles later, he is the chief paleontologist — collapse. and blood vessels, for example — a person who studies fossils — at the deteriorated, but hard parts including Virginia Museum of Natural History teeth and bones remain. in Martinsville. The most common fossils found Any kid can have fun fossil- locally are sharks’ teeth. However, it’s hunting. not unusual to find crocodile teeth, While 11-year-old Rose Hancock whale bones and dental plates of rays. of St. Mary’s County was collecting Look carefully as you walk in the sharks’ teeth near the water’s edge sand at Breezy Point, Flag Ponds at Breezy Point recently, others were and Calvert Cliffs in Maryland and having just as much luck yards away, Westmoreland State Park in Virginia. in the dry sand. Fossilized shark teeth from 12 million Kayla Hymiller, 6, of Carroll County to 22 million years ago are right under found a three-pointed cow-shark your toes. tooth while running her hand along In some places, you might brush the sand near a piece of driftwood. sand away from buried shells to “It was sitting right there,” she said uncover an ecphora, the shell of a snail happily. that lived 5 million to 12 million years ago. One species, the double-named — Ann Cameron Siegal

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In education Program Beacons of Coastal History

• Originally Published Sunday, May 17, 2009 a prolific lighthouse builder during the early 19th century; for example, the granite tower in Havre de Grace, where he is WHY: An illuminating ship, step master and a haunted buried, is his creation. Donahoo specialized in conical towers lighthouse. of brick and stone, yet Maryland is equally well known for the screwpile light station, an offshore beacon built on an HOW FAR: About 160 miles from start to finish. underwater platform that was screwed to rocks and sandy shoals, paradoxically the main hazards of ship navigation. This spring, head for the light — houses. The screwpile, as well as the more common caisson, resemble After hibernating during the colder months, Maryland’s cottages topped with cupolas containing powerful lamps and lighthouses are opening their doors to let in some fresh air and glass or acrylic lenses. the visiting public. Fans of maritime history and structures To be sure, part of the allure of lighthouses are the that shine day and accompanying stories night can view two that often contain a dozen light stations touch of romance, sprinkled along more mystery or, in one case, than 7,000 miles of female empowerment. coastline. The majority Turkey Point Light still operate, casting Station was tended by their long, white light more women than any across the waters of other lighthouse on the Chesapeake and the Chesapeake, with assorted bays and Fannie Mae Salter rivers. serving as keeper “People visit the from 1925 to 1947, lighthouses for the when the light was architecture, and automated. For a spine for photo ops, and tingle, Point Lookout especially for the Lighthouse is said history,” says Karen to be haunted by the Rosage, a coordinator ghosts of Confederate at the Chesapeake BY BeN CHAPmAN— THe WAsHINGToN PosT soldiers who died in a chapter of the U.S. Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse, originally installed on a shoal in the Patapsco River in 1855, is Civil War POW camp the oldest surviving screwpile in Maryland. Lighthouse Society, that once occupied adding, “The reason the same parcel. why Maryland is such a great Every year, viewing lighthouse state is because we Where to Find More lighthouses (10 sites in all) have so many different varieties.” turns into a marathon sport The lifesaving structures come Washington Post Road Trips with the Maryland Lighthouse in myriad shapes and styles: lamps Challenge, a two-day driving on ships, vertiginous towers, An archive of selected Road Trip maps may be found online (www. tour scheduled for September. washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/07/ boxy houses. The oldest was LI2005040700365.html). Road Trip includes drives to wildflowers With lighthouse season upon constructed in 1825 on Pooles in the shenandoah mountains, history and mystery in Richmond’s us, now is the perfect time to Island, in the northwest section Church Hill, literary inspiration in D.C., and homemade cookies start training, one lighthouse of the upper Chesapeake. John and sweets north of Baltimore. step at a time. Donahoo, one of two developers Note that some of the suggested drives have two files to down- -- Ben Chapman on the project, went on to become load. one file has the map and one file has the narrative.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

Beacons of Coastal History | Continued

MAP BY JEROME COOKSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Apollo 11: One Giant Leap Parallel Syntax

U.S. Space Program Background “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” 1. Why was the launch of Sputnik cause for concern in the — Neil Armstrong United States? 2. Which American presidents are closely associated with the “Beautiful view. Magnificent desolation.” beginnings of the lunar landing program? — Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin 3. After a temporary slowing of activity, what important forces and events moved the U.S. space effort forward? Use of parallel structure by Neil Armstrong 4. Who originated the term “Cold War”? What is meant by the and Buzz Aldrin as they comment on step- phrase “astronauts as surrogate combatants”? ping on the moon’s surface make their words easier to memorize and succinct. Both have Apollo 11 grace of expression.

5. Who were the astronauts aboard Apollo 11? Parallel structure requires that words be 6. What technical glitch almost aborted the Apollo 11 moon the same part of speech usually in the same landing? order within a sentence or consecutive sen- 7. What unintended activity did Neil Armstrong have to perform tences or paragraphs. as the lander neared touchdown? 8. What was Michael Collins’ role in the Apollo 11 mission? For example: 9. On what day and year did man land on the moon? one small step 10. What impact did the Apollo 11 mission have in decisions one giant leap leading to today’s space program? follow the pattern of adjective, adjective, noun. This is more powerful because “one” Your Thoughts refers to the physical first step and the goal of many fulfilled. What do you think the next steps in U.S. space exploration, if any, should be? Support your response. for man for mankind What is communicated in the change of noun in the prepositional phrase?

