Universidad Europea de Madrid

Living in the Space Station

Have you ever thought about what life is like for the astronauts in the International Space Station?

Look at the following words and see how many you can use to describe the YOUTUBE clip. Look up the words you don't know before you start.

Look at: mirar
Look up: Buscar en un libro de referencia o en internet

Verbs:
cycle--exercise--strap on--drink--shave--wash--pass--float--move
sleep--spin--turn--push--slide--hold onto--eat--grab

Nouns:
stationery bike--compartment--drops of water--gravity--razor--instrument panels--tube--food

Now, can you write a few lines about what you saw?
And do you know this song. It's called "The lion sleeps tonight".
Wendy

Publicado por shakespeare

MAP READING-- Who knows more--you or a 2 year old?

How did you do on the GEOGRAPHY TEST on this BLOG in April?
Try it again before you do this one. You probably need the practice.

This child, Lilly, is almost 2 years old. She can locate many countries on a world map. Can you identify as many as she can?

Publicado por shakespeare

It's spring ! "April showers bring May flowers"

It's spring in Spain!
The grass is growing and the flowers are blooming.
The birds are singing and the days are getting longer and longer. So why did I spent all day in my office at the computer instead of going outside to enjoy the lovely weather? There was just too much work to do today. I'll make up for it soon. Tomorrow I'm going to a great B & B, a "Casa Rural" in a beautiful green valley up in the mountains. It's near El Paular, in Oteruelo. I go every year, and take a long walk along the river. It's great to be outdoors and have a little free time to smell the flowers. Can't wait! Sure hope it doesn't rain.

In English we have a saying:April showers bring May flowers. How do you say that in Spanish? And in other languages?

Right now the fields I pass on my way home from work are green and there are wild flowers everywhere. I see yellow and blue and pink and purple flowers, but the delicate red poppies haven't appeared yet. They will. They always do.

And then a few days later, practically over night, the weather will change. It will get hot and dry. And all the fields and flowers will turn brown.

What kinds of wild flowers are there where you live?

In California you see poppies in the fields too, but they are orange. I'd never seen a red poppy until I came to Spain.

Publicado por shakespeare

Mother's Day

You're a mother ! Did your off-spring call you or send you flowers or pay attention to you on Mother's Day?

You may not be a mother, but you have a mother or had a mother, step-mother, grandmother, substitute mother--someone who helped you become who you are today. Did you contact that person on Sunday?

Mother's Day, in Spain, is the first Sunday in May. This year it was May 4th. The restaurants were full of families and the florists, nurseries and flower stands were busy. Mother's Day seem to be one of the few holidays that no one resents though it is just as commercial as Valentine's Day or any of the others.

And in the US? Here's the story.

Wendy

Congress approved the holiday in the United States in 1914. They set the date as the second Sunday in May each year. The idea for a day to honor mother started in Britain and was picked up by Julia Ward Howe in 1870 after the American Civil War, not to honor mothers, but to unite mothers in a protest against war. Her daughter continued calling for the holiday and a Mother's Day was celebrated in West Virginia in 1908. The holiday spread from state to state and after 45 states had approved it, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day in 1914. It was a day to show a flag in honor of mothers who had lost sons in war, not really the holiday we celebrate today honoring mother for being mother. It is a commercial success today as the busiest day of the year for restaurants, and sets records for florists ...

Ralph & Terry Kovel

Publicado por shakespeare

Surface computing---available soon

The computer age ! What's next?

1968 The University of California, Berkeley.
In the registration packet students received a pile of computer cards. All the students had to do was choose the courses (asignaturas) they wanted to enroll in and take a computer card to the professors on the first day of class. Those cards were then sent to the computer building. They were fed into the huge computer, yes THE computer at the university and voilà, a student was officially admitted into the course. A new school year had begun.

2008 Now we register on-line. And we have desk top computers and lap top computers. And soon it seems, we will be SURFACE COMPUTING.

Check it out

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/727403/microsoft_no_more_keyboards/

Wendy

Publicado por shakespeare

Our Planet: Day and Night--Save energy--Turn off the lights!

I was always taught to turn off the lights when I left a room.
As a child, as a teenager, as a university student we all went around turning off the lights that others had left on.

Then the years rolled by and we moved into apartments of our own. That's when we learned first hand that there was a really BIG EXPENSIVE reason to turn off all those lights.

And it isn't only the lights anymore- it's the TV and DVD and computer and printer and all those appliances and machines and instruments that we hook up or recharge or keep on stand-by. Just how many plugs or outlets are in use at your home at this very moment?

And what about on a global scale? Look at our planet in the video below.

TURN OFF the lights! TURN OFF your computer. DO NOT TO WASTE electricity!

Wendy

Publicado por shakespeare