Learn How To Ice Skate

Ice Skating is very elegant to look at, if you do not keep falling on the ice floor. However, you can not learn skating if you do not fall for a few times. Here are easy steps on how to learn, even for the first time on skates.

First thing to learn is always to get your balance. Keep your head up, do not look down and do not bend forward. Both of your arms should be at your waist and keep your hands relaxed. Keep both of your feet together, slide them back and forth a little bit, and try to glide along on these two feet. Your first steps on the ice may be frightening, but do not worry, each step will be an improvement. It will not be long until you will get used to the feeling of being in skates.

After you already improved your gliding, you can begin practicing stroking. Bend slightly forward at the waist. Push off from the front part of the blade on either foot. Never push of using your toe picks. If you are pushing off with your right foot, bend your right knee as you begin to stroke and straighten it as you end your glide. Do the same for the left foot.

You must also learn how to stop. Glide in a straight line with your feet about more than one ruler apart. Then, force your heels apart and point your toes together to make a snowplow position. This will bring you to a halt. More experienced skaters use hockey stop.

You must learn how to turn. The best way is using a crossover method. Your free foot should pass in front of your skating foot. Then your free foot is placed on the ice and your weight shifted for it. For example, if you wish to turn to the right while skating on the right foot, bring the left foot  in front of the right. Shift your weight gradually until the left foot  crosses over the right and touches the ice on the inside edge. The left foot now carries the weight and the right food can be lifted from the ice. Bring it up beside the left foot up and cross it in front as before. Repeat these steps.

The Story of ILIAD

The Iliad was written by Homer. He was also the author of the Odyssey. The story is the earliest and most famous Greek Literature. Like every epic poetry, it is written in a grand style and is about gods, goddesses, mythology and heroes. Homer lived approximately around the 8th century B.C. and told the story of events that happened 400 years earlier than him. He may not have written at all but he must have recited his poems orally.

The name Iliad came from the word Ilium which is another name for Troy. The Trojan war started when Prince Paris of Troy carried off Queen Helen of Sparta. Homer does not tell all the events of this war. He covers only a few weeks during the 10th and last year. Bur he uses the flashback technique, through which we see many earlier incidents, and he also gives many hints of what is to follow.

The chief hero is Achilles. Achilles becomes angry at Agamemnon, the Greek commander in chief, who takes away a prize Achilles had won. Achilles feels insulted and withdraws from the fight. Throughout most of the 24 books of the poem, he stays brooding angrily at his tent. But he is never far from our thoughts, and we watch him become a better human being through suffering. The very first words of the poem indicate the subject, “The wrath of Achilles is my theme,” the poet says.

Homer is dramatic, noble and realistic. We feel we know his characters.Though he was a Greek, he gives very fair treatment to the Trojans. The story moves rapidly. There are many speeches. One notable feature of Homer’s style  is the use of epithets. Achilles is “swift-footed”. The sea is “wine-dark”. Aphrodite is “laughter-loving”. As their “bible”, the Iliad had enormous influence on the thought of the Greeks. Alexander the Great carried a copy with him while conquering Asia. The Iliad also greatly influenced the world’s literature, not merely epic poetry. This influence is first evident among the Greeks themselves, especially the writers of tragedy.

The sequel to this epic story is of course the Odyssey, which tells the adventures and long journey home of Odyssey. To know more, watch this great interesting video below!

Types of Learning

1. Habituation is a change in behavior in which an animal doesn’t mind an unimportant stimulus after same exposure to that stimulus , over and over again. It is very valuable because the animal doe not waste any time and energy anymore to respond to a stimulus that does not have a beneficial or negative impact to the individual. Examples of this type of learning is that the noises that we can hear in the city becomes habitual that we don’t mind anymore if it is loud. The noise of the roosters in the morning are already called  white noises.

2. Imprinting is a kind of learning that can not be go back and only limited to a crucial time period in the overall lifespan of an animal. The time during which the imprinting can be don is known as the critical period. Example of imprinting is that when newborn elephants always follow their mother whenever she goes.

3. Spatial learning is when animals used landmarks to learn the spatial structure of the environment that indicates the location of food, nest sites, possible mates and potential hazards and danger.

 

4. Other animals learn (especially humans) by imitating the behavior of another animal and also by instructions. The development of complex language by humans has made cognitive learning (the manipulation of information using the mind) the most prominent method used by humans. Many organisms learn through observing and imitating others. Examples: People learn to play the guitar by watching video tutorials on YouTube by guitarists. Some animals have complex cognitive abilities like problem solving where you apply past experience to overcome obstacles in the future situations.

5. Associative learning is the ability to associate one environment feature to another. It is a behavioral change based on linking a stimulus or behavior with a reward or punishment that includes trial-and-error learning. Example pf an associate learning is when you open a container of food will make your pet running towards you.

Want to know more? Watch this helpful video on other learning styles!

