Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
In 1986, Rick Hansen went around the world in a wheelchair – through 34 countries – to raise money for spinal cord injuries.
Hansen’s “Man In Motion Tour” was a major achievement, covering more than 40,000 kilometres. Many people see Hansen as a Canadian hero.
It has been 25 years since Hansen’s historic tour and in that time his foundation has raised more than $200 million to help people with spinal cord injuries.
In the National Hockey League (NHL), many players have gotten concussions this year.
A concussion happens when you accidentally hit your head really hard, like when you’re playing sports or running around.
The rate of head injuries has gone up this season. The NHL’s general managers met with Gary Bettman, the commissioner, recently to talk about how they could make hockey safer for the players. Bettman says he believes that as many as a quarter of all hits in hockey are “illegal hits” – in other words, not allowed in hockey.
There have been a lot of articles in the newspapers about concussions recently. A concussion happens when you hit your head, hard. For instance, if you run into a tree on the playground, or if someone hits you in the head when you’re playing a sport, or if you fall down and hit your head hard on the ground you can get a concussion.
That’s why in many sports, you must wear a helmet. Helmets can often help prevent a concussion.
Sometimes people go unconscious (black out) when they get a concussion but sometimes they don’t. Research shows that people who have just been hit in the head usually don’t know when they have a concussion.
Playgrounds in Toronto are changing. Old, boring playgrounds made of wood are on the way out and new, more creative playgrounds are taking their place.
To build a new playground, many safety rules have to be followed. Sometimes, these rules can make the equipment boring and too simple.
Most old playgrounds have a slide, monkey bars and a climber. They are good for exercising the body but they don’t challenge the brain, so kids get bored and stop using them. If kids stop using them, they stop exercising their bodies and then they aren’t as healthy.
When kids are allowed to move around and blow off steam, they are better able to focus on their schoolwork, say a growing number of researchers.
More educators are looking for ways to help kids be active, to help them learn better. For instance, one teacher in Toronto takes her Grade 7 kids outside to identify shapes or call out adjectives that describe what they see.
Or, she’ll have them walking around the class, talking about work that is pinned to the wall—as if it was an art museum. Then she’ll get them to write a poem about what they saw.
When kids move around a lot in class and on the playground, they do better on their school work.
Many teachers try to get their students moving so they learn better. One teacher in Toronto takes her Grade 7 kids outside where they move around trying to find different shapes on the playground. The teacher will also ask her kids to walk around the room to talk about all of the work on the walls – just like it was an art show. Then she will get them to write a poem about what they saw.
A new study shows that kids who have excellent self-control are more likely to grow into healthy, successful adults.
Having self-control means (among other things) having the ability to wait your turn, be neat and tidy and plan ahead.
Not having a lot of self-control doesn’t mean you won’t be successful as an adult. But the study showed that the kids who had greater self-control were less likely to become dependent on drugs, have health problems or commit a crime.
When someone is studying to become a doctor, he can learn a lot from professors and textbooks. But there are some things he will have to actually experience, in order to learn them.
Like diagnosing a patient, for instance. Figuring out what’s wrong with someone when he comes into the emergency room complaining of a “sore stomach” or a “severe headache.” Those two symptoms could have many different causes—anything from a gas bubble to appendicitis.
Students who are anxious about a test can improve their scores just by writing about their fears, according to a new study.
Researchers took 47 university students who were nervous about an upcoming exam and divided them into three groups. The first group was told to write about their fears 10 minutes before they took a math test. The second group was told to write about what they did the day before. And the third group relaxed for 10 minutes before the test.
Canadians aren’t as fit as they should be. In fact, only about 12 out of 100 kids get as much exercise as they should.
So the Canadian government is going to lower the amount of time they say people need to exercise. They’re hoping that with an easier goal, people will try harder to meet it.