Aldrin’s comments offer another element of eloquence through four words in parallel structure. Both are adjective, noun construc- tion. One would expect him to think the view was “beautiful.” What is achieved in following “magnificent” with a noun that few would associate with beauty or magnifi- cence?

AP PHOTO/NASA Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, the first men to land on the moon, plant the U.S. flag on the lunar surface, July 20, 1969. Photo was made by a 16mm movie camera inside the lunar module, shooting at one frame per second. Volume 8, Issue 10

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program BY JOHN ANDERSON — THE WASHINGTON POST — THE WASHINGTON JOHN ANDERSON BY As an airplane picks up speed, the air pressure above the wing gets lower and the pressure below wing gets higher. This causes lift. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: HORIZON section, August 11, 1999 section, August PUBLISHED: HORIZON ORIGINALLY - In the middle stage of stroke, propulsion comes entirely from pushing back ward on the water like an oar. In the early stage of stroke, the hand moves diagonally, generating lift like an airplane wing. How the Body Cuts Through Water the Body Cuts Through How lower causes drag Form drag. two main kinds of Swimmers encounter from results drag than in front. Wave the body behind water pressure ahead. water piling up in a bow wave Swimming underwater helps drag. wave eliminate by Ernest W. Maglischo Ernest W. by Swimming the Science of Guide to A Comprehensive Faster: Even Swimming SOURCE:

Diving Into the

“We stand today poised on a pinnacle of wealth and power, yet we live in a Mystic Waters of land of vanishing beauty, of increasing ugliness, or shrinking open space.” — Alice Roosevelt Longworth Memory

After reading “Diving Into the Mystic Waters of Memory,” a Washington Post Metro section article, answer the following questions on your own paper.

1. Which of the senses is emphasized in the opening paragraph? Give examples.

2. What is an avocation of Tom Hillegass in his retirement?

3. What do the references to Mark Twain add to the article?

4. More than one swimming hole is visited and people who are found there are quoted. In what ways does this add or detract from the story and its theme?

5. Hillegass warns of the dangers of swimming holes on his Web site. Since this article is about the “icons of summer,” do you think the negative aspects should be included? Do the dangers make the water more or less “mystic”?

6. In addition to observation, interviews (formal and informal), and literary reference (Mark Twain), the author has included research. In what ways does the research add depth, perspective and contrast to the article?

7. Review the first five paragraphs and the last five paragraphs of the story. In what ways are they bookends for the entire piece? Consider the locations, the description and use of senses, the facts and personal stories.

8. Should the location of swimming holes be left to locals rather than shared on Hillegass’s Web site? Include your reasons. Volume 8, Issue 10

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Diving Into the Mystic Waters of Memory

By Brigid Schulte Washington Post Staff Writer

• Originally Published “We stand today poised on a pinnacle of wealth and power, yet we live in a land of August 30, 2008 vanishing beauty, of increasing ugliness, or shrinking open space.” — Alice Roosevelt Longworth Shhh. Listen. A half-mile clamber up a steep trail of smooth boulders, a trickle of crystal-clear water spills over a wide, flat rock into a silent pool. The unbroken surface reflects a grove of arching pine trees swaying in a gentle late- summer breeze. The smell is distinctive. Fresh. With a hint of mud. Welcome to the Mountain Run swimming hole. It’s the kind of place Tom Hillegass has spent more than a decade looking for. He wades in. The water is cold enough to take his breath and numb his legs and deep enough to disappear into. Perfect. Or at least, according to his scale, an 8.5 out of 10. “It’s like being embraced by nature,” he says. “Or about as close to an embrace as you can get.” Hillegass, a retired Department of Transportation civil engineer who for 12 years has run the Web site http://swimmingholes. org out of his Alexandria home, is about as close to being an expert on swimming holes in BY SARAH VOISIN — THE WASHINGTON POST America as one can get. And with the swimming hole a fixture in the nation’s mythical identity since at least the times is that swimming holes still exist. There are not as many as of Mark Twain, that’s saying a lot. before because cities and suburbs have swallowed up rural The first thing Hillegass wants people to know in this age areas, and developers and landowners have fenced off beloved of square concrete pools with chlorinated water and plastic splash parks with whistle-wielding lifeguards at every turn continued on page 16

