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Lesson of the Day: ‘The Long Scourge of Lead Poisoning’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘The Long Scourge of Lead Poisoning’

Featured Article: “The Long Scourge of Lead Poisoning” by Ellen Gabler

The use of lead dates all the way back to ancient Rome. But despite the fact that the dangers of lead exposure are well known today, lead poisoning continues to be an epidemic in the United States.

In this lesson, you will learn about several key moments in the history of lead use. Then, you will study data to see how people in the United States are still affected by lead exposure.

What do you know about lead? Have you heard the word used in reference to paint, pencils or building materials? Lead is a toxic, metallic element. It is bluish-white when freshly cut but tarnishes quickly to dull gray.

Do you know about the dangers of lead exposure? Children, who are more vulnerable to lead poisoning than adults, often do not have symptoms, but lead can still cause delays in physical and mental development. High levels of lead can damage organs and nervous system.

Watch this four-minute video from UNICEF about the history of lead use. As you watch, respond to these two questions:

The featured article uses 11 key vocabulary words. Do you recognize any of the words on the list below? Could you use any of them in a sentence?

1. scourge
2. elevate
3. persist
4. vessel
5. durability
6. resistance
7. ban
8. stress
9. claim
10. appeal
11. hazard

To learn all of the meanings and practice using the words, use this list on Vocabulary.com.

Read the article below, or as a PDF, then answer the following questions:

1. How do lead exposure and poisoning affect young people today?

2. What were the causes of lead poisoning in Roman cities?

3. Why were artists like Rembrandt and Goya in danger?

4. When did people become more aware of the harms of lead paint? What actions were taken internationally?

5. How was lead paint addressed in the United States historically? What about in the present day?

In the full-length version of the piece you just read, “How 2 Industries Stymied Justice for Young Lead Paint Victims,” Ellen Gabler investigates how housing and insurance companies have avoided taking responsibility for exposing children to lead.

Look at the two graphs below, which are taken from the article. They show how much lead appears in the blood of American children. After looking closely at the title, summary and each graph of the article, respond to the questions below.

  • What is your reaction to the two graphs?

  • How do the graphs relate to the article you read?

  • What do the graphs make you wonder?

Now, learn about how this issue affects your community. Explore this resource from PolicyMap that allows you to look at the relative risk of exposure to lead across the United States between 2015 and 2019.

  • What do you notice about the risk of lead exposure in your town or city?

  • How does it compare with nearby towns or cities? What might account for the differences?

  • Compare the rate of risk in your state to another state or area. What do you notice? Why do you think there are similarities or differences between states or regions?

If you’re worried about lead in your community, you can learn about the common places that lead is found and what you can do about it in this guide from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Want more Lessons of the Day? You can find them all here.

Should Phones Ever Be a Part of Family or Holiday Gatherings?

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Should Phones Ever Be a Part of Family or Holiday Gatherings?

Have you ever looked at your phone in the middle of an important family meal or other type of gathering?

If so, were you using it to further a conversation, deepen your understanding of a holiday you were celebrating or add to the experience in another way? Or were you just distracted?

Are phones and other electronics ever welcomed at family or holiday gatherings you are a part of? Do you think they should be?

Every year, the Lawrenceville School, a boarding and day school in New Jersey, has a large Passover Seder for students, family members, alumni and faculty. After doing the Seder remotely in 2020 and in a tent in 2021, they will be back inside this year.

When guests arrive, they will see a familiar scene of a room set with tables full of Seder plates, glasses of wine and boxes of matzo. But this Friday, when Passover begins, there will be one more item on the table that may feel new, at least in this setting: QR codes.

The QR — or “quick response” — code is how guests will have access to the Haggadah, the text read during the Passover Seder and which tells the story of how the Jewish people escaped slavery. Once they pull it up on their phones, they will use their devices for the rest of the evening, to take turns reading stories and to follow along to songs and prayers.

Lauren Levy, a rabbi and teacher at the school who leads the Seder, came up with the solution last year when some of the guests were joining the Seder virtually and didn’t have Haggadot (the plural of Haggadah) at home. “I got the idea when I was at a restaurant,” she said. “I said to myself, ‘This is actually going to be way more inclusive and accessible.’”

