"Tox Town"- educating us about environment health concerns

"Tux Town"is an interactive guide to commonly encountered toxic substances, your health, and the environment. It helps users explore a Port, Town, City, Farm, to identify common environmental hazards.

Information on chemical and environmental concerns is from the TOXNET and MedlinePlus resources of the National Library of Medicine

Tox Town is designed to give you information on:

- everyday locations where you might find toxic chemicals
- non-technical descriptions of chemicals
- links to selected, authoritative chemical information on the Internet
- how the environment can impact human health
- Internet resources on environmental health topics

Tox Town uses color, graphics, sounds and animation to add interest to learning about connections between chemicals, the environment, and the public's health. Tox Town's target audience is students above elementary-school level, educators, and the general public.

For Teachers:

* Environmental Health Education

Tox Town and other National Library of Medicine resources can help with student-friendly information on human health and the environment, plus pollution and toxic chemicals.
Students can learn about their school's indoor air quality and environment, toxic chemicals in homes and communities, and the impact of the environment on the quality of drinking water or outdoor air.

Raising Environmental Health Awareness

Print and photocopy one or more of the location scenes on the clip artpage and pass to students.
Ask students to circle the places on the scene where they might encounter environmental health concerns and give examples of what they think they might find. List specific risks that those problem areas might pose, for example the river might be polluted, the school chem lab might store toxic chemicals or trucks may be spewing exhaust.
Then give the students time to explore Tox Town. Students can compare the concerns circled on paper with those they find illustrated in Tox Town.

Ask students to choose one environmental health concern from the scene and write 2-3 paragraphs about the possible effects of that concern on people's health.

-For higher level thinking, students can predict what risks might exist in their own community (that match the scene) and where. Students could also check local government resources, newspapers, and environmental groups to learn about and verify local concerns.

- Classroom Activities and Discussion Questions

Kids would love to search this health and food related site

This site is health related, but it is so colourful and interactive that kids would love to browse it.

Kids home page is from FDA (U.S Food and Drug Adminitration) and have food safety and other health related stuff for kids.

* Link to other kids sites
* parents corner provides a lot of helping health related posts/links.

*News page would be informative for parents and kids.

For example: A news about "Apple Cider Safety"
Apple cider is a fun and delicious drink. It tastes almost like apple juice, but a little stronger and the color is a little darker. You can buy it mostly in the fall at the store and when you go to the pumpkin patch and fall fairs.

But some apple cider may not be safe to drink, especially for kids. If it hasn’t been pasteurized (a type of heating) or treated in another way to kill germs, it might make you sick. Be sure to ask your parents or teachers before drinking any apple cider to be sure it’s safe

* Another page from FDA: For Kids, Teens, & Educators

- An Activity Book for You to Color: Food Safety at Home, School and When Eating Out

* At another site, read about 10 of the best and worst foods for children: 10 of the Worst/best Children's Foods

"Teaching Expertise"- A learning site for teachers and parents

This is one of the sites which is a good source of learning for parents and teachers. I could find a lot of articles on various topics about learning as a teacher, which are equally beneficial as a parent.

Teaching Expertise is an information and learning website for teachers and other education professionals. It's a place to come for free education articles and bulletins, advice and guidance, knowledge sharing and ideas.


There's a huge searchable library plus our full catalogue of books and newsletters. A lot of material on Teaching Expertise is also useful for parents and researchers.

Mission: To provide teachers with the best place to learn from each other and develop professionally and personally.

Site was launched in November 2006.

* Section Teaching and learning covers everything from curriculum development to classroom conflict.

* Managing behaviour positively can go a long way to reducing the stress levels of staff and pupils alike. The articles in this section explore the challenges involved in providing the optimum climate for learning, both for encouraging positive behaviour and reducing negative behaviour.
- Behaviour

* Every Child Matters is highlighting achievement and enjoyment for all. In schools, teachers are overcoming barriers in the classroom, and learning more about meeting individual needs. The articles here will inform, update and stimulate your work with pupils with SEN
- Special Educational Needs
some sample articles are:
- Activities to develop gross motor skills
- Activities to develop social communication skills
- New resource for teaching synthetic phonics
- Gifted and talented children are not always easy to spot, as parents, teachers and educational psychologists have different criteria for making judgements. Once identified, these pupils need support to achieve their full potential. Teacher expectation, expertise on the part of educators and effective management of provision are all contributing factors. Find out more about gifted and talented provision, by browsing the articles in this section.
- Gifted & Talented