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continued from page 15 of other swimming holes, such as a spot off Violet’s Lock on the Potomac River, traveled by word of mouth through the haunts. And the ones left are often so far from cities that kayak and canoeing communities. “Urban people don’t know people don’t visit them like they did in more innocent times, where these rural places are,” Hillegass said. “In some cases, when Twain lazed the summer away with every other kid his that’s better.” age at Bear Creek in Hannibal, Mo. But they’re there, waiting Even with Hillegass’s careful Global Positioning System- to be found again. enhanced directions, it can take a long time to get to one. And Hillegass has documented 77 such places in Virginia. the swimming has always carried a hint of danger. Hillegass Twenty-seven in Maryland. The District, which once drew warns on his Web site: “PLEASE NEVER, EVER Dive headfirst entire neighborhoods to the swimming beaches of the Tidal (paralysis, death) … Swim in upper pools of a waterfall (you Basin, has none. wash over falls) … Don’t put your hands or feet into places There are the more-isolated swimming spots favored by you can’t see (snake dangers.)” He notes drownings, bouts of hikers and outdoor types, such as Mountain Run, which poison ivy and reports of an amoeba found at the bottom of can be found amid a confusing tangle of country lanes and stagnant pool in Florida that can be lethal when it gets in the gravel fire roads near Harrisonburg, Va. There are fathomless nasal passages. quarries with Tarzan vines and zip lines. It was just this kind of danger that helped put an end to the “Let go, Morgan!” friends screamed at white-bikini-clad gauzy heyday of the swimming hole. Twain saw two playmates Morgan Collins, 14, last weekend as she clung to the rope at drown at Bear Creek and was twice dragged to shore nearly Milford Mill quarry outside Baltimore and swung perilously lifeless. Despite the likes of presidents Warren G. Harding close to the jagged rock wall. Eyes wide, she released the rope and Herbert Hoover extolling the virtues of growing up at at the last minute and hung in the air for a beat before flopping swimming holes, the murky buggy places were soon replaced and screaming into the greenish water. wholesale by swimming pools. There are clothing-optional swimming holes. Gay- and Chlorinated pools became popular on a large scale after the lesbian-leaning holes. Family-friendly holes with rock ledges modern Olympic Games began in 1896. At the turn of the and the iconic rope swing that Hillegass always feels obliged century, city fathers saw pools as a way to get street urchins to try. And holes where, as in Twain’s time, nearly everyone in out of rivers, swimming holes and creeks, keep them from town can be found on a hot Saturday afternoon. view and get them clean. By the 1930s, pools became status The Blue Hole of Bergton, in the Shenandoah Valley near symbols and marks of good parenting. A New York Times the West Virginia line, is that kind of swimming hole. At least article of the period described the transformation of a popular in late June and early July, when the water’s running high. pond into a community pool. “The parents of the children who But on a Saturday in late August, after a long dry summer, the swim there today show none of their ancestors’ indifference to creek had slowed to a trickle, and only April Chacon, 23, her the typhoid bacillus. … Concrete replaces the sides of clay and boyfriend and her three daughters were splashing in the water. mud, and chemical treatment renders the water as harmless as Wayne Hall, 24, had just returned home after being away for a that the city dweller turns into his tub.” few years, and this was the first place he wanted to come. Modern sanitation standards, the Times wrote, put most “I think I can jump,” Hall said, eyeing the cliffs and unusually swimming holes out of business. shallow swimming hole, where the girls were dog paddling. “I But the rocks, waterfalls and pools at Savage Mill can still used to jump when it was only five feet deep.” draw the whole community, even on a Monday evening after “Yeah, because you’re crazy,” Chacon snorted. work. Elisabeth Navarrete is 13. Since moving from El Salvador The two remember spending summer weekends at Blue to Maryland last year to live with her father — her parents are Hole as high school students in nearby Broadway, Va., separated — she has come to the spot for solace. She lives in population 2,192. Chacon, and everyone else she knew, came a crowded apartment across the street. And though everyone there instead of the pool. “I think of the water as cleaner,” she from the surrounding apartment buildings congregates at the said, standing on the river-rock beach. “I guess it’s just kind of swimming hole, she can always find a place to think — about what you’ve growed up on.” the mother she misses in her home country, the beaches, the Finding swimming holes these days takes work. Until parks, the freedom she had to go where she wanted. By the Hillegass, their locations were just part of local lore, often swimming hole, she says, she can breathe. ■ closely guarded secrets available only to insiders. The location

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Thrown for a Loop Matsuzaka’s Mystery Pitch, the Gyroball, Is an Enigma Wrapped in Horsehide

By Dave Sheinin Washington Post Staff Writer

• Originally Published December 23, 2006

It came from Japan, like one of those 1960s movie monsters, conceived in a scientist’s laboratory, imbued with supernatural powers and given a mysterious, evocative name: Gyroball. Then, like Godzilla, Mothra and those other celluloid beasts, the gyroball was unleashed upon American shores to wreak havoc. And also like them, the gyroball may be nothing more than a cartoonish bit of fiction. The Boston Red Sox’ signing last week of 26-year-old Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka to a six-year, $52 million contract — on top of a $51.1 million “posting” fee the Red Sox paid to the Seibu Lions for Matsuzaka’s negotiating rights — had many ramifications for baseball. It turned the fanatical Red Sox-New York Yankees rivalry into a trans-Pacific phenomenon. It gave the Red Sox what is arguably the best starting rotation in baseball for 2007. And it forced a reexamination of the posting system, which clearly tilts in the favor of high- revenue teams like the Red Sox and GETTY IMAGE Yankees. Dave Matsuzaka, who will play for the RedSox, throws a pitch that has generated a lot of spin. But perhaps most tantalizingly, at least to a small subset of Internet surfers, fanatics, historians, pitching gurus for that matter, it exists at all outside of no Shoutai — which, translated loosely, and other true believers, Matsuzaka’s the realm of the theoretical. means “Secrets of the Demon Miracle arrival in the United States next spring This much is known: The gyroball Pitch.” holds the promise of introducing into was invented on a supercomputer by The gyroball, as theorized by Himeno the highest level of the game the first a Japanese physicist named Ryutaro and Tezuka, would behave unlike any distinctively new pitch in more than Himeno, with the help of a baseball other pitch in baseball — with either three decades — if, in fact, Matsuzaka trainer named Kazushi Tezuka, and was throws the mysterious gyroball, and if, described in their 2001 book Makyuu continued on page 18

