When A Butterfly Sneezes

Can a butterfly's sneeze actually change the weather thousands of miles away? Our world is full of such surprising interdependencies. But how do we help our children understand such complexity -- especially when it impacts the events and the world around them? WHEN A BUTTERFLY SNEEZES teaches us how. Aided by systems thinking, children learn to ask simple questions: What happens next? What happens to this if there is more or less of that? They start to look for patterns in how things happens, to understand why problems arise, and to figure out what they can do about them. This powerful resources includes a fun, detailed discussion of systems thinking, and a comprehensive guide to 12 favorite children's stories that illustrate key systems thinking concepts. A must-have resource for educators and parents who want to help children understand the interconnections in our world. Review: Brandon, How to use stories to unveil the real world, February 14, 2018 I'd been looking for this book for years without knowing it. I use stories to help kids understand the world of complexity - science, history, technology, math, art, and so on. I've long suspected, though, that we can do more than TELL kids stories: stories are things kids can climb into, can play with. A story, I've suspected, can be the start of a sort of game that helps us see how we might live. Sweeney's book is helping me better understand how we might do that. A story, she points out, actually HIDES how the world works. In the real world, everything links up with everything; events transpire in cycles that are hidden. But stories catch our attention precisely because they simplify that complex reality, and give us a handful of protagonists who desire, strive, and then succeed/fail. Sweeney, though, doesn't tell us to turn away from stories, but rather to embrace them and use them (or some of them) to show how the world really functions. As an aside, this book also teaches the basics of complexity theory (formerly chaos theory) more clearly than many popular books in the genre. A close study of the chart on page 10 is worth a few books. Especially useful for anyone who's in love with the Imaginative Education approach of Kieran Egan.

DVD contains videos illustrating good practice in introducing and running 30 games.

A comic novel of intrigue, love, sunshine and a sometimes-brilliant young salesman in Spain on his way to limitless riches.And the theory of chaos, which threatens to ruin everything.And the mysterious Mr Quentin, who aims at encouraging it.From the morning clouds huddled above the sea a shaft of sunlight escaped, slicing the top off Mr Quentin's translucent head.Jenkins, the apparition said, ducking, there's nothing to be gained by this surly animosity. You're lumbered with me, frankly. The well-remembered voice, pompous, squeaky, a voice that had assimilated the scraping of chalk.The key, Jenkins, to this lamentable turn of events, is that book in your pocket.The key, the key...

This book is all about having fun looking for the pattern and solving the game through silly rhymes.

This book is a guide to designing curricular games to suit the needs of students. It makes connections between video games and time-tested pedagogical techniques such as discovery learning and feedback to improve student engagement and learning. It also examines the social nature of gaming such as techniques for driver/navigator partners, small groups, and whole class structures to help make thinking visible; it expands the traditional design process teachers engage in by encouraging use of video game design techniques such as playtesting. The author emphasizes designing curricular games for problem-solving and warns against designing games that are simply “Alex Trebek (host of Jeopardy) wearing a mask”. By drawing on multiple fields such as systems thinking, design theory, assessment, and curriculum design, this book relies on theory to generate techniques for practice.

Written by the president of the nation’s number-one zoo, Sailing with Noah is an intensely personal, behind-the-scenes look at modern zoos. Jeffrey P. Bonner, who was trained as an anthropologist and came to the zoo world quite by accident, shares some of the most compelling stories ever told about contemporary zoos. The stories jump between zoos in different cities and between countries on different continents. Some are fun and funny. Others are sad, even tragic. Pete Hoskins, the director of the Philadelphia Zoo, is in bed, sound asleep, when his phone rings. . . . “There’s been a fire in the World of Primates,” he is told. “You’ve got to get over here.” Whatever he has been dreaming, it is nothing like the nightmare he will find now that he is awake. . . . “They’re all gone. They’re all gone.” All of the animals in the building—the gorillas, the lemurs, the orangutans, and the gibbons—all twenty-three of them are dead. Written in a lively, accessible style, Sailing with Noah explores the role of zoos in today’s society and their future as institutions of education, conservation, and research. Along the way, Bonner relates a variety of true stories about animals and those who care for them (or abuse them), offering his perspective on heavily publicized incidents and describing less-well-known events with compassion and humor in turn. By bringing the stories of the animals’ lives before us, Bonner gives them a voice. He strongly believes that zoos must act for living things, and he argues that conservation is a shared responsibility of all mankind. This book helps us to understand why biodiversity is important and what it means to be a steward of life on earth. From the day-to-day aspects of caring for some of the world’s most exotic creatures to the role of zoos as field conservation organizations, saving wild things in wild places, this book takes the reader on an incredible journey—a journey that begins within the zoo and continues around the globe. Everyone—from zoo visitors to animal lovers to professional conservationists, the young and old alike—will be fascinated by this extraordinary book.

'Smit's vision of Eden is the eighth wonder of the world' Independent 'Inspiring... An invaluable guide to how a large project can exceed against all odds' The Sunday Times - An updated edition of the bestselling story of the Eden Project featuring stunning new photography. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the impossible was delivered. From the sterile depths of a disused china clay pit in Cornwall rose one of the most remarkable and ambitious ventures in recent memory. The Eden Project's Biomes, the world's largest conservatories, are the symbol of a living theatre of plants and people and their interdependence, of regeneration and of a pioneering forum for the exploration of possible futures. This is the extraordinary story of the Eden Project, of its conception, design and construction, of the larger-than-life personalities who made it happen and of all that has happened since its doors were first opened to the public in 2001. It is now undisputedly one of the world's great gardens with more than 17 million visitors flocking there and projects and partnerships all over the world.