Group items tagged

Platt, Richard. Smithsonian: Visual Timeline of Inventions. New York, NY: DK Publishing, 2001. Age Range: 10 and up Publisher's Description: Unlike many similar books on the topic, this volume manages to convey a sense of how the passage of time affects creative design. Inventions are organized into five categories (world events, travel and conquest, agriculture and industry, daily life and health, and measurement and communication) and are presented concurrently in a timeline that starts in 600,000 B.C. and proceeds, with each turn of the page, to the present. This approach allows readers to note coincidences in creativity. Short captions fill in information about the inventions, but for good explanations of their significance or definitions of terms, readers will have to look elsewhere. The full-color photographs are varied and interesting. What's more, this book teaches a sophisticated form of literacy similar to skills students learn when they interact with multimedia resources, reading both text and pictures, and provides a third understanding, that of juxtaposition.

The idea was developed and implemented by Worldometers. We believe that this special webpage carries strong philosophical, symbolic, and aesthetic attributes. Even the mathematics behind the implementation of this page is deeply fascinating. 7 Billion people so beautifully displayed together on a single webpage is a visual testament of the human condition of every single one of us, and all of us together, on our planet earth. It is available on the internet for everybody in the world to watch at any time, adding to the feeling of sharing something in common. It is also a snapshot of an extraordinary moment in history: the exact instant when we reached 7 billion people on earth, captured on October 31, 2011 at 5:49:16 GMT.

Worldometers is run by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. We have no political, governmental, or corporate affiliation.

Rosenthal, Amy Krouse, and Tom Lichtenheld. Duck! Rabbit! San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2009. Age Range: 4 - 8 years Publisher's Description: Two unseen characters debate the identity of the creature at the center of this clever book-is it a duck or a rabbit? Readers will join in the discussion, because the creature could, in fact, be either. Just as each of the debaters begins to see the other's perspective, the duck/rabbit runs away and they see an anteater. Or is it a brachiosaurus? Text and illustrations are intimately wedded in this fun, interactive read-aloud. The bold lines and bright colors in Lichtenheld's illustrations are a visually pleasing match for the bantering text. With a strong, well-executed concept, this book provides an excellent starting point for discussing how points of view can differ and still be right.