Category: Education

World Peace Day is Tomorrow!

Debbie Roney Smith on

Heads up people – tomorrow is World Peace Day!

The International Day of Peace (also known as World Peace Day) is celebrated annually on September 21st. It is a day devoted to strengthening the ideals of peace between all nations and all people. In this modern era (and an election year no less!), violence, war, and other negative themes often monopolize the news cycles. The International Day of Peace is an inspiring opportunity to not only remember the good people are capable of but also put peace and goodwill into the world through your own actions. 

The evolution of World Peace Day to the International Day of Peace is an interesting one. In 1981, the United Nations unanimously voted to sponsor a day in honor of peace. However, there was never an actual plea for people/countries to stop fighting and it had no specific date. Jeremy Gilley, an impassioned British citizen, began a campaign to create a more impactful annual celebration of peace. On September 7th, 2001, the UN officially created the International Day of Peace and dedicated September 21st to the new day, a day that asked all people and leaders of the world to agree to ceasefire in active conflicts and vow to pursue the path of nonviolence. As the official Peace Day website states, it is a day that “provides a globally shared date for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace” (source).

2020 is particularly significant for this established event because it is the 20th Anniversary of the UN Resolution on the Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace. This specific program was a new concept that linked eight action areas for maximum impact and took ten months of negotiation to hammer out. The eight action areas are as follows: culture of peace through education; sustainable economic and social development; respect for all human rights; equality between women and men; democratic participation; understanding, tolerance and solidarity; participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge; and international peace and security.

Additionally, this year’s celebration is marked by the ongoing world pandemic. The UN declared the 2020 Peace Day Theme to be “Shaping Peace Together,” a theme that specifies “spreading compassion, kindness, and hope in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.” 

How you and yours can celebrate/promote World Peace Day:

  • Observe the global “Minute of Silence;” the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Pathways to Peace inaugurated the Minute of Silence in 1984. At noon in each time zone, the Minute of Peace creates a moment of silent reflection, amplifying what NGO calls a “Peace Wave” around the world.
  • Light a candle in honor of peace
  • Read/write/share peace poems, stories, et cetera
  • Read about different peacemakers or watch a film (List of Peacemakers in History)
  • Make/write down peace promises in your own life (ex. smile more, let go of road rage, et cetera)
  • Plant a peace garden (more on peace gardens)
  • Give someone a peace lily
  • Share messages of peace on social networking sites (ex. share your creative peace projects, repost quotes on peace, et cetera)
  • Check out the Mosaic Children’s Project; listen to their music, donate, and share (Mosaic Project website)
  • Resolve to create more peace in your life with yourself and those around you (ex. reach out to a family member you recently had a disagreement with, practice pausing for three breathes before reacting/replying in trying situations, send a letter to a friend you haven’t talked with in awhile, et cetera)
  • Write to lawmakers to adopt more peaceful approaches to domestic issues and international relations
  • Organize or join a Peace March (event map for International Day of Peace)

Talk Like a Pirate about Florida’s Booty

Debbie Roney Smith on

A’hoy matey, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day! It has its origins in Oregon; in 1995, two friends from Oregon jokingly created the holiday while playing racquetball. It was celebrated amongst their friend group and community for years until columnist Dave Barry became the spokesperson for National Talk Like a Pirate Day in 2002. Since then, it has blossomed into a beloved faux-holiday that encourages the use of the vocabulary popularized by movies like Pirates of the Caribbean as “pirate lingo” to offer a fun opportunity to break out of your daily routine, learn some history, and celebrate a bygone era. So join me, maties on a brief adventure exploring the pirates that skulked about the Florida waters!

The earliest recorded pirate attacks began after China’s Han Dynasty fell in the 2nd century but piracy in Florida was prevalent in the early 1800s. This wave of piracy occurred after The Golden Age of Piracy, a period spanning the late 1600s to the early 1700s, the era that most people think of when the word ‘pirate’ is mentioned: think Black Beard, Pirates of the Caribbean, Tortuga, Anne Bonny, rum, and Calico Jack Rackham. Florida’s age of pirates came around a century after this Golden Age.

This secondary explosion of piracy occurred primarily in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea as a result of increasing American sea trade. In fact, American ships, as well as Spanish and British vessels, were the targets of all manner of pirates, racketeers, and privateers. Pensacola’s first brush with piracy reportedly occurred in 1811 when a U.S. gunboat chased the French pirate ship La Franchise along the northern Gulf. The pirates, unable to outmaneuver the military, ran their ship onto the Pensacola coast, set it on fire, and fled into the woods. Then, in 1817, four years before Florida was relinquished to the US by Spain, notorious New Orleans pirate Jean Lafitte encouraged a group of privateers to raid Pensacola. Nothing came of the plan except a brief panic among Spanish settlers that led them to create a citizen militia.

Things were rather quiet onshore in FL until 1822 when the pirate ship Carmen was brought to court in the recently established U.S. District Court of West Florida in Pensacola. The Carmen was charged with firing on the Louisiana off the coast of Cuba. It’s likely that the pirates on Carmen mistook Louisiana for a merchant ship when it was actually a federal Revenue Cutter Service vessel. The U.S.S. Peacock was present and pursued Carmen. Mike Thomin, a staff member at the Florida Public Archaeology Network, reports that “The Carmen did what most pirate ships did when they saw a naval ship; they tried to run away as fast as possible…pirates did not try to engage a Navy ship. If they did, it was because they mistook it for a merchant ship. As soon as they found out they were dealing with a heavily armed Naval ship; they usually ran away.” (source) The crew was caught, tried, and found not guilty by January of 1823 because of U.S. sympathy for ongoing political struggles across the sea.