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continued from page 17 Japanese players for major league teams. Matsuzaka, according to Pagliarulo, “doesn’t an exaggerated drop or an exaggerated side- throw anything that’s any different from to-side motion (even on this there is some what anyone else throws. Oh, and he also disagreement) — owing to its special spin, doesn’t wear a cape, and doesn’t fly.” which is more like the spiral of a football or “I believe it is a screwball,” said Buck a bullet than the backspin of a fastball or the Martinez, who managed the U.S. team in topspin of a curve. this spring’s World Baseball Classic, for “I can teach it in 10 minutes,” said Will which Matsuzaka was named most valuable Carroll, an expert on pitching injuries and player. a writer for BaseballProspectus.com who is “It’s a change-up,” said Robert Kemp also the gyroball’s leading champion in the Adair, professor emeritus of physics at Yale United States. “Perfecting it? That’s a lot University and author of The Physics of longer.” Baseball. “Put another way, it’s basically New pitches come along in baseball about nonsense.” as often as Triple Crown winners; the last “This pitch,” said Alan Nathan, physics was the split-fingered fastball, which was professor at the University of Illinois and a popularized by closer Bruce Sutter in the specialist in the study of baseball physics, “is 1970s. This is why the arrival of Matsuzaka, something like a cut fastball, but with more who is said to throw the gyroball (but who drop to it.” has been vague when pressed about it), is Undoubtedly, the confusion stems, at least creating such a frenzy among believers such in part, from cultural and language barriers. as Carroll. The Himeno-Tezuka book has never been “As the pitch becomes more of a known fully translated into English, and Matsuzaka quantity, and as more people learn how to apparently has spoken to an American throw it and more importantly teach it,” reporter only once regarding the pitch — Carroll said, “we’ll see who the Bruce Sutter and only then with the help of a translator. of the gyroball is.” That came in March, during the WBC, when But is the gyroball real? And if so, is it Matsuzaka told a Yahoo!Sports reporter, really something new? “Oh, yes, I’m trying to throw [the gyroball]. “No such pitch,” Bobby Valentine, former I have done it in a game. But not too much. Texas Rangers and New York Mets manager Sometimes accidentally.” and current manager of Japan’s Chiba Lotte An additional layer of confusion exists Mariners, said in a terse e-mail response to a because although grainy videos of Matsuzaka question about the pitch. supposedly throwing the pitch have been “There is no gyroball. I don’t know who passed around the Internet for several years, came up with that,” said former major the pitch shown on the video clip is most leaguer Mike Pagliarulo, who owns a scouting company that provides reports on continued on page 19

