Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Last week, Ontario’s government said that people who want to become teachers will have to go to teacher’s college for two years instead of one.
That’s after regular college or university.
The changes will start in 2015.
The Ontario College of Teachers (where teachers train) is also cutting back on the number of students who can enroll to become teachers.
There are two reasons for the changes.
One is that there are not enough jobs in the province now for all the new teachers.
The Canadian Senate is an important part of the Government of Canada, but now some senators are being investigated to find out if they took money they weren’t entitled to.
A senator’s job is to give the final approval to a bill before it becomes law.
Some Senate members have been accused of taking money for things that are not covered by their Senate budget.
The expenses of senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Mac Harb, and Patrick Brazeau are being looked at.
Mike Duffy used to be a journalist before he was appointed to the Senate. In the Senate, he represents Prince Edward Island.
He was accused, along with the other senators, of taking money for things that he had no right to.
A Dutch business owner is looking for people who want to live on Mars.
He believes that with proper preparation, a human settlement can exist on the Red Planet.
He said the settlement would provide valuable information for those who support and study life beyond Earth.
The project is called Mars One and nearly 80,000 people–including 35 Canadians–have applied to start a new life on Mars.
Those who are chosen to go would set up a colony, similar to a city.
Supplies for the colony will be sent to Mars beginning in 2016.
The first four settlers are scheduled to be transported to Mars in 2023.
A program to prevent kids from dropping out of school is now available in Canada.
Reconnecting Youth is a U.S. program that helps kids gain self-esteem and cope with their emotions.
The Canadian program adds something more. It helps kids to see how anger can rule their lives.
The Canadian program is taught by social workers, who have training to help kids deal with anger that may be holding them back.
Many teens who are angry may also skip classes, insult teachers and even drop out of school, says Ed Schild, a spokesperson for the Reconnecting Youth program.
Reconnecting Youth has been a pilot project at R.H. King Academy in Toronto for the past two years.
Yesterday was Earth Day.
The annual celebration of the environment was first held in 1970.
But it wasn’t until 1990 that 141 countries put on special events at the same time to make people aware of environmental issues.
Now Earth Day is celebrated every April 22 in more than 150 countries.
In Canada, because there are so many events happening to commemorate Earth Day, the country now celebrates Earth Week and even Earth Month in some places.
The University Of Winnipeg in Manitoba recently tested students to see if their texting habits made a difference to the way they thought.
In one part of the study, 2,300 first-year psychology students completed one-hour online surveys.
The survey asked about what they thought was important to them as well as how often they texted.
The study found that those who texted more than 100 times a day were more interested in being rich and famous than those who texted 50 times or fewer each day.
To heavy texters, an ethical or a moral life was not as important as those who texted 50 or fewer times a day.
Another part of the study tested how students felt about different social, racial and ethnic groups. In this part, some students texted, some spoke on cellphones and some did neither.
Every year, Monarch butterflies fly more than 4,000 kilometres from Canada to Mexico.
Until recently, no-one was sure how the Monarch butterfly knew the exact path to take that would ensure it would end up at its intended destination after such a long flight.
Now Canadian scientists believe they have discovered the secret to the butterfly’s internal sense of direction.
Scientists wanted to know if the Monarchs used a type of “internal compass” or an “internal map.” Some animals and birds have both.
To find out, researchers tested the butterflies by starting them different locations than they normally would. Ryan Norris, an associate professor of biology at the University of Guelph, started them on their journey from Guelph, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta.
Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of England from 1979 to 1990. That was the longest time for any British prime minister since the early 19th century.
Thatcher was Britain’s only female prime minister and she was considered an important leader around the world.
On Monday Thatcher died of a stroke; she was 87 years old.
When she was Prime Minister, Thatcher was considered by most people to be very strong-willed. Her nickname was “The Iron Lady.” Once when her own Conservative party members asked her to tone down her a hard decision, she said to them: ‘The lady’s not for turning.’
On the other hand, Thatcher had a vision for her country and she was loyal to it to the end.
She believed strongly in lowering government spending, letting private companies buy government agencies and letting companies compete with each other without government help.
When a terrorist bomb, meant for her, killed five people, she made a speech that evening telling her own party that the British would never give in to terrorism.
Sirens. Security alarms. Sales pitches: “Taxi? Good restaurant! Best music CD? My art studio?”
These are the new sounds of Havana, Cuba.
This is my sixth time in Cuba–I am here on vacation; this year, I hear and see change.
It is almost 55 years since Cuba became a socialist country. In Cuba, socialism means that each Cuban has the same rights, the same salary and the same education as everyone else in the country.
Fidel Castro, former President of Cuba, brought socialism to the country in 1959 when he and his rebel forces took over the government. Now Cubans receive free education, free health care and most jobs have been protected by the government.
But the Cuban government is running out of money to pay for everything.
Things have to change.
Cities need to watch the weather closely in the future to make sure that city services are always in good working order, according to a new report being studied by the City of Toronto.
That’s because the changing climate–including severe weather and warmer temperatures–may affect cities’ infrastructure. In this case, “infrastructure” refers to services that support the city, such as roads, public transit and energy plants.
The report, requested by the Toronto Environment Office, summed up the past 10 years of serious weather events in and around Toronto.
In the last decade, several records were broken due to the weather. For instance, there was one day in which there was an unusually high demand for power during a very hot summer. This kind of high demand can put a strain on the city’s ability to provide power.
An all-time record 409 mm (millimetres) of rainfall was set at Trent University during this time. Four hundred and nine millimetres is equivalent to 14 billion litres of water in five hours.
Also, in the past 10 years, Toronto had its earliest ever official heat wave.
These kinds of weather events will likely continue and could affect the infrastructure of Toronto and other cities.