While using a QR code was an answer to a practical problem, she also likes what it symbolizes. “Passover tells the story of us leaving slavery behind and heading the heck out of Egypt to move to freedom. We were leaving the old school place behind and moving forward,” she said. “I think the QR code Haggadah integrates this idea. It’s cool to me that we are taking the next technological step for Passover.”

It can already feel like QR codes are everywhere. You scan them at restaurants to get menus; at events to register; at stores to pay; at museums to get more information about the work on display. And now they are even part of the Seder, an ancient Jewish tradition.

Jewish leaders are using QR codes as an easy way to get people the material they need to participate in the Seder or to enrich their experience with supplemental materials.

And while some Seder-goers like them, others feel that phones should play no role in this tradition, where the focus has always been on in-person sharing and discussion. (Many at Seders will not even use their phones, so a QR code Haggadah is not an option.)

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Word of the Day: disconsolate

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Word of the Day: disconsolate

The word disconsolate has appeared in 13 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on March 29 in “A Day of World Cup Drama Goes Down to the Last Kick” by Rory Smith:

Thanks largely to the determination of its goalkeeper, Andre Onana, it seemed to have done enough to force penalties, only for Ahmed Touba to break its resistance in the 119th minute. Algeria had its late winner. Now, at the last, it stood on the brink. It needed only to hold out for a couple of minutes to make it to Qatar.

It could not. Cameroon launched one final free kick into the penalty area, and Karl Toko Ekambi, the Lyon striker, forced the ball home. There were 124 minutes on the clock. It was, effectively, the last kick of the game, the last kick of the last two years.

Algeria’s players sank to the grass, disbelieving, disconsolate. Everything they had worked for, everything they thought they had achieved, had disappeared in a flash. They had arrived at the end, and there had still been more. It had, across three continents, been that type of evening.

Can you correctly use the word disconsolate in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.

If you want a better idea of how disconsolate can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.

Lesson of the Day: ‘In the Ocean, It’s Snowing Microplastics’

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Lesson of the Day: ‘In the Ocean, It’s Snowing Microplastics’

5. How and why are scientists making their own marine snow? What questions do they hope to answer?

6. The article concludes:

Scientists are still exploring exactly how this plastic snow is sinking, but they do know for sure, Dr. Porter said, that “everything eventually sinks in the ocean.” Vampire squids will live and die and eventually become marine snow. But the microplastics that pass through them will remain, eventually settling on the seafloor in a stratigraphic layer that will mark our time on the planet long after humans are gone.

What is your reaction to the article? What did you find most informative, surprising or memorable? What questions do you still have about plastic and its role in our society and its impact on our planet?

Option 1: Create a one-pager.

The article has many fascinating but complicated details. Synthesize what you have learned by creating a one-pager. You can start with a blank sheet of paper or use a template. If you need inspiration, you can see examples of other students’ work here.

Your one-pager should include:

  • Three key takeaways from the article.

  • Two important quotations or statistics from the piece.

  • One word to capture the feeling or emotions you had while reading the article.

  • A drawing that captures the main idea or theme of the article.

  • One question you still have about microplastics and marine snow.

You can add more images, colors, information and words to your one-pager to make it interesting for your audience. Then, share your creation with your classmates.

Option 2: Learn more about microplastics.

Where does all of our plastic go? How much plastic does the United States actually recycle? Just how bad are plastic straws? What are governments around the world doing to tackle the proliferation of plastic? How can each of us cut down on our use of plastics? These are just a few of the questions covered by The Times.

Choose one of the articles below or search for one that grabs your interest on The Times’s Plastic Bags topic page. Then, write or discuss with a partner: How does the article add to or challenge what you already knew about the subject? What was the most fascinating, surprising, provocative or memorable thing you learned? What questions do you still have about plastics and their impact on the Earth?

The ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ Is Ballooning, 87,000 Tons of Plastic and Counting

Americans May Add Five Times More Plastic to the Oceans Than Thought

Here Is Who’s Behind the Global Surge in Single-Use Plastic

The World Is Awash in Plastic. Nations Plan a Treaty to Fix That.

