Lesson

Warm UpBefore you read this article, take a look at a screenshot from this shark’s Twitter account. (Yes, the great white shark, Katharine, has a Twitter account. We’ll get to that later.)ImageCredit...Twitter.comWhat do you notice? What do you wonder?What can you infer about this shark and why she is important just from the information on…

Find all of our Lessons of the Day here.Lesson OverviewFeatured Article: “Here’s How Those Hot Jigsaw Puzzles Are Made”The coronavirus has sent puzzle businesses racing as demand surges past levels seen at Christmas.In this lesson, you will learn how jigsaw puzzles are made and why companies that create them see the sudden surge in interest…

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.Lesson OverviewFeatured Article: “Meet Your Meme Lords” by Steven KurutzA small team at the Library of Congress is archiving internet culture as fast as it can. Already the library has amassed more than 2.129 petabytes of data — or put another way, 18 billion digital documents. And that’s…

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.Lesson OverviewFeatured Article: “‘What Rhymes With Purell?’ Franglais Rappers Push Language Boundaries in Quebec” by Dan BilefskyRappers in Montreal, Quebec are playing with the use of language in the music they are creating; however, bilingual wordplay is not embraced by all people in Quebec. Some Quebecois think it…

Ever since many of us started working from home in the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve been invited to countless gatherings taking place on Zoom, the videoconferencing app. Virtual happy hours, work meetings, dinners, you name it.I’ve been a no-show, and it’s not just because my hair has grown embarrassingly long. It’s because I have a fundamental…

Find all of our Lessons of the Day here.Lesson OverviewFeatured Article: “This Sculpture Holds a Decades-Old C.I.A. Mystery. And Now, Another Clue.” by John Schwartz and Jonathan CorumKryptos has been in a courtyard at C.I.A. headquarters for almost 30 years. Three of its four passages have been decoded. Will one more clue unlock the last?In…

Going FurtherThough the Senate unanimously passed the bill, some lawmakers had criticisms of it. The Times reports: In the final measure, most Republicans agreed to Democrats’ demands for a substantial expansion of jobless benefits, including $600 extra per week on top of the usual amount provided by states.On Wednesday afternoon, four Republican senators said they…

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.Lesson OverviewFeatured Article: “Welcome to the Virosphere” by Carl ZimmerSARS-CoV-2, also known as the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, was isolated and identified by Chinese virologists in January. However, it is only one of 6,828 named species of virus, among thousands, or even trillions, that have yet to be…

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.Lesson OverviewFeatured Article: “What to Name the Oldest Modern Bird Fossil? Wonderchicken” by Cara GiaimoPaleontologists in England recently discovered what they believe to be the oldest modern bird fossil. In this lesson, you will learn more about this fossil, which they named the Wonderchicken, and conduct research on…

Find all our Lessons of the Day here.Lesson OverviewFeatured Article: “We Live in Zoom Now”The coronavirus has changed how we work, play and learn: Schools are closing, sports leagues have been canceled, and many people have been asked to work from home.Overnight, Zoom has become a primary social platform for millions of people, a lot…