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 18 But according to Adair, who literally Carroll asks rhetorically, “wouldn’t wrote the book on the physics of you do it?” likely Matsuzaka’s excellent slider — baseball, there is a simple reason why But Palazzolo, who split last season one of six traditional pitches he is that drop occurs. “It’s just gravity,” he between rookie ball and Class A in known to throw. said. “It’s like any pitch that doesn’t the Brewers’ organization, said he has But Carroll believes most of the have the backspin of a fastball. Gravity never felt comfortable enough with confusion results from one basic truth acts on the ball and pulls it down.” the gyroball to throw it in a game, and about the gyroball: It has multiple Moreover, Adair contends, unlike isn’t sure he ever will. incarnations that are achieved by tilting the split-fingered fastball — which “It’s a real pitch,” he said. “And it’s the hand during delivery, in much the also drops, but which has the added effective when it’s thrown properly. same way that a fastball can be made to tactical advantage of appearing like a But I don’t know if it’s going to be “cut” or sink by changing the grip or the fastball as it approaches — the gyroball groundbreaking or revolutionary. It arm angle. One of those incarnations would be easy for a batter to read out would take someone learning to master Carroll has taken to calling the “side- of a pitcher’s hand, given the extreme it. Maybe Matsuzaka will be the one. force” gyroball, because of its side- contortions required to throw it. Maybe he already has [mastered it]. to-side (as opposed to up-and-down) “So,” Adair said, “it’s a change-up I’m looking forward to watching him.” motion. — but in my mind, a change-up that a Matsuzaka’s signing with the Red Sox Carroll also believes Matsuzaka is batter can tee off on, and clobber.” has raised the profile of the gyroball proficient in throwing the gyroball, to Nathan believes the gyroball, in around baseball, and by extension that a much larger degree than the pitcher theory at least, could be more effective of Carroll. He said he has been asked was willing to admit in March. than a splitter, because, he said, even a on several occasions by big league “I believe Matsuzaka knows this pitch well-thrown splitter has at least a little managers and executives about the and has worked on it,” Carroll said. “I backspin, which reduces its drop. pitch. don’t believe he’s perfected it, but . . . “But it’s not at all clear to me that Typically, Carroll will confirm the I think he can make it work enough to this pitch has made the leap from gyroball’s existence to the inquisitive keep working on it.” theory to practice,” Nathan added. manager or executive, who will then This is how the gyroball should work, “I’m not convinced, without seeing cast a skeptical glance, say thanks, in theory: By rotating the hips and more evidence, that any pitcher and walk away. But Carroll is waiting shoulders in unison during the windup actually throws this pitch properly or for some team — perhaps even one — a maneuver the physicists based on effectively.” that plays in the nation’s capital and the theory of “double-spin mechanics” Since coming across the Himeno- that, by virtue of its poor prospects for — and then releasing the ball with Tezuka book in 2002, Carroll has made 2007, has little to lose but everything a twist of the hand, a pitcher can it his life’s mission to learn everything to gain — to make the leap of faith impart a bullet-like spin on the ball. there is to know about this pitch, and and fly him in next spring to teach Unlike a fastball, the backspin of which to teach it. To date, he has taught the its pitchers the Secrets of the Demon creates the illusion that it is rising, gyroball to two pitchers who have Miracle Pitch. or a curveball, which has topspin that made it part of their repertoires: a “I’ll teach this thing to anyone, makes it tumble as it reaches the plate, Milwaukee Brewers Class A minor anywhere. If [Jim] Bowden or [Randy] a gyroball should have a spin axis — an leaguer named Steve Palazzolo, and an St. Claire want to see this pitch in imaginary pole around which the ball Indianapolis-area high schooler named action,” Carroll said, referring to is spinning — that is facing the same Joey Niezer. the Washington Nationals’ general direction as the ball is traveling, causing “If you could actually teach Mariano manager and pitching coach, “I’ll do it it to drop as it reaches the plate. Rivera’s cutter or Brad Lidge’s slider,” for the cost of a plane ticket.” ■

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program Life, on the Wing Dragonfly-Counting Is a Reston Ritual That Adds Up to Something Greater

By Tamara Jones Washington Post Staff Writer

• Originally Published July 24, 2007

Hold them up in the light, and they’ll come around. The people at Butler Pond know this already about dragonflies, about the way the sun revives them from the stunned dismay of captivity, but Kevin Munroe repeats the lesson anyway before letting go of the blue dasher feigning death between his gentle fingers. The insect darts away and the dozen intrepid hunters, long-poled nets in hand, well-worn field guides in cargo pockets, search the Reston wetlands for more. What began as civic duty became cherished ritual long ago with this annual dragonfly count in the Fairfax County suburb, and the volunteers happily surrender a whole Saturday to traipse through reed and rush. There is a Junior Girl Scout determined to earn her nature badge, and the veteran Auduboners who freeze like pointers at the rustle of a blue heron about to take flight. There is the mute teenager stealing a nap in the gazebo, and the bubbly cancer survivor who jokes about the burden of responsibility as she fills out the census form: Six or eight black slaty skimmers? How many prince baskettails, and what about amberwings? Did anyone get a Halloween pennant? Revered by some cultures, feared by others, dragonflies have never failed to capture human imagination. They can fly backward, do cartwheels across the sky, and mate midair, for starters. “They’re amazing creatures,” says BY GERALD MARTINEAU — THE WASHINGTON POST The strange, delicate creatures are an important sign of environmental stability in the wetlands of continued ON page 21 Fairfax County.

