0901WarmUp

Welcome to another year of GrokIt!

GrokIt originally appeared 2 years ago. While teaching at RHS, I conceived it as the digital equivalent of the Do Now or activator you may be used to other teachers giving to you to start the class.

Interestingly enough, I believe the blog has taken up a much more important role in my classes.

I envision using GrokIt as a hi-tech portal to get you and your energies focused on the class topics of the day by hyperlinking around the net to:

•discover state-of the-art technologies
•bump into some engaging topic
•just enjoy a fun and interesting website.

My hope is to try to kindle a spark of interest in computers and technology.

After all, the World Wide Web and everything in it was created by software developers, computer programmers, web designers, all kinds of techie people of which you are the next generation.

I also want to create a class community, a public forum from which you could express your opinions and see the opinions of others about these topics.

So here's today's GrokIt.

Online carbon calculators help users determine the amount of carbon emissions they (or their household) is responsible for introducing into the environment. This kind of interactive exercise can be a good language-development opportunity, as well as one for expanding content knowledge in either science or social studies.

Figure out how much carbon you are spewing into the atmosphere by using these tools:

http://www.zerofootprintkids.com/kids_home.aspx

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/education/ecologic/games.htm

http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/

http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/

http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/consumerConsequences.html

http://www.onedidit.com/test/

http://www.waterfootprint.org/index.php?page=cal/waterfootprintcalculator_indv

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