4 Ways To Organize Your Personal Budget Using Code

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4 Ways To Organize Your Personal Budget Using Code
How to code your personal budget

As you file your taxes and get into spring cleaning mode, you might feel inspired to organize your personal finances. One way to make that process more tolerable, and potentially even fun? Code a budgeting tool that you’ll actually want to use.

There’s no shortage of mobile apps and online banking tools available to help you keep track of your spending or put aside money. Typically, these kinds of applications have cross integrations with financial providers that enable them to pull data from your bank account into the app, explains Ben Stone, Senior Curriculum Developer at Codecademy. “No individual — unless they’re really motivated — is going to build one of those integrations, because it’s a lot of work and that might not be worth it,” Ben says.

However, it could be worthwhile to make a budgeting product that’s custom to you and your financial situation. Or maybe it could be a great portfolio project for you. Luckily, Ben says there are some practical ways you can use code to better understand your spending habits or establish a budget without bank integrations. Here are some suggestions to get you started.

Design a webpage

One option that even beginner developers could pull off is designing a website for tracking your expenses, Ben says. “You have React and JavaScript to build out a front-end you can use, and then you could have some back-end where you store all your data,” he says. (You’ll learn how to do that and more in our Full-Stack Engineering Career Path.)

Then, you could use PostgreSQL to design an elegant database to store your financial data for your budget. Though “not sensitive financial data,” Ben adds, because you don’t want that information out in the open. (If you’re building a website from scratch, the easiest way to password-protect a website would be using a tool like .htaccess or .htpsswd, Ben says.) But you could include fixed expenses, like how much you pay in rent each month. If you want to play around coding a budget site without publishing anything, Codecademy Pro learners can use workspaces, an IDE for writing and running public or private code.

Visualize your expenses

Though you might only use Microsoft Excel on tedious work projects, it’s “a super powerful spreadsheet tool” that has lots of potential uses in your personal life, Ben says.

For example, say you want to break down your fixed expenses to see how much you’re spending on different categories each month. You can import existing data (from a text file or even a PDF) into Microsoft Excel or input it manually, and then create a composition chart that classifies your recurring monthly expenses (like mortgage or rent, health insurance, car payment, or streaming subscription fees). From there, you can generate a color-coded pie chart to visualize how your expenses are distributed in each category, Ben suggests.

This strategy could be particularly useful if you’re following the popular “50-30-20” budget technique, which recommends that you spend 50% of your income on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings and paying off debt. You can calculate what those chunks would be based on your monthly take-home pay by creating formulas, and then analyze how close you came to the target using a pie chart.

Our pro course Analyze Data with Microsoft Excel will walk you through exactly how to make these kinds of charts in Excel, plus introduce you to more complex ways to manipulate data, like making pivot tables.

Spruce up your Google Sheet

If you’re a Google Docs fan, you might be surprised to learn that you can actually program your Google Sheets. For instance, let’s say you and your partner share a Google Sheets spreadsheet to manage your household expenses. Using JavaScript, you can create custom functions (like, divide data by two, for example) for your Google Sheets with Google Apps Script, which is the application development platform within Google Workspace. You’ll want to check out our Learn JavaScript course to learn the fundamentals before trying to make your own custom functions in Google Sheets. (It’s also a good idea to get experience organizing data with arrays in JavaScript.)

This is just a taste of the bells and whistles you can add to your go-to Google Workspace applications using JavaScript and Google Apps Script. But there are countless functions and formulas that people have developed to manipulate data.

Build a mobile app

Viewing a spreadsheet on a mobile device isn’t the best user experience, so you might want to build something that you can quickly access when you’re out, Ben says. For example, if you’re using a zero-based budget, where every dollar you earn is allocated to a specific expense, you could create an app that you can reference to keep track of how much you’re permitted to spend in each category. (There is a very popular app called You Need A Budget that you could use as inspiration. So if you’re building your own, think about: How would you improve the user experience, or design something to fit your individual needs better?)

