Unstoppable

AND ANOTHER ONE'S GONE: Today, M. Scott Carpenter, the sixth human and the fourth American in space, died. He was 88.

I love the NASA photo of Carpenter above. It looks like it's straight from a sci-fi movie - but it was science fact!



With Carpenter's passing, John Glenn has become the last of the Mercury 7 - the original group selected as astronaut candidates by NASA.

This afternoon, we watched a NASA video about Carpenter's historic Aurora 7 spaceflight.


Narrated in dramatic staccato fashion with an absolutely overbearing score, it's rather wonderful. :)

Carpenter was grounded in 1964, after suffering an injury to his arm in a motorcycle accident.  However, the unstoppable Carpenter didn't let that stop him. Instead, he became an 'aquanaut.'  In 1965, he spent 28 days living on the ocean floor off the coast of California as part of the U.S. Navy's SEALAB II experiment. He retired from NASA in '65, and founded Sea Sciences, Inc., a business dedicated to ocean studies and preserving the marine environment.


UNSTOPPABLE: An email from Scholastic let me know about an upcoming Web event about history's heroes on Oct. 16, 10 a.m. Pac Coast time. (Here's a link to the announcement: http://www.scholastic.com/dove/teachers/?form)

The live webcast will feature The 39 Clues authors Gordon Korman and Jude Watson; Andrea Davis Pinkney, award-winning author of "Hand in Hand," and Dove (as in soap and stuff) Self–Esteem Ambassador Jess Weiner.

The presentation is about how Amelia Earhart, Jackie Robinson, Mozart, and Dorothy Dandridge taught the panelists to be unstoppable.

I asked CeeJ and Bee what "unstoppable" means to them. They came up with this list of adjectives: Determined, smart, driven, strong, resilient, resourceful, spirited, focused, 'large wits,'

independent, "and a high pillar, metaphorically speaking," CJ added.

I saw that they were lesson plans to go along with the Web cast, so I checked them out and then I emailed the kids Scholastic's link to PDFs about Louis Braille, Madam CJ Walker, and Amelia Earhart, and they read them. "All these stories are really interesting," Annabelle offered.

One of Scholastic's suggestions was for kids to cut words and images out of magazines that represent "unstoppable." We had some magazines laying around (Rolling Stone and ESPN The Magazine), and so I directed the kids to do just that.

Of course, they would up reading a bunch of articles in both mags, but that's mostly OK. ;)

After 25 minutes or so of reading, cutting and pasting, here's what they came up with.

I told CJ I didn't really agree with his inclusion of 'desperate,' but he insisted it stay. I guess it was desperate in the sense of desperate to make a difference?

CHESTNUTTY: We're trying to keep up on our "New York Style" walking, and to that end, we took an hour long, fast paced jaunt this morning. Along the way, we discovered a tree shedding large, lovely chestnuts. I scooped up a couple of handfuls, and told the kids they would become the day's art project.

They had fun with it. Here's a (crappy) photo of their creations.

YESTERDAY: Thanks to all of you who took the "Eyes Have It" assessment. Interesting to hear your results and it reinforced my thought that age, experience and vocabulary accounted for CJ and Annabelle's results on the 'test.'

Here's a leftover photo from yesterday, a/k/a 'disguise day.' Yes, we bought a blaze orange leather couch. I hope it doesn't hurt your eyes. :)