Cultural Studies: Winter, Week 4

Meredith, Vija, Riley, Anya, Natalie, Cody, Sierra, Ryder R., Lera

Our measuring took a fun twist this week. Natalie, perhaps from hearing that we call our measuring unit a foot, and many of them feet, starting counting out steps from our back table in East to the bathroom where we were measuring to. This was an easy, fun, identifiable way to estimate a distance, and soon every child in the group was trying it to see how much their estimate would come to. And as we were soon to find out, those estimates using paces were actually pretty close to the measured distance!

Our cultural side of the week had some fun observations and connections as well. While looking in the South America book, Riley noticed that there were giant icebergs in one picture leading someone to comment about Antarctica and all the snow and ice there. Just like last week's visualization of the proximity of deserts to the equator, we were able to see that the very southern tip of South America in Argentina and Chile is very, very close to an extension of Antarctica. Since Antarctica is super cold because it is so far from the equator, it made sense that the southern part of South America is also really cold.

Vija also pointed out, in the same book, a picture of an Incan ceremony worshiping the sun and how colorful and patterned the man's robes were. This got us talking about ceremonies and special occasions and how we dress up for them here in the United States. We mentioned weddings, religious ceremonies, parties, and get-togethers as fun opportunities to wear things that we might not otherwise.