Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts

Monday, November 18, 2019

Who Is That?

You know who this is...




And this....



But do you know these people??? What changes have they made in the world?

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1.  Sonia Sotomayor, the first person of Hispanic descent to serve as an Associate Justice (judge) on the United States Supreme Court and the third female Associate Justice. She is originally from New York. The other 2 women are Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

2.  Malala Yousefzi. At the age of 14, she was the youngest person to ever win a Nobel Prize. She is outspoken about women's rights, particularly focusing on education. She was shot in the head for being so outspoken, survived, and continues to speak out for womens' rights.
Read about her: Triogenius, 1-6-2014: The Rebel.

3. Greta Thunberg. She is a climate-change activist from Sweden and is not quite 16 years old. She began her call for climate awareness by protesting outside the Swedish Parliament building. She travels the world to spread support for protecting the world's climate. She also is autistic, and calls that her 'superpower'. 


Are you interested in learning about young people that have influenced our lives? Check this out: http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-living/photos/8-amazing-kids-who-have-changed-the-world/get-ready
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4. Nelson Mandela. He is a South African man who spoke out against apartheid, and spent 27 years of his life in prison. Read about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

5. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft,, which provides many basic computer programs we all use or have used . Read about him at Triogenius, 9-1-2014. 

6. Rosa Parks, considered a pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement, refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man in 1955, and was arrested. This is a picture of her being fingerprinted, and yes, she was actually arrested over a dispute about a seat on a bus. Her case was heard in court and eventually, the court found in her favor.  Read more about Rosa here:  http://www.rosaparks.org/biography/


7.  Mother Theresa, a highly regarded nun who was born in Albania and served in Calcutta, India, the founder of the Missions of Charity, serving the poorest people of the country and those suffering from AIDs, leprosy, and other diseases. She also was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

8.  Stephen Hawking. Hawking was a physicist who studied things like how the universe began, black holes, and time: He wrote a book, "A Brief History of Time." He suffered from motor neuron disease, which eventually robbed him of the ability to speak as you and I do, but communicated using a computer*..  He died in 2018 at the age of 76.

*learn about the person who developed this sort of computer..beginning when she was 12 years old--Rachel Zimmerman:  http://women-inventors.com/Rachel-Zimmerman.asp

9.  Sally Ride, the first female astronaut in the U.S. Ms. Ride was born in 1951. She was the first American woman in space, flying twice on the space shuttle Challenger and spending over 14 days in space. . She was the youngest person at age 32 to orbit the Earth. After she retired from NASA, she was a physics professor. Ms. Ride died in 2012.

10. Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin. He did research on the staphylococcus germ, watching how it grew and behaved when invading healthy cells. He planned to go on a holiday and stacked his samples in a pile, and when he returned he noticed there was some other kind of mold in some of the staph samples that was consuming and destroying it. His remark was, "That's funny.." Penicillin in many forms is still used as the first antibiotic to fight infections. Fleming lived from 1881 to 1955. He was born in Scotland and lived in England.

11.  Jane Goodall, born 1934. She is an Englishwoman who has devoted her life to the study of chimpanzees, living among them and discovering that they use tools, for one thing. Ms. Goodall still advocates for protection of chimpanzees as well as  promoting the saving of the environment,especially that of endangered species. Did you know that her notes and records were first digitized by the University of Minnesota? Here is more on her life:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall

12. Martin Cooper, the inventor of the cell phone (an early prototype is pictured). He worked for Motorola. The first cell phone conversation was Cooper calling a friend while standing on the streets of New York City.

Now you know some important people...
Think of more that you can explore:
  • Who invented something you use every day, and when did that happen?
  • Who has achieved great success, and how did he or she do it?
  • Who would be a role model for you?
  • Who rose from humble beginnings to accomplish great things?





Monday, February 6, 2017

Black History Month

February marks Black History Month in the United States.


It started out as National African American History Week, the 2nd week in February, in 1926, The reason for this date? Both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were born in February.


Read about the Emancipation Proclamation, signed in January of 1863, here: http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/emancipation-proclamation




Did you know this about Lincoln and the Proclamation?  http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation


The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1868 gave former slaves citizenship, but it had its flaws: It did not necessarily guarantee them their Constitutional rights. This was debated for years through Congress and the Supreme Court.


.The 15th Amendment gave men of color the right to vote (but not women, nor could any woman vote until 1919).

Shocking, right????

Note the use of the Roman Numerals XV

For a look at many constitution-related documents, follow this link to the National Archives site: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs


The celebration of the contribution of African Americans expanded to the month of February in 1976, and became Black History Month. It is about more than slavery, though. Here is just a brief listing of African Americans and their contributions to America:
  • Harriet Tubman was well known for her work with the Underground Railroad, guiding slaves to freedom in the north. She will be the first woman featured on money, the $20 bill.
  • W E B Dubois, Founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization began in 1909 and is still thriving today.
  • Hirem Revels was the first Black senator
  • Spelman College, in Georgia, was the first college for African American women http://www.spelman.edu/


  • Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, in Alabama, was the first college for African American men: http://www.tuskegee.edu/


  • Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
  • Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 because she would not give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Here she is being fingerprinted:




  • Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, an African American, made the decision that interracial marriage is legal. In the past, it was not: You could be arrested for marrying someone of a different race.
  • Shirley Chisholm was the first African American in the House of Representatives, from New York. She served from 1969 to 1983.
  • The first African American in outer space was Guion Bluford, Junior.
  • Read about astronaut Ron McNair, who has a TRIO scholarship program named for him:
  •     https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/mcnair.html 


  • The McNair Scholarship is unique in that it is for graduate students (those who have finished their Bachelors Degree) https://www2.ed.gov/programs/triomcnair/index.html
  • Colin Powell was the first Secretary of State of African American background
  • Condoleeza Rice was the first African American and first female to be Secretary of State.
  • Barack Obama was the first African American elected president.
  • We currently have 1 African American in the Senate, and 43 in the House of Representatives.
Young people talk about being mixed-race here: http://themash.com/blog/news/2012/11/15/mixed-race-teens-talk-about-identity/


What is the significance of Black History Month to you? Think about it, talk amongst yourselves, and see what we all have in common.