You Are Creating Your Future Today

I received this email today and wanted to share it with you. Every day in class is a chance for you to achieve your greatest dreams later on; be it able to get that big sale or coming up with an idea that changes the world.

Take this day and every day in school as an opportunity to make your biggest dreams come true in your future.

Congratulations to Luis and Chad, who came up with this science and math lesson, involving potential and kinetic energy, and estimation, distance, collecting and graphing data.

Teachers' work far from waste; it's priceless
BY EMMA KREINER

Recently, a friend of mine commented that teaching was "a waste of a life." His argument consisted entirely of the idea that we spend so much time in the educational system, so jumping back into it after college seemed "anticlimactic."
Instead of going out and making major discoveries in math and science, or becoming a diplomat to change the world, I decide to teach kids.

If teaching really is a waste of a life, I would like to know how people expect to get to where they want to go without teachers.

Most of the work teachers do should be labeled "involuntary volunteering." The work teachers accomplish in the classroom is priceless, but they rarely get the money and recognition they deserve.

I would be a completely different person today if it hadn't been for my teachers. They were the inspiration to think for myself, and that's huge.

Every student faces challenges during their school years, and teachers are the ones who support us through that time.

I thought about what we consider to be valuable resources. The most valuable resource, the most productive resource, is people. People are at the start of every new idea, and at the end of every sale. People are the beginning, middle and end of everything.

I choose to educate people for my living. I can't think of anything that would be more important than helping to raise a child that will be the start of a new idea.

Teachers are the confidence, the encouragement and the nourishment behind so many dreams.
If the Tree of Knowledge really does exist, then teachers are the fruit.

Emma Kreiner is a student in the University of Cincinnati's College of Education.

Scientisits Discover a New Planet

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer Tue Nov 6, 5:32 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - A new planet was discovered orbiting a sun-like star 41 light years away, making it the first known planetary quintet outside our solar system, astronomers said Tuesday.

The newfound planet joins four others circling the nearby star 55 Cancri in the constellation Cancer. Although it resides in the star's so-called habitable zone, a place where liquid water and mild temperatures should exist, it is more like Saturn than Earth and therefore not likely to support life.

Still, scientists have not ruled out the possibility of finding an Earth-like planet within the system as technology improves.

"It's a system that appears to be packed with planets," said co-discoverer Debra Fischer, an astronomer at San Francisco State University.

Ranked fourth from 55 Cancri, the latest planet is about 45 times the mass of Earth and has an orbit of 260 days. It was detected after nearly two decades of observations by ground-based telescopes using the Doppler technique that measures a planet's stellar wobble.

The other planets in the 55 Cancri system were discovered between 1996 and 2004. The innermost planet is believed to resemble Neptune, while the most distant is thought to be Jupiter-like.

Scientists have detected about 250 exoplanets, or planets orbiting a star other than the sun. The 55 Cancri star holds the record for number of confirmed planets. Only one other star is known to have four planets, while several others have three or less.

"We can now say there are stars like the sun that have many worlds around them," said planetary scientist Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona, Tucson, who had no role in the discovery.

The research will appear in a future issue of the Astrophysical Journal. It was funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation and the University of California.

The latest discovery shows that our solar system is not unique, scientists said.

"When you look up into the night sky and see the twinkling lights of stars, you can imagine with certainty that they have their own complement of planets," said astronomer Geoff Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, who was part of the research.

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On the Net:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov

H.O.P. Approvals

As of October 25, 2007, the ONLY slide shows I have approved are Nick's and James'. If you need help and I am unavailable, you may ask one of these two fine gentlemen for assistance.

Key Points

1. Be sure to have the correct titles on all eight slides.

2. Include your weakest reading skill(s) on at least one of the slides.

3. If possible, include one weak area in math and science.

Points 2 & 3 are extra, and would make your presentation extra special......But you are extra special, so why not make your slide show the same?