To build an app, you’ll need to know a mobile application programming language, like Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android, or React Native for something that works on mobile and web, Ben says. If you already know your way around Swift and want to learn how to get hired as a mobile app developer, you can dive into our new skill path ​​Pass the Technical Interview with Swift. Who knows? Maybe your unique budget app idea could lay the foundation for a new career and help you make more money at the same time.

Catalog Home | Codecademy

If you’re not sure where to begin or what to learn next, this is a great place to start. Check out our top coding courses, Skill Paths, and Career Paths.

Fortuitous Finds

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Fortuitous Finds

A recent Times article explains that “New York City curbs are awash in furniture left behind by people who are moving, who died, or who are simply fickle.”

In fact, the article continues, “if you know where to look, and how to get the stuff home, it’s possible to furnish an entire apartment with someone else’s junk.”

What are the most valuable, interesting or memorable things you’ve ever found, whether on the street or anywhere else?

Tell us in the comments about what you found and why it was meaningful to you, then read the related article to learn more.

Want more Picture Prompts? Find them all in this column.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Word of the Day: circumnavigate

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Word of the Day: circumnavigate

The word circumnavigate has appeared in 16 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on Jan. 20 in “She Flew Around the World in 155 Days. She’s Only 19.” by Mike Ives:

She could have started college. Instead, she spent five months flying more than 32,000 miles across five continents.

“My name is Zara Rutherford, a teenager,” she told the internet after leaving Belgium in August. “I’m attempting to fly solo around the world,” she said, aiming to be the youngest woman ever to do so.

… As delays piled up, Ms. Rutherford fell more than two months behind schedule. But she didn’t quit. When she landed in the Belgian city of Kortrijk on Thursday, she became the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe solo. Supporters lined up on the tarmac to show their support and welcome her home.

Can you correctly use the word circumnavigate in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.

If you want a better idea of how circumnavigate can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.

If you enjoy this daily challenge, try one of our monthly vocabulary challenges.

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

Live Webinar: Exploring Big Ideas Through Short Documentaries

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Live Webinar: Exploring Big Ideas Through Short Documentaries

In addition to the hundreds of articles published daily, The New York Times creates innovative visual storytelling through film and video. Times Video series — like Op-Docs, Modern Love, Diary of a Song and Conception — offer viewers an intriguing and unique perspective of the world.

Every week of the school year, we feature a short documentary film — typically under 12 minutes — published in The Times. These films ask students to think deeply about themes like ethics, human rights, gender identity and scientific discovery. Each Film Club begins with an essential question to help frame the lesson, followed by a set of questions to help students connect the film to their own lives.

In this webinar, editors from The Learning Network will discuss ways educators can use these short documentaries to help students develop critical thinking and visual literacy skills, make meaningful connections, tackle important topics, and deepen understanding of good storytelling. Together we will:

  • Walk through the components of this weekly feature.

  • Discuss ways to use Film Club across the curriculum.

  • Explore the collection of films and select ones to use in your classroom right away.

C.T.L.E. credit is available for New York educators. All participants will receive a certificate of completion.

Register now to join our live webinar or to receive a link to view the on-demand recording.

Weekly News Quiz for Students: Ukraine Food Crisis, Supreme Court Confirmation, Asteroid Shards

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Weekly News Quiz for Students: Ukraine Food Crisis, Supreme Court Confirmation, Asteroid Shards

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman confirmed to the Supreme Court on April 7, will in one sense transform it.

Once she replaces Justice Stephen G. Breyer, one of the 108 white men who preceded her, the court will look a lot more like the nation it serves. But she will do nothing to alter the basic dynamic on a court dominated by Republican appointees.

Where Do You Go to Find Cool, Strange or Fascinating Information on the Internet?

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Where Do You Go to Find Cool, Strange or Fascinating Information on the Internet?

Do you regularly visit Wikipedia? What kinds of things do you look up? Do you ever search for intriguing, funny or strange facts or trivia? For example, are you interested in discovering a political party dedicated to opposing the use of PowerPoint? Or learning about the world’s most unwanted song? Or maybe finding photos of a chicken — yes, simply crossing the road?