Glaciers

Glaciers

Glaciers are found at present in the regions around the North and South poles and in mountainous areas elsewhere. Near the equator in South America and Kenya in Africa, some of the mountains are about 4, 500 meters which is about 15, 000 feet. It is high enough for the average air temperature to be well below freezing point. Thus, there are glaciers in equatorial lands as well as in polar ones. Of course, for glaciers to form at all, snow must fall A few places in Antarctica have no glaciers simply because very little snow falls.

Ablation

As the ice in the glacier flows downhill to warmer altitudes the amount of melting increases. Some of the melt water may soak into the glacier and refreeze. The rest either flows of the glacier in streams or evaporates into the air. These processes, by which ice is lost from the glacier, are called ablation. Some glaciers reach the sea and melt when they come in contact with the warmer seawater. Calving, the name used when larger icebergs break off a glacier and float away, is also a form of ablation.

Accumulation

Let’s take a glance at a glacier in a mountainous area High up in the mountains, the amount of new snow and ice added each year is greater than the amount lost by melting and evaporation. This upper part of the glacier is called the accumulation area. Farther down the mountain, ablation is greater than accumulation of snow. This part of the glacier is the ablation area. At some level on the glacier, summer melting just balances the winter;s accumulation of snow. This level is called the firn line. Above the firn line, the glaciers surface is permanently snow-covered. Below it the surface is ice in the summer and snow in the winter.

Watch this fascinating video of a glacier wave below!

Ice In Nature

Ice From Water

One example is a small pond and then it freezes during a cold winter. During the summer, the water becomes warmer. It absorbs heat from the sun, an it is in contact with the warm air. As winter approaches, the air temperature drops The water ten loses heat to the air, and its temperature falls.

To understand what happens next, you have to know another fact about water. It is heaviest at 4 degrees Celsius. At temperatures higher or lower than this, it is lighter. As the surface of the pond cools to 4 degrees C, the water on the top becomes heavier and sinks to bottom. When it sinks, it pushes warmer and lighter water up from below. The new surface water cools, sinks and pushes more bottom water to the surface. This circulation continues until all the pond reaches at temperature at 4 degrees C. When all the water reaches at that temperature, the surface of the water will continue cooling until it is lighter, As a Result, the pond starts to freeze at the surface, while the bottom remains with the 4 degrees Celsius temperature. Because water is heavier than ice, plant and animal life can survive in the water, ponds and lakes would freeze from the bottom.

Ice From Snow

The other way that ice forms in nature is from snow. In most places where winter snows exists, temperatures later climb high enough to melt all of the snow that has fallen. In every high mountain areas and in the polar regions this is not the case. In those regions, some of the winter snow stays formed as solid. This makes it bigger through out time. In areas where there is some melting, a density of snow increases much faster. This is so because some of the water from melting trickles down through the rest of the snow and fills the air spaces between snow crystals. Later it refreezes and make ice.

Watch this amazing video of a lake slowly freezing over time.

The First Cartoons

What are cartoons? A cartoon is drawing or a series of drawings that tells a story with funny or serious messages. Their exaggeration makes them unique. The term itself was originally mentioned in an artist’s first raw sketch. There are a lot of kinds of cartoon. First is the editorial which is to dramatize and sway people to an opinion. Second is the comic strip which is a series of drawings that usually appears in magazines and newspapers. One similar to comic strip is the panel cartoon but instead, it has only a single drawing. Last but not the least is the gag cartoon where there are panels of characters only showing up only once.

The at of cartooning began with the English artist William Hogarth, who was born in the year 1697 and died on 1764. He drew pictures that poke fun at the social customs of his times. Another English Artist, Thomas Rowlandson, was a master and expert of caricature, which is the exaggeration of human features to make people ridiculous and funny. Another important step in the development of the cartoon was provided by the work of the French artist Honore Daumier, known for his funny but bitter attacks on powerful people. His cartoons once landed him in jail for six months. But Daumier made his mark on journalism. The editorial cartoon soon became a regular feature of journals and magazines through Europe.

The first important American cartoonist was Thomas Nast. His work was a regular feature of the American Magazine Harper’s Weekly. Nast’s cartoons attacking Tammany Hall, a corrupt political organization in New York City, and it’s leader, Boss Tweed, were so on target that Tammany Hall was destroyed and Tweed had to flee the country. Nast is credited with popularization of many symbols still in use today, including the character of Uncle Sam, the Republican Party’s elephant, and the Democrats’ donkey.

History of the Study of Matter

Greek Science

The Ancient Greeks were the first to try getting answers on how these chemical changes work, which is the very first approach to chemistry to being a science. Questions like what made the Earth, how rocks were formed and what elements does our planet possessed are just examples of the list. Thales was one of the famous people in creating Chemistry because of his attempt. He believed that the Earth was made of water and the Earth itself was hardened water while Air was thinned out water. This became the first theory relating to chemical during the history.

Hundred years later, Aristotle had another idea. Instead of only water, he said that the Earth was made out of four elements. While the heavens were made up of the fifth element that the Earth lacks. He named it aether. The Greeks believed him for hundreds of years until Democritus contradicted the ideas.