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continued from page 20 distraction she needed: Reston’s annual nature, and took him along whenever dragonfly count. About 20 people were they volunteered for conservation Munroe, a 37-year-old naturalist who milling around at Butler Pond that efforts. “The three of them were just has been leading this expedition each Saturday, and Munroe welcomed the this wonderful family,” Munroe recalls. July for more than a decade. Counting newcomers. “One of the most rewarding aspects of the dragonflies, determining whether “I was just out there with it: ‘Hi, I’m this is watching the kids grow up, like species have abandoned polluted Catherine, and I may have cancer,’ “ she Brendan.” habitats, is a way to monitor the health remembers introducing herself. “And When his PowerPoint presentation in of the streams and ponds and lakes boy, is my back sore,” she added for the dragonfly tutorial he holds before where they live, he explains. good measure. They had driven cross- the count clicks on a slide of a small It’s a small reassurance in a world of country. boy in a meadow, O’Connell blurts out inconvenient truths: If the dragonflies A woman who turned out to own a wistfully from her folding chair, “Oh, I are thriving, then something must be massage studio approached her with a remember that red shirt!” going right. friendly grin. “I can’t cure cancer, but Now Brendan wears camouflage pants I can make your back feel better,” she and a man’s red T-shirt, a can of Jolt * * * offered, and Linberg’s face still melts in one pocket and a utility knife in the into a blissful smile when she recalls the other. A floppy National Guard hat is In the summer of 2003, Catherine fabulous back rub she got there in the squashed down over his dark hair. He Linberg had just moved to Virginia from gazebo. unfolds himself slowly from his nap Northern California with her husband, Linberg had surgery that August. The and shambles off into the pond muck Mike Blanpied, and their son, Greg. cancer was “invasive and aggressive,” alone. He’ll be a senior at Herndon Mike, a geophysicist, had gotten a nice but she was 43 and otherwise healthy. It High School this fall, and this day of promotion with the U.S. Geological seemed fitting to spend the fall retching dragonflies is a reprieve from advanced Survey, with a transfer to headquarters in the circa-1968 bathroom with its chemistry and calculus, and preparing in Reston. turquoise, olive and gold wallpaper. She his applications for the Navy and Air They bought a house backing up to hid her chemotherapy baldness with Force academies. He’s finishing up his nature trails and woodlands so Greg colorful hats and scarves all winter, and Eagle Scout project, as well. could enjoy an idyllic boyhood. He was tried not to let herself think, whenever Niko Rabin is the littlest dragonfly going into the second grade then, and the family enjoyed some special occasion, watcher these days. Linberg planned to freelance for the Is this the last time? Niko’s father, Andy, a 37-year-old textbook publishing company where Her last day of radiation fell on computer programmer, remembers Niko she had been a copyreader. She looked Valentine’s Day, and she handed out somehow dragging the both of them into forward to volunteering at Greg’s candy to everyone in the waiting room. “I this obsession three years ago, when he school, remodeling the house, putting felt pretty triumphant. There’s a certain tired of dinosaurs. At 7, Niko is already a in a garden. It was too late to get Greg cachet in being a new survivor.” veteran of a world dragonfly conference into camp, so they would just build their She began collecting pink bracelets attended by eminent PhDs in New summer around community activities. and waited for the dragonflies to return. Jersey last month, and soon he’ll enter The night they moved in, the three second grade with an entomologist’s of them camped out on air mattresses * * * vocabulary. in the living room, huddling together The pastime became a passion for through an ear-splitting thunderstorm. Brendan Honeychuck stretches his the father, too. He and Munroe are The power went out and Linberg lanky 17-year-old frame out on a bench now collaborating on a dragonfly field remembers her forearm brushing the and dozes while his mother pokes the tall guide for Northern Virginia. About 30 top of her chest in the darkness. She felt marsh grasses and scans the waterlilies of the continent’s 300 species can be a hard lump. in search of the elusive widow skimmer found here, including the least clubtail She began her new life looking up Munroe thinks he may have glimpsed. they excitedly spot for the first time in oncologists in the yellow pages. Waiting Cynthia O’Connell and her husband, for her verdict, Linberg found the Barney, raised Brendan to appreciate continued ON page 22

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program continued from page 21 net, and rejoins the group, presenting school, and volunteers in the library. O’Connell the dainty orange Halloween She pitches in with gusto at all kinds Reston on last Saturday’s count. Maybe pennant he has captured. Mother and of community events, even agreeing to people are starting to get it that backyard son admire the tiny dragonfly, then let wear a squirrel costume in sweltering fertilizers and pesticides can pollute it go. heat for the annual Reston Festival. And wetlands even 10 miles away, Munroe “It’s relaxing and peaceful and that’s it’s a given that “we’ll be back, always,” speculates, because the least clubtail good,” O’Connell says of these annual for the dragonflies. chooses only relatively clear streams for treks. But it’s bittersweet this year. Greg surprised and touched her last its habitat. Barney died of cancer just 10 weeks spring when he asked her to talk about Munroe’s own fascination, fed by a ago, at 58. The dragonflies had not yet her cancer for a kind of show-and-tell father who taught biology for 32 years, is emerged. in health class. All sorts of appropriate as spiritual as it is scientific. His wife and son came out alone this permission slips and waivers had to be “It’s hard to be sad around dragonflies,” year, wishing they could have had one signed, but Linberg stood before the he observes. “There’s nothing depressing last afternoon together watching comet fifth-graders and answered as best she or tired or melancholy about them. darners whirl and dive and disappear in could every question they had. There’s something almost supernatural the warm sun. Does it hurt every day? about them. They seem to me to come No. out of a fantasy novel, like something * * * Did you think you were going to from Tolkien.” die? The larvae live underwater for up Greg Blanpied is trying his hardest Yes. to eight years, fighting to survive the to disappear. His mother is chatting up Sometimes Greg wears some of her gluttony of ducks, the cravings of carp, everyone and laughing at everything pink jelly bracelets on his own slender before emerging as tenerals. Munroe as they wander through the manicured wrist in solidarity. Linberg has been in finds one clinging to a blade of grass, grounds behind Fannie Mae headquarters. remission for four consecutive dragonfly its cellophane wings still too wet, its His father is snapping pictures left and counts now. Greg slides down from thorax too soft and weak, to fly. Within right. They’re having a great time. Greg the tree and Andy Rabin shouts across a few hours, the sun’s heat will bring is 11 now. He climbs a tree and ignores the pond, “Kevin! Comet darner!” and neon colors to the teneral’s dull brown them behind his sunglasses. Munroe lopes up. “Really? Did you see body, and send blood pulsing through This is one of Linberg’s favorite stops on what direction he went?” Dragonflies the filament veins that form unique lacy the dragonfly count, this secret oasis of are clever, their heads are nearly all eye, patterns on the dragonfly’s four wings. towering trees and winding paths and a and those who catch them know there’s Males stake out a territory and defend it pond fringed with pink lotus blossoms. usually just one chance only, and then by displaying their colors and patterns, they’re gone. posturing like hopped-up insect boxers * * * Linberg wants to keep going to the and engaging in aerial combat as they next pond, a more arduous hike through zoom along at up to 40 miles per hour. Greg’s enchantment with dragonflies cut-grass, but Greg shakes his head and Some species flew alongside dinosaurs, has given way to a passion for Lego mumbles a protest. His mother persists. but hundreds of millions of years of robotics and riding his bike as fast as “I can’t have you fade like this, son,” she evolution have not changed the destiny he can, his mother laments. He likes to pleads. “… Drink some water. C’mon, of dragonflies once they burst forth: close his bedroom door and listen to his be strong.” Brendan Honeychuck nets They last but one season in the sun iPod in the dark. “He’s pretty much an a black saddlebag and Munroe shouts before dying. ornery cuss with me,” Linberg allows. “Fantastic!” and the dragonfly counters The dragonfly counters move across She knows it’s a phase, that he just needs gather around. Brendan looks guiltily the thoroughfare to Bright Pond, where something, someone, to push up against, at the motionless creature. “I think he Brendan annoys his mother by pretending to test his own strength. Still, she yearns knocked himself out,” he says. Munroe to put his net over the dark ponytail that “to get back to that place where we were is quick to offer reassurances. “He’ll be hangs to her waist. “Whatever you’re all in it together.” okay, I think, once he gets in the sun.” doing, stop!” she chides. He goes off by She still hasn’t gotten around to The dragonfly does rally, and then himself again, popping wild blackberries redecorating that god-awful bathroom, takes off, hurtling itself with colors into his mouth along the way. He wades but there’s too much more to do. She flashing and wings shimmering, into the out into the murky water, swishing his tends the butterfly garden at Greg’s beckoning summer. ■

