My new friends here in Goochland are helping sponsor the Virginia Solar Lunar Convention on April 4th-a Saturday.

The event is your chance to learn more about Solar Astronomy, Lunar Astronomy, Video Astronomy, and Astro Imaging. You can contact Ranger Tim Streagle for more information about the event.

For teachers who are interested, you can watch my presentation on Learning Hacks online in Quicktime format. Learning Hacks was our professional development topic for March 27, 2009 held at the Heart of Virginia Cub Scout camp in Goochland County. Our thanks go out to Ranger Tim and Karren Streagle for use of this great space.

Piano Roll – Little Fugue in G Minor from Christian Swinehart on Vimeo.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve done a poor job of staying on top of e-mails. A lot of the work I receive is delivered via e-mail. So, this is not good, but on the other hand, I blocked out time to just work and focus on one thing. Some area gained (quality) and some lost (the amount of variety I was able to tackle).

This article on Emptying your Inbox offers good, sage advice. I often am finding teachers who need advice on how to manage their files, including e-mail. I remember reading this one when it first came out and shaking my head a lot in agreement. Mr. Mann, especially, has some first-rate advice on e-mail management.

A recent report tell us that American adults don’t remember a lot of their science information.

…environmental protection, and global health and energy issues, scientific literacy is currently low among American adults…

It brings into question how well the American education system worked for us (adults) in terms of lifelong learning and retention of the basics.

Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water.

You can test your science via the California Academy of Science website.