* School leadership and management teams need to be honest and boldy introspective, to examine their own practices and ask themselves if they are really doing all they can to create the conditions in which highly effective work can take place at all levels, at all times. These articles span the wide range of leadership skills and management functions which enable the school to achieve a 'high-performance culture'.
- Leadership and Management

* CPD (continuing professional development) plays a key role in enhancing teachers' success as educators. The transmission of a thirst for knowledge – so central to what teachers do in the classroom – cannot prevail without regular professional learning, to keep teaching as vibrant and effective as possible. This section contains a wide range of articles relating to CPD – for both teaching and non-teaching staff.
- CPD – Continuing Professional Development

* Safeguarding and child protection training is now required for all staff who work with children. The Every Child Matters national framework includes, "The duty to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people". In this section you will find articles to inform and update you on this vitally important issue.
- Child Protection
* These articles, taken from recent issues of our Optimus newsletters, will prove invaluable for anyone with a professional or personal interest in Early Years.
- Early Years
- Helping young children understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle
- The importance of healthy eating for young children
- Encouraging communication, curiosity and creativity

As a Parents:
** These articles for parents will provide you with a wide range of information about issues in your child's school. There are also many specific topic areas for you to explore, including behaviour, achievement, special educational needs and more.
- Parents

As a teacher:
** Find fresh inspiration and practical ideas for Classroom Teachers in our education articles. Read professional updates, broaden your knowledge and discover transferable good practice in our case studies.
- Classroom Teacher
- Motivating every learner

Healthy eating for your child

Eating habits play a big role in providing nutrition to your child, which helps them to stay healthy and fit. But what is a healthy menu and how we can help develop healthy habit among our children?

"Kaiser Permanente.org" is a non-profit organization providing health guidelines. It suggests "healthy eating" in these words:

As a parent:
Your job is to offer nutritious food choices at meals and snack times. You decide the what, where, and when of eating.
and
Your child's job is to choose how much he or she will eat of the foods you serve. Your child decides how much or even whether to eat.

Healthy eating means eating a variety of foods so that your child gets the nutrients (such as protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins, and minerals) he or she needs for normal growth. If your child regularly eats a wide variety of basic foods, he or she will be well-nourished.

How much food is good for my child?
From birth until about 2 or 3 years old, children have an "internal hunger gauge" that signals how much food they need at a given time. Babies cry to let us know they're hungry. When they're full, they stop eating. Children continue this pattern as they grow—they eat as much or as little as their bodies need. But after the age of 2 or 3, this internal hunger gauge is also affected by other things. It is important to get your child to pay attention to the natural signs of hunger from his or her body.

It may worry you to see your child eat very little at a meal. Children tend to eat the same number of calories every day if they are allowed to eat in response to their internal hunger gauge. The pattern of calorie intake is different from day to day. One day a child may eat a big breakfast, a big lunch, and hardly any dinner. The next day this same child may eat very little at breakfast but may eat a lot at lunch and dinner. Don't expect your child to eat the same amount of food at every meal and snack each day.

How can I help my child eat well and be healthy?
Many parents worry that their child is either eating too much or too little. Perhaps your child only wants to eat one type of food—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for instance. One way to help your child eat well and help you worry less is to know what your job is and what your child’s job is when it comes to eating. Some food experts call this the division of responsibility.1 If your child only wants to eat one type of food, he or she is doing the parent's job of deciding what food choices are. In the division of responsibility, it is the parent's job to decide what foods are offered.

How can you help to develop healthy eating habits?

You can help support your child's healthy eating habits and physical activity level by:

Eating together as a family as often as possible. Keep family meals pleasant and positive. Avoid making comments about the amount or type of food your child eats. Pressure to eat actually reduces children's acceptance of new or different foods.
Making healthy food choices for your family's meals. Children notice the choices you make and follow your example.
Setting limits on your child's daily television and computer time. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a limit of 1 to 2 hours of screen time a day.2 Sit down with your child and plan out how he or she will use this time allowance.
Making physical activity a part of your family's daily life. Some ways to do this include walking your child to and from school, and teaching your child how to skip, hop, dance, play catch, jump rope, and ride a bike.

Taking a walk after dinner.
Taking your child to all recommended well-child checkups. You can use this time to discuss your child's growth rate, activity level, and eating habits with a doctor.