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

Editors note: Reprinted from The Century: History as It Happened on the Front Page of the Capital’s News- paper,1999.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program The Thrills of Physics For Area High School Students, Theme Park Becomes a Laboratory

By Nelson Hernandez Washington Post Staff Writer

• Originally Published April 26, 2008

Let’s be honest here: How much is an amped-up teenager really going to learn about physics by riding a roller coaster called the Mind Eraser? Not a whole lot. But Isaac Newton would have been sooo jealous. More than 4,000 students from across the region poured through the main gates of Six Flags America in Largo for Physics Day yesterday, passing onto the park’s faux-Colonial “Main Street 1776” the day before the park officially opens for the season. Janet Jackson and the pop song “Live and Let Die” — apparently the preferred music of the Founding Fathers — blared in the background, and the students vibrated like atomic particles. Some wore their LINDA DAVIDSON —THE WASHINGTON POST physics team T-shirts and brought in Barnabas Adekanye, left, and Ludwin Romero, 10th-graders at Northwestern High School, ride the accelerometers and stopwatches; others Mind Eraser roller coaster at Six Flags America in Largo. The teens were attending Physics Day, were just along for the rides. where they looked at rides from a physics point of view. Barnabas Adekanye, Irving Delco, Frailen Ramirez, Ludwin Romero the gravity and force relates with the hold back screaming,” said Irving, 15. and Johnny Wilks, all sophomores at loops and stuff.” Before the ride, Irving said: “I’m not Northwestern High School in Hyattsville So they trotted off to the Mind Eraser scared, but I’m going to cry like a little who study engineering, were somewhere and strapped themselves in. The seats girl.” in the middle. They had brought a allowed their legs to dangle. While Afterward, he said, “Actually, I cried 28-page workbook of problems to solve. students sitting behind them charged like a dude.” It was complicated stuff with a lot of one another up, these students had that “I don’t know. It makes you want to formulas. far-off look, as if they were weighing the throw up,” said Barnabas, who had “Compare the change in potential potential risks of going at a top speed of heeded Irving’s advice to the letter. In energy to the gain in kinetic energy,” 60 mph through loops and corkscrews a photo taken of the ride, he bore an went one question about the Mind and a 91-foot drop. expression of absolute terror. Eraser. “Within experimental error, For Barnabas, 16, it was his first time Their next destination was a ride was energy conserved? Explain your on a roller coaster. He came to the called Roar. The boys tried to scare answer.” United States from Nigeria three years one another as Frailen, 15, timed the Johnny, 15, had an easier explanation ago. for what they were learning: “Like how “The best advice I can give is, don’t continued ON page 25

