Archaeologists made another amazing discovery near the Great Pyramids near Cairo, Egypt. Deep in the ground, they found a workshop for the process of mummification. Measuring cups, bowels and jars, containing different oils, which the mummy-maker used in the making of a mummy, were also unearthed. Believed to date back about 2500 years, the workshop also contained burial chambers, dug into the bedrock, where 36 mummies were found. Some were resting in stone sarcophagi and others in wooden coffins. Hundreds of tiny statues and a silver mask were in the burial area. The gilded mask is only the second such mask every found.

Photograph from thesun.co.uk

If your favorite color is bright pink, scientists have made an interesting discovery. Seems bright pink is the world's oldest color! Oil drilling beneath the Sahara Desert in the country of Mauritania,West Africa, obtained several shale deposits that were studied by researched from Australia, Japan and the United States.Crushing the very old rocks into powder, the scientists extracted pink pigment(coloring) from fossilized chlorophyll made by ancient organism.The bright pink pigment is believed to date back about 1.1 billion years.

Illustration from wpclipart.com

Such wonderful news that all 12 boys and their soccer coach were rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand, where they had been trapped for more than two weeks! Imagine being with little food, perched on a ledge, in the dark, with water blocking your escape. The only way out was a dangerous route using divers and being underwater through narrow passageways with water so murky, you couldn't see anything. Add to this, most of the boys didn't know how to swim. It was a heroic group of people that were able to successfully complete the rescue. Sadly, one of the rescue divers died trying to help the boys get of of the flooded cave.

Illustration from bbc.com

Wildlife officials in southTexas spotted a flamingo. It's a rare sighting as flamingos are not native to the United States. This flamingo has a name, Number 492, and went missing from a zoo in the state of Kansas thirteen years ago! Seems a captive flamingo can't fly if its wings are clipped as a baby. However, 492, which is the bird's leg band number, came from the country of Tanzania and was an adult. Not having had its wings clipped, officials need to cut its feathers on a regular basis, otherwise the feathers regrow and flying is possible. Number 492 flew the coup at the Sedgwick County Zoo, in Kansas, with another flamingo, named 347, who hasn't been seen in years. Wildlife officials say the flamingo is about 23 years old and can live in the wild for close to 40 years.

It may be 20 years away but Boeing is hoping to fly passengers from New York to London, Great Britain, in just TWO hours! Currently, the flight takes about five hours. The hypersonic airplane would reach altitudes of about 95,000 ft.(about 60,000 ft. higher than current airplanes) and fly at speeds of about 3800 mph(current airplanes fly up to 575 mph)! The long narrow aircraft would take about 128 passengers at a time. Just a reminder, Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly solo from New York to Paris, in 1927, took 34 hours! Illustration from wired.com

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"The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to compromise."FDR "If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."(Ben Franklin) "You must be the change you want to see in the world."(Mahatma Gandhi) "School is a building that has four walls-with tomorrow inside."(Lon Watters) "We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make."(Senator Ted Kennedy) "The purpose of life is a life of purpose." (Robert Byrne) "The purpose of life is to amount to something and have it make some difference that you lived at all."(Dear Abby)
Special thanks to EducationWorld for letting me use this image of my "alter ego" as Mrs. "Waffenschmidt!

About Gail:

I have retired from teaching after 33 1/2 years in the classroom. Of that time, I taught Grade 6 Social Studies teacher for 31 1/2 years.I earned my BA in early secondary education with a concentration in social studies from SUNY Oneonta, New York, and my MST in social studies education from Binghamton University in New York. In 1988, I was awarded the Outstanding Elementary Social Studies Classroom Teacher of the Year Award from the New York State Council for the Social Studies. Additionally, in 1988, I was also awarded the Outstanding Elementary Social Studies Teacher of the Year Award by the National Council for the Social Studies.

My work has appeared in most children's publications including:
Appleseeds,Scholastic's Super Science,Scholastic's Science World, Highlights for Children, National Geographic World, Ranger Rick, Cobblestone, Faces, Muse Magazine,Contact Kids, US Kids,Action Magazine(Scholastic),Girls' Life,Boys' Life,American Girl, Instructor,Creative Classroom,Middle Years,Time for Kids,Scholastic News,Scholastic News Zone, Time for Kids , Ask Magazine, Dig, Calliope, Cobblestone, FACES, Studies Weekly, Glo Adventurer, and more.

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