Welcome back and thanks for opening my emails. Today I want to share STEM/STEAM links about astronomy, biology, and recycling electronics. And share the last holiday STEM gift guide idea: computing without computers. And getting out of the house or apartment to have fun with geocaching. There’s also links for setting New Years resolutions. And a fun Dad joke and a photo of what a flat tire looks like if you’re a sled dog.
Holiday STEM Projects: Get Moving
This week I have two holiday project ideas. Both activities get people moving. One activity gets everyone outdoors.
One of the more interesting STEM curriculum ideas involves having kids act out common programming and engineering problems. It’s learning about computing without computers. Over the holidays, with kids and relatives and friends around, it might be fun to do a few activities. And maybe let older kids pick the activities. Computer Science Unplugged is a primary source. And I’ve linked to a few of their activities that looked interesting. You can find more at the first link.
I’ve also linked to another STEM activity called geocaching. It helps get kids outdoors on a treasure hunt, either in towns and cities or nature.
Computing without Computers
Computer Science Unplugged
https://classic.csunplugged.org/
Binary Numbers
https://classic.csunplugged.org/activities/binary-numbers/
Sorting Algorithms
https://classic.csunplugged.org/activities/sorting-algorithms/
Routing and Deadlock
https://classic.csunplugged.org/activities/routing-and-deadlock/
Geocaching
Geocaching Website
https://www.geocaching.com/play
https://www.geocaching.com/sites/education/en/
https://www.youtube.com/embed/vuFiLhhCNww
Geocaching for Absolute Beginners
https://www.youtube.com/embed/gaSkHrAlhGE
Geocaching
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching
Geocache on Mars
https://kidscodecs.com/mars-perseverance-trackable/
Recycling Your Electronics
If you’re like most people, there’s a few computers, phones, monitors, and more in your house or apartment. The holidays often bring home at least one or two new computers or phones. What to do with your old equipment is a great question. These days, there are lots of options to recycle electronics.
For myself, the real question is how to prepare electronics for recycling. It’s important to save off your data and write down any passwords needed to access your old device. Then do a factory reset. Encrypted data is almost impossible to recover once you do a factory reset. The reset deletes any encryption keys. And, as someone online pointed out, you have bigger problems if you’re worried about the NSA. 🙂
If you’re worried about your data, ask recycling centers how to remove hard drives. Then recycle the rest of your computers. Then enjoy your new computers.
The CNET article has lots of useful links to explore ways to recycle your electronics. In the US, for example, Best Buy, Staples, and other companies actively recycle.
Spring Cleaning Pro Tip: Recycle Old Tech and Gadgets for Free
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/spring-cleaning-pro-tip-recycle-old-tech-and-gadgets-for-free/
Electronics Donation and Recycling
https://www.epa.gov/recycle/electronics-donation-and-recycling#where
How to Recycle Cell Phones
https://earth911.com/recycling-guide/how-to-recycle-cell-phones/#recycling-locator
Recycle your electricals (UK)
https://www.recycleyourelectricals.org.uk/
https://www.recycleyourelectricals.org.uk/electrical-recycling-near-me/
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment recycling (WEEE) (UK)
https://www.hse.gov.uk/waste/waste-electrical.htm
How 6 Million Pounds Of Electronic Waste Gets Recycled A Month | Big Business
https://youtu.be/S2lmPIa1iWE
Factory reset then sold, how hard is it for the buyer to get old pictures?
https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/1bdica6/factory_reset_then_sold_how_hard_is_it_for_the/?rdt=42663
This Sponge Pulls Gold from Electronic Waste
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-sponge-pulls-gold-from-electronic-waste/
Analemma
We know every day the sun comes up in the sky. And we know the sun moves from east to west every day. Plus the sun appears to rise at different spots along the horizon. The moon shows itself in the same ways.
What you might not know is that there’s a distinct fat bottom figure 8 pattern the sun follows every year. In astronomy, it’s called an analemma. People take photos of the sun from the same spot every day at the same time for a year. The result is a fascinating and predictable shape. The tilt of the earth and the earth’s slightly elliptical orbit around the sun causes this effect. The sun is at the highest point in the figure 8 in summer. And lowest in winter.
Turns out the positions of planets and the moon also create predictable shapes. They’re also called analemmas. I found a bunch of interesting links about analemmas. Including how you might create one yourself if you have time and patience.
Analemma Captured from Lake Varese, Italy
https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2023/06/analemma-captured-from-lake-varese-italy.html
Analemma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma
Viewing and Understanding the Analemma
https://solar-center.stanford.edu/art/analemma.html
Mathematical Explanations of Analemmas
https://www.math.purdue.edu/~zhan4740/poster\_final.pdf
What is an Analemma?
https://lovethenightsky.com/what-is-an-analemma/
Marco Meniero: How to Take an Amazing Analemma Photograph
https://skiesandscopes.com/marco-meniero/
Forest Bathing
Because we’re in the midst of the holidays and calendar year end, I also want to share a topic about biology. It’s a Japanese idea called Shinrin Yoku, or forest bathing. It doesn’t involve hugging trees. Or swimsuits. But it does highlight an apparent link between humans and trees.
Trees appear to relax people if you can find a nearby forest to sit in or walk through. One theory is that trees give off a chemical that relaxes humans. But it also could be like lakes and oceans and humans. It could be something primal to the human species.
And while not an example of forest bathing, there’s also online a few sites that play sounds from forests.
Shinrin-yoku
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinrin-yoku
How to start forest bathing – Forestry England
https://www.forestryengland.uk/blog/forest-bathing
Forest Bathing in Japan (Shinrin-yoku)
https://www.japan.travel/en/guide/forest-bathing/
New Years Resolutions
If you’re an adult paying attention, we’re almost up to the season after the holidays. Or more precisely, when Mariah Carey disappears again. More seriously, it’s the season with two months of ads for losing weight. It’s the time of year people make resolutions. Either directly or by reflecting on the calendar year end.
Around Thanksgiving is when I start to think about what worked and didn’t work for the year. And what might be fun or useful with the new year. If it helps you, here are some links to get started. For me, what works is coming up with small changes that build to one change. And then write stuff down to re-read and check every few months. However, as you’ll see with the links, there’s different ways to go.
7 tips to keep your New Year’s resolution
https://health.ucdavis.edu/blog/cultivating-health/7-tips-to-keep-your-new-years-resolution/2022/12
New Year’s resolutions: Why do we give up on them so quickly?
https://www.bcm.edu/news/new-years-resolutions-why-do-we-give-up-on-them-so-quickly
12-step guide to keeping those resolutions
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/12/a-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-choose-make-and-keep-new-years-resolutions/
This Week
Our Sunday email this week will have fun often offbeat links about how the yellow dye used to create Cheetos can make your skin transparent. Seriously. Plus how your brain clears out dead cells, tracing voices heard by people with schizophrenia, 32 things that shouldn’t be on Mars, and more. Look for the email this Sunday.