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

LINDA DAVIDSON —TH E WASHINGTON POST LINDA DAVIDSON —THE WASHINGTON POST Ludwin Romero, left, and Barnabas Adekanye Student Johnny Wilks answers physics questions after riding the Mind Eraser. Johnny said he was ride in the front seats of the wooden roller learning “how the gravity and force relates with the loops and stuff.’’ coaster, Roar. continued from page 24 throwing his insides with great force. else strapping on the orange seat belts Afterward, he gave a more and lowering the safety bars over their coaster using his iPhone. They wrote sophisticated explanation. “The forces laps. The coaster lurched to a start and down the coaster’s specifications in are gravitational force, centripetal force climbed up. Way up. One hundred and their workbooks. They would do the and magnetism working together to ninety-seven feet up. actual problems on the bus ride home, create a fun ride,” he said. “You can’t As it crested the hill to a 205-foot drop they had decided. see it, but you know it’s happening.” that would hit a top speed of 73 mph, the “It’s wood,” Irving said. After a lunch of chicken, corn, and boys started screaming. Ludwin waved his “It could collapse at any moment,” macaroni and cheese, the boys headed arms out of the coaster. Barnabas gasped Johnny said. out for their final and most intense shouts of horror. Others uttered unprintable “This was, like, slower, I guess,” experiment: Superman: Ride of Steel. By imprecations. After the drop, the ride took Ludwin, 16, said after they were done. now, physics had been mostly forgotten. them into a series of twists and humps that (He was right: The top speed of Roar is There was a deeper lesson being learned had everyone grabbing the safety bar for 50 mph, though it puts the rider through at the theme park: overcoming primal dear life. 3.5 times the force of gravity.) “There fear. “I love physics! I love science! I love was a lot more curves and stuff.” While they waited, a girl who had just engineering!” Irving yelled. On the Batman-themed ride, the finished the ride walked by with a boy, Then, with perfect comic timing: “I love Joker’s Jinx, the coaster is propelled flopping her hands and crying. “I can’t my mommy!” to 60 mph in three seconds by a series feel my hands!” she wailed. As rapidly as it started, the ride was over. of magnets. The technology is similar “The ride is going to do that?” Frailen The boys had survived their encounter to what physicists use in particle said with alarm. with mass times acceleration, and they accelerators, but these thoughts were Irving crossed himself. Ludwin tried stumbled out of their seats dazed but far from the minds of the students. to duck out on the lame excuse that triumphant. Irving screamed repeatedly — words he had just eaten, but the power of “I feel great,” Frailen said. he probably wouldn’t want his family peer pressure found him and everyone “I am officially a man,” Irving said. ■

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

The Washington Post’s Sports section’s new Web site — reachforthewall.com — creates an extensive online community for metropolitan area swimmers, coaches and swim parents.

An Integrated Curriculum For The Washington Post Newspaper In Education Program

Academic Content Standards

This lesson addresses academic content standards of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Maryland Virginia Washington, D.C.

Reading: Analyze and interpret English: The student will write Reading/English Language Arts: important ideas and messages in narratives, descriptions, and Recognize that some words and literary texts. explanations. (Writing, Grade 6, 6.7) phrases have both a literal and c. Summarize or paraphrase nonliteral meaning (e.g., take steps). e. Explain the implications of the English: The student will read and (Grade 3, 3LD-V.11) text that may have implications for analyze a variety of literature. the reader. a. Identify format, text structure and Reading/English Language Arts: Create (Standard 3.0 Comprehension of main idea. multiparagraph essays that Literary Text) b. Identify the characteristics that • present effective introductions and distinguish literary forms. concluding paragraphs and English: Read critically to evaluate d. Explain the relationships between • guide and inform the reader’s informational text (Indicator 6). and among elements of literature: understanding of key ideas and c. Verification of information characters, plot, setting, tone, point evidence. (Grade 5, 5.W-E.3) across multiple sources (Grade 8, of view, and theme. Standard 2) e. Explain the relationship between English: Write interpretations of the author’s style and literary effect. literary texts that Science: Recognize and explain g. Explain the influence of historical • Extend beyond summary and that fossils found in layer of context on the form, style and point literary analysis; sedimentary rock provide evidence of view of a written work. (Reading • Address the author’s techniques; of changing life forms. (Grade 8, Analysis, 9.3) • Draw inferences about its effects; Earth/Space Science, Standard 2, and History) Science: The student will investigate • Support inferences through and understand the organization of references to the text or other Science: Describe how lunar and the solar system and the relationships works. (Expository Writing, 10.W- solar eclipses occur. (Grade 8, among the various bodies that E.4) Earth/Space Science, Standard 2, comprise it. Key concepts include Astronomy) a. the sun, moon, Earth, other planets Physics: The laws of conservation and their moons, meteors, asteroids, of energy and momentum provide and comets; independent approaches to predicting i. the history and technology of space and describing the motion of exploration (Interrelationships in objects. (Conservation of Energy and Earth/Space Systems 6.8) Momentum, P.3)

Standards of Learning currently in effect The Maryland Voluntary State Curriculum for Virginia Public Schools can be found Learning Standards for DCPS are found Content Standards can be found online at http:// online at www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/ online at www.k12.dc.us/dcps/Standards/ mdk12.org/assessments/vsc/index.html. Superintendent/Sols/home.shtml. standardsHome.htm.