Sadly, most of the dramatic, booty creating piracy in Florida occurred farther down the coast near the Keys. Luckily, you can still spend today having pirate-themed fun regardless of the intensity of Florida’s pirate history. Watch your favorite pirate-themed movie or TV show, read up on interesting figures of pirate culture, make a toast to pirates long-gone with your favorite rum, or make pirate hates with your kids and have a wooden-stick sword fight!

Thank Florida for AC

Debbie Roney Smith on
Dr. John Gorrie

Dr. John Gorrie of Florida is the man behind, arguably, humanity’s most impressive invention for daily use: the air conditioner.

Gorrie was a physician, scientist, inventor, and humanitarian living in South Carolina. His study of tropical diseases led him to move to Florida when he noticed that people in the north weren’t getting yellow fever. He decided to see if the climate had something to do with it, moving down to Apalachicola, then a large cotton market on the Gulf Coast. 

He became convinced that cold was a healer. He noted that “Nature would terminate the fevers by changing the seasons.” Dr. Gorrie began urging draining the swamps, clearing weeds, and maintaining clean food markets in the city. He also recommended sleeping under mosquito netting to prevent the disease. He had been cooling rooms with ice in a basin suspended from the ceiling which allowed cool air to flow down across the sick patient. However, it was a clunky system that was incredibly limited by the fact that ice had to be brought by boat from the northern lakes; ice came packed in sawdust from the northern lakes between the United States and Canada. Furthermore, ice was incredibly expensive at nearly $1.50 a pound – that’s $44.81 a pound in 2020 (source)!

Gorrie’s design

Thus, Dr. Gorrie began to experiment with making artificial ice. He worked to design a machine that creates ice using a compressor powered by horse, water, wind-driven sails, or steam. This earliest effort to create a practical method of manufacturing ice would guide future inventors in developing the cold-air process of refrigeration necessary for everything from the AC in your house to the AC in your car, and many things in-between. Dr. Gorrie successfully demonstrates the ice-making machine in 1848. However, he wasn’t granted the U.S. patent until May 6, 1851. His design, the foundation of future air conditing designs as well as modern refrigerators, was filled under Patent No. 8080. 

During his residence in Apalachicola, Gorrie served as mayor, postmaster, city treasurer, council member, bank director, and founder of Trinity Church. To honor his impact on the town and the world, the city created the Gorrie Ice Museum in order to explore the doctor, his creation, and his life; be sure to check their website to keep up-to-date with their hours and events (John Gorrie Museum and State Park website). Additionally, Gorrie represents Florida with his statue placed in the National Statuary Hall in Washington D. C., and you can also view the original model of his ice-making machine and the scientific articles he wrote at the Smithsonian Institution.

International Dot Day isn’t for the Dot You Think

Debbie Roney Smith on

How do you feel about polka dots? Polka dots, as a pattern, gained traction in Europe in the mid-1900s after the Czech dance and Bohemian folk music genre were introduced in Paris and spread rapidly across North America. In fact, Europeans were so taken with the invention that they named the phenomena “Polkamania,” and proceeded to capitalize on the trend by throwing dots on clothes until they – literally – stuck. Supposedly, the dots represented the short bursts of energy that were required by the polka dance. Never seen a traditional Czech polka dance? Follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dONXZBrje2w

The polka dot exploded in the USA in 1926 when a Miss America was spotted (haha!) wearing the pattern on a swimsuit, likely the result of a nod to vintage Victorian dresses which often included some sort of dotted material. Then Walt Disney decided to capitalize on the growing trend by supplying fuel to the fire Miss America ignited.  Just two years later in 1928, Minnie Mouse debuted wearing her signature red polka dot dress. Since the 1930s bloom in polka dot goods, it has remained a consistent, popular pattern in fashion. The trend is so influential that it’s ever inspired songs: remember Frank Sinatra’s Polka Dots and Moonbeams” or Brian Hyland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini?”

But today’s International Dot Day isn’t a day to celebrate polka dots…

…it’s a day of global celebration honoring creativity, courage, and collaboration!

International Dot Day started on September 15, 2009, when teacher Terry Shay introduced his classroom to Peter H. Reynolds’ book The Dot. It is the story of a student named Vashti and her caring teacher. Vashti felt like she couldn’t draw but her teacher encouraged her, saying “Just make a mark, and see where it takes you.” Vashti made a small dot on her paper, and it was only the beginning of her journey of self-discovery through art. It was a breakthrough of confidence and courage inspired by the encouragement of a kind adult. Terry Shay introduced a movement that would go on to inspire the countless children and adults that celebrate it: nearly 16 million people in 181 countries!

    How to Observe #InternationalDotDay:
    • Read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds
    • Donate art supplies to worthy organizations like schools, community centers, Boys & Girls Clubs, local transitional housing, et cetera
    • Foster creativity by participating in a fun form of self-expression including but not limited to: writing, drawing, painting, photography, videography, dancing, and singing
    • Share your/your kid’s creativity by sending the art to friends/family or post on social media
    • Encourage others to re-discover the power and potential of creativity in all they do 

     

    Check out http://www.thedotclub.org/dotday/ for more info and free resources!