Source link: Healthy eating for children

To read more: Helping Your Child to Eat Well

* More resources and links page for health

Mutual benefits for both advertisers and bloggers at "Smorty"

Blogs are becoming an attraction for advertisers, as "blog advertising" has become the first choice for them. People are attacked by ads everywhere, so normal or banner advertising doesn't produce the results, advertisers expect. Blog provide a good way of advertising, as people tend to read blog and blog posts with interest.

Same way bloggers get some money for their efforts. And as I have noticed your blog also get links from search engines, as you write/review about related topics at your blog.

"Smorty" is one of the sites which provide get paid to blog opportunities for bloggers.
Rules to register are as follows:

- Your blog should be approved first to get the opportunites.
- Your blog must be indexed by Google and Yahoo
- It should be older than 3 months
- It should have minimum histroy to 2 posts per week.
- The lowest rate per review is $6.00
- You are paid (in case of your review is approved)after one week via paypal.
Check the faq section to know more about it.

"Latitudes.org"- helping us in alternative therapies!

As a mother, I know that parents have to face a lot of physical or neuro challenges regarding their children. Usually we choose the regular way of treatment for any kind of sickness, but every parent is now aware of the side effects of the available medications. Personally I prefer alternative therapies for any kind of physical or neuro disorders.

The Association for Comprehensive NeuroTherapy (ACN) is a non profit organization. So resources and links are mostly free except some publications. But the articles and posts at the site, and blog are very informative.

The Association for Comprehensive NeuroTherapy (ACN) is dedicated to exploring advanced and alternative non-toxic treatments for: anxiety, autism, attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, tics and Tourette syndrome, and learning disabilities.

The site Latitude.org is from the ACN helping you in learning to have a healthier brain and nerous system- naturally by reducing or avoiding the need for prescription medications.

Few links to the articles suggested from the site:
* Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
* ADD & ADHD
* 10 tips from ACN for families dealing with ADHD

Download: Behavior modification charts for home and school

* You may sign up for their e-newsletter: sign up page
* Link to the forum
* Link to the blog: blog

"Kaushal Sheth"- providing guide to best web hosting

Kaushal Sheth is a young blogger from Mumbai, India. He is himself a student of electronics and telecommunication and this blog is an effort to learn better about Web Designing, Content Development, Web Development
Marketing ,Branding, Internet Advertising, Blogs, Search Engines and SEO.

As he considers himself a student and learner, his advice in sugesting us the
best web hosting might be very useful. Because he researched the web to find out top 10 hosting sites. He has given only 3 site links, but we hope that after more search, he can suggest more sites to the blog readers.

He offers blog templates and he also provides custom themes at a nominal rate.
Blog is very easy to search.

There are many
You can get the updates at your in-box by subscribing the blog: subscribe here

* His links page: recommended links
* You can download many word press themes
FREE at this link
* Link for bloggers templates
His site Kaushal Sheth.net has more blog templates and themes.

"Neurolearning blog"- A blog about learning, teaching and brain

Eide Neurolearning Blog is created by the persons who are from education field, alongwith physician degree, so their posts are very rich informative source. Parents or teacher can both read the blog to know more about learning and brain related articles.

Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide, who are physicians and from education field. This blog is about brain, learning, teaching and more about these topics.

Few very useful and informative articles:

* In the article "What Today's Students Can Learn from IDEO " it says:
"IDEO is a world reknown and innovative design firm that helped develop Apple Computer's first mouse, the Palm V, the insulin pen, the first stand-up toothpaste tube, and overhauled the consumer experiences of Kaiser Permanente Hospitals and high fashion dressing rooms.

With the Information Revolution, facts and information base are not the essential commodity any more. It's no longer vital to "know that", but rather to "know why" and "how to make better." And these skills are right up IDEO's alley. What IDEO may help specifically with is a more systematic approach to teaching and encouraging problem solving."
To read in details:

* The Blessings and the Burdens of High IQ

* Your Brain with Time- What About Teen Brain?

* Timing is Everything - Dyslexia, ADHD, Auditory Processing, Sensory Integration.

* Research studies have shown video gamers who practice on action games like Medal of Honor have a wider visual span and greater sensitivity to visual detection. But the flipside of this visual sensitivity is increased visual distraction. More at the article: Are Computers Driving Us to Distraction?

Their one of the blog is Classical School Blog which is about resources, links, and lesson plans- including all aspects of the Trivium - Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric, Latin and a little Greek, Ancient and Modern History, Great Books and Philosophy, Bible and Theology, and Classical Math and Science. For homeschooling and traditional schooling parents and teachers.