He said that EVERYTHING is made up of very little particles. These particles were so microscopic that you can not divide them anymore. These are now called the atoms which means “something that cannot be cut” in Greek. However, most of the people did not believe his ideas. Therefore, Aristotle’s idea won again not until thousand years later that the idea reappeared.

Alchemy

Metal was very important during the ancient times. Therefore, metalworking was indeed important. Greek ideas were mixed with both Egyptian and Mesopotamian. Example waswhen the Egyptians imitated gold by mixing copper and some other metals. Yet, a Greek theory stated that copper and gold have the similar matter. They are only different when it comes to their “form”.

Then time came when the metalworkers tried to make authentic gold. It was called as the study of chemia. It is the origin of the word “chemistry”.

The Art of Writing

During the Stone age, people already have the knowledge to make a picture representing an object. Cave men carved shapes of animals on the walls. And these is how they still communicate with us today, by the pictures they drew on the walls. You may wonder, it’s not writing, it is called drawing. However, it is how the art of writing was first formed. Pictures became more complicated.

The Native American Indians had also different kinds of picture writing long before when Columbus arrived. One examples are the Mayans in Central America which highly developed their written language as well as their hieroglyphics.

It was when they took a giant step when they made pictures to represent sounds and not only objects. The Ancient Sumerians living in Mesopotamia which is now Iraq, discovered this 5, 000 years ago. The Chinese, still have one of the most complicated form of writing, until today. In their language, each symbol makes only one symbol. And therefore, they have thousands of them to write.

The next step in improving the art of writing was to invent the written language which each symbol stands for a single sound rather than one word. This is now what we call the alphabet. The word “alphabet” came from first two letters of the Greek Alphabet which are alpha and beta. The first people to use the alphabet were the Hebrews, the people living in Mediterranean and the Phoenicians.

One of the causes why ancient books where so precious and rare is because it took a lot of time and skills to be able to finish each one of them. The second is because there wasn’t a lightweight material that the people could write on. However, the Chinese already knew how to make paper from materials like bamboo silk and linen. Not until Marco Polo visited the China they knew about the paper. When it comes to ink, the Egyptians and the Chinese were the first.

Greek Mythology

People have always wondered about the marvelous things in the sky and on the earth. What makes it rain? Who made the sun? What gives us food? Why do we live on this earth and then die? When do we get lucky? What life will we get after we die? Who made the earth? Why do some certain things happen? Is your life destined for you?  Greek myths are tales told by the ancient people of Greece in attempt to answer the mysteries of earth. They believe that there are people or gods and goddesses more powerful than them.   A lot of the pre-historic civilizations had unusual gods. However, it was the Greek who first believed that the world was controlled by powerful beings called as gods and goddesses who looked, dressed, spoke and acted like the people of the Greece. However, they powers that no mortal being can acquire or do. Because of these myths, we were able to understand their culture, tradition and ideals. These amazing stories are likely to be originated as early as 1000 B.C. These beliefs were passed down from generation to generation by poems and even songs. Later, they were acted in plays and were also written down. All through the western civilization, we find the myths represented by sculptures, paintings, literature and music. Some of our common words also came from the mythology of the Greeks. One example is the Atlas which is the Titan Atlas, that holds the earth stable with his strong shoulders. When the Romans invaded the Greeks, they did not destroy their marvelous ideas and beliefs. Instead, they adapted most of them and improved some names and terms. They had high respect for the Greek people. Instead of Greek names, they change the names of the gods and goddesses to Latin names.

The Roman Calendar

The calendar used today by most people in North America and Europe had its beginnings in the ancient Roman calendar. In fact, the word “calendar” came from the Latin word Kalendae, which was the Romans called the first day of every month. How the Roman calendar developed and changes tells us a great deal about how the Western calendar system works today.

Each Roman month had 3 fixed points: the Kalends, the Nones and the Ides. The Ides generally fell at the full moon of the lunar month. In March, May, July and October, the Nones were the 7th day, and the Ides the 15th. In the other months the Nones were the 5th day, and the Ides the 13th.

At one time the ancient Roman calendar had only 10 months. The year began in March, when farmers began their work for the coming growing season. At some point, perhaps as early as 153 B.C., the Romans changed to a 12-month system and moved the beginning of the year to January.

The 12 -month Roman year originally consisted of 355 days. March, May, July and October had 31 days. February had 28, and the other months had 29. Because this year did not fit with the actual solar year, extra days  were added each year to make the calendar more correct. The extra period, called the Intercalaris, was usually 22 or 23 days long.

Over the years this calendar became wildly out of sequence with the natural cycle. In 46 B.C. the Roman leader Julius Caesar decided that it had to be revised. He introduced a calendar that had 365 days, and he established the leap year system by adding an extra day every 4 years. This new calendar became known as the Julian calendar, named for its inventor.

All in all, the calendar used today in North America and Europe owes much to the old Roman System. Starting the new year on January 1 and adding leap years are just two examples of Roman influence. From the Romans, too, come the names of the months and the system of starting the day at midnight.