The Kid Should See This.
Follow @thekidshouldsee on Twitter!
There's just so much science, nature, music, art, technology, storytelling and assorted good stuff out there that my kids (and maybe your kids) haven't seen. It's most likely not stuff that was made for them...
But we don't underestimate kids around here.
Kid-friendly not-made-for-kids videos for all! Collected by Rion Nakaya and her three four year old co-curator.
Tip Jar: Curating this blog takes work! If you like the videos on this site, please support the science education projects that we've picked on DonorsChoose.org.
Search
The Robust Ghost Pipefish’s capacity for camouflage never ceases to amaze me!
We came upon this adult pair, the smaller is the male, first, out in the open, and then swimming near some vegetation in the predominantly mucky area that characterizes Secret Bay. Isn’t the likeness to the sea vegetation remarkable?
If you look closely at the larger one, you can see its mouth and eyes moving as it adopts its typical vertical, head downward orientation.
There’s a great collection of Ghost Pipefish photos here. Plus, another video of them from our archives.
via La Boite Verte.
At a Portland TEDx event, Oregonian Joe Smith demonstrates how to use a paper towel, and moreover, demonstrates how easy it is to be mindful. Everyone should see this!
via Kottke.
“Rooftops in the summer are hot. Cooling down buildings wastes energy. Solution: Painting roofs with energy saving white reflective paint.” The White Roof Project is a nonprofit dedicated to curbing climate change by painting NYC roofs white and then hopefully franchising the volunteering activity out across the United States.
And they’re absolutely onto something. In 2009, Energy Secretary Steven Chu pitched this idea. According to the Wall Street Journal, “white roofs and pavements could mean a one-time reduction of 44 billion tons of carbon dioxide. That… translates to removing all the cars in the world for 18 years.”
Former President Bill Clinton wrote last summer that white rooftops could lower “the utility bill in every apartment house 10 to 20 percent…”
And in the southeastern region of Almeria, Spain, the reflective roofs of their greenhouses (and they’re seriously into greenhouses) are cooling the air temperature in the region “by an average of 0.3 degrees Celsius per decade since 1983. The rest of Spain, however, has experienced temperatures rise 0.5 degrees Celsius.”
Sounds like it might be time to get some white paint and a few ladders. Read more about The White Roof Project, and if you’re in NYC, volunteer!
Giant piano! And on this particular giant piano (with rainbow light up keys!), a happy gentleman at NYC’s F.A.O. Schwartz plays the Mario theme song… and not perfectly, which is the best part! — It’s the only way you can tell how much practice and work it must take to tap out such an epic song on such a giant instrument.
h/t @mindfulmimi.
There are two dromedary camels that live in Arizona that are now internet famous: their names are Nessie and Baby. You can tell that they are Dromedary or Arabian camels because they have only one hump (vs two. And, despite cartoon lore, they do not store water in it, but they do drink a lot of water.)
Nessie and Baby get brushed and cuddled, they race, and they run from “dangerous” plastic bins, among many other activities like pineapple eating:
Baby and Nessie are just two of the animals at Camels and Friends.
In.gredients is a new package-free grocery store that is opening in Austin, Texas in the Summer of 2012. Its mission as the US’s first zero-waste, package-free grocery store will support local businesses and farmers, will sell based on seasonal rhythms of farming, will avoid processed foods, will reduce transportation costs and pollution, and will encourage customers to bring their own reusable containers. Bringing back this way of shopping is a great idea for Austin and I could see it easily working in places like Brooklyn, Portland or the Bay Area, just to name a few other starter communities…
A great side effect to watching this video is starting a conversation about eating foods in season — more than just squash and pumpkins in the fall — as well as being very aware of how much packaging we use, recycle and throw away in our own home.
Related research: learn more about buying sustainable food with local guides, find sustainable food near you at the Eat Well Guide, and check out this Seasonal Food Chart at Good.is.
Collosse – A Wood Tale, directed by Yves Geleyn: a short film about the meeting of a robot marionette and a little bird.
via UFunk.net.
Google’s The Story of Send visualizes how an email journeys through their data centers to reach its final destination, all while promoting the energy efficiency of their custom-built servers and their support of clean energy along the way.
I wish they’d gone into a bit more technical detail, but it’s a nice introduction to how much more there is to email technology than what we see, and provides some inspiration in the idea that a large company can innovate its business while still committing to carbon-neutrality.
via Neatorama.
