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 * Please click on the "EDIT" tab at the right of the page, then add your tidbit(s) under the appropriate headings or change/add headings as needed. Also, feel free to add references if you have them, your name and your school. Thanks! **

=Geography = =Great Lesson = =  =

Functional Geography
1. Hot air was discovered by the Chinese using broken eggshells over candlelight! People thought they were magicians. Sallyann Thomas-Lane AMPS

Astronomy
1.

Geology
1. = = =Biology =

Ecology/Environmental Issues
 1. The average person will consume 50 tonnes of food and 45,000 litres of water in a lifetime.

Plant Kingdom
1.

Animal Kingdom
1. Frogs never drink. They absorb water from their surroundings by osmosis.

2.

Other Kingdoms
1. =History =

Anthropology/Study of Peoples
1. Kristen Taylor told us at the retreat about Mongolian horsemen who would ride for days and tap a vein in a horse's neck to suck blood for nourishment. I found a source on the web confirming this: "The ratio of horses to humans allowed each warrior to travel with three to five horses, meaning that the army could travel at a gallop all day by alternating mounts when they tired. It also meant that the Mongol army did not have to move with a supply train, the vast and unwieldy collection of arms and food that followed traditional infantries. Instead, a Mongol warrior could drink the milk and blood of his horses to sustain him, use a horse to hunt, or, in the worst case, slaughter one of his mounts for meat. The tactics employed by the Mongols, such as creating a decoy army by mounting dummies on their spare horses, or coming through the most difficult terrain to encircle an enemy from behind proved to be decisive and would not have been possible without horses." []

2. And the obscure fact that this reminded me of: "The traditional diet of the Masai (also spelled Maasai) people in Kenya and Tanzania is derived mostly from their cattle, though they do not often eat beef; rather, they eat milk and blood which is harvested by puncturing the loose flesh on the cow's neck with an arrow. The wound is closed after a gourdfull of blood is obtained. This operation can be repeated every month or so with no harm to the cow. The Masai typically drink blood mixed with milk." [] Sharon Udy, Wa Ora Montessori School, Naenae, Lower Hutt.

=Language =

Development of Language
1.

Languages of the World
1. There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language.

2. The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.

3. The world's largest alphabet is Cambodian, with 74 letters.

Etymology
1. **Ballot -** "Italian term for 'small ball or pebble.' Italian citizens once voted by casting a small pebble or ball into one of several boxes". [] Sharon Udy, Wa Ora Montessori School, Naenae, Lower Hutt. (Check out the website - lots of really interesting etymologies!)

2. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead".

3. The word "robot" was created by Karel Capek. It came from Czech/Slovak "robotovat," which means to work very hard.

Facts about Authors/Playwrights/Linguists
1. William Shakespeare "was a voracious drinker of tea. He was known to consume upwards of ten cups of tea each day, favouring Keemun in the mornings and Rose Pouchong during the evenings. If he was in special need of stimulation when writing his works, he would indulge in a little Lapsang Pouchong, though following the destruction of the Globe in 1613, he gave up drinking this particular flavour as its smokey aroma reminded him of the fire that ravaged through his beloved Globe Theatre, switching to Assam, which rapidly became his favoured drink". [] Sharon Udy, Wa Ora Montessori School, Naenae, Lower Hutt.

2.

=Mathematics =

Development of mathematics
1. Zero was invented by the Hindu mathematicians Aryabhata and Varamihara in India around or shortly after the year 520 A.D.

2 . The = sign was first used in a published work in 1557 by Robert Record.

Facts about mathematicians
1. Pythagoras is one of the most famous mathematicians. He was born in Samos, Greece around 582 B.C. and he died around 475 B.C. Although he made many important contributions to mathematics, no-one knows much about him. We do not have anything that he wrote because he was the leader of a secret society where they didn’t write down what they did. All that we have about Pythagoras are a few biographies from a long time ago.

2. Eratosthenes was called "Beta" (the second letter of the Greek alphabet) because he was never first, but he is more famous than his "Alpha" teachers because his discoveries are still used today. Chief among these are the calculation of the circumference of the earth (note: the Greeks knew that the earth was spherical) and the development of a mathematical sieve named after him. He made a calendar with leap years, a 675-star catalogue, and maps. He recognized that the Nile's source was a lake, and that rains in the lake region caused the Nile to flood.

=Geometry = = = = =

=Visual Arts = = = =<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> = =<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Music = = = =<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> = =<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Dance = = = =<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> = =<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Drama = = = =<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"> = =<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">Sports and Physical Activity =