If you love curiosities and oddities like these, you might love @depthsofwikipedia, an Instagram account that compiles some of the crowdsourced encyclopedia’s most bizarre pages. In “Want to See the Weirdest of Wikipedia? Look No Further,” Anna P. Kambhampaty writes:

Did you know that there’s a Swiss political party dedicated to opposing the use of PowerPoint? That some people believe Avril Lavigne died in 2003 and was replaced by a look-alike? Or that there’s a stone in a museum in Taiwan that uncannily resembles a slab of meat?

Probably not — unless, that is, you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of people who follow @depthsofwikipedia. The Instagram account shares bizarre and surprising snippets from the vast, crowdsourced online encyclopedia, including amusing images (a chicken literally crossing a road) and minor moments in history (Mitt Romney driving several hours with his dog atop his car). Some posts are wholesome — such as Hatsuyume, the Japanese word for one’s first dream of the year — while others are not safe for work (say, panda pornography).

Annie Rauwerda, 22, started the account in the early days of the pandemic, when others were baking sourdough bread and learning how to knit. “Everyone was starting projects, and this was my project,” she said.

At the time, she was a sophomore at the University of Michigan. Students are often discouraged from using Wikipedia as a source in academic work, because most of its pages can be edited by anyone and may contain inaccurate information. But for Ms. Rauwerda, the site was always more about entertainment: spending hours clicking on one link after another, getting lost in rabbit holes.

“Wikipedia is the best thing on the internet,” Ms. Rauwerda said in a phone interview. “It’s what the internet was supposed to be. It has this hacker ethos of working together and making something.”

At first, only her friends were following the account. But it received a wave of attention when Ms. Rauwerda posted about the influencer Caroline Calloway, who was upset that the post featured an old version of her Wikipedia page that said her occupation was “nothing.” Ms. Rauwerda apologized, and Ms. Calloway later boosted the account on her Instagram.

Ms. Rauwerda has since expanded @depthsofwikipedia to Twitter and TikTok. She sells merchandise (such as a coffee mug emblazoned with an image from the Wikipedia entry for “bisexual lighting”) and has hosted a live show in Manhattan, featuring trivia and stand-up.

Her followers often pitch her Wikipedia pages to feature, but these days it’s hard to find an entry that will impress Ms. Rauwerda. “If it’s a fun fact that’s been on the Reddit home page, I’m definitely not going to repost it,” she said. “For example, there are only 25 blimps in the world. I’ve known about that for a long time, and it went around Twitter a couple days ago. I was shocked. I was like, ‘Everyone knows this.’”

She is choosy in large part because many of her followers rely on @depthsofwikipedia for unearthing the hidden gems of the internet.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

  • What’s your go-to place on the internet to find cool, strange or fascinating information? Describe the site and why you love to visit it. What’s the most memorable thing you have seen, learned or discovered there?

  • What’s your reaction to @depthsofwikipedia? Did you already know about the Instagram account? Does reading the article make you want to visit it now? Which of the “hidden gems” from Wikipedia discussed in the article grabbed your attention most?

  • Annie Rauwerda, 22, says that Wikipedia is “the best thing on the internet.” Do you agree? How often do you visit Wikipedia? What kinds of topics do you search for? Do you ever spend hours on the site clicking on one link after another and “getting lost in rabbit holes,” like Ms. Rauwerda does?

  • Ms. Rauwerda says that she hopes that visitors to her page walk away with new shared knowledge: “I want you to see something that makes you pause and go, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting.’ Something that makes you rethink the world a little bit.” What’s the coolest thing you have found on Wikipedia? Have you ever discovered something on the internet that made you go, “Hmm, that’s interesting” or made you rethink the world a little bit?

  • The article says that followers of @depthsofwikipedia often pitch Wikipedia pages to feature, but these days it’s hard to find an entry that will impress Ms. Rauwerda. Which Wikipedia page would you pitch?

  • Ms. Rauwerda created @depthsofwikipedia as a sophomore in college. If you could create or curate your own website or social media account, what would it be and why?

Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

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