Quarantine (Life and Culture)

After a year with a marked increase in discrimination and harassment aimed at Asian-Americans across the country, the past few months have been particularly shocking, in both the frequency and violence of attacks. A powerful way to fight racism is education. Conversations about prejudice with your children starting at a young age go a long…

The past year has been difficult for many people. The pandemic, the politics, the job loss and the isolation — most Americans have had to find some new coping mechanisms to make it through. Here’s one: erasure poetry.Creativity can be healing in difficult times, but it’s not always easy to tap into those creative juices.…

I was only a few days into a meandering trip across America, and already I was easing into something of a nighttime routine. Earlier in the day I’d pinpointed a promising campsite in Ozark National Forest. Now, I found myself ascending an isolated forestry road to get to it, my tires crackling over its rough,…

If you enjoy watching birds floating by or chipmunks scampering across your lawn, why not have a go at drawing them to remember what gave you some cheer? With a few basic tips, you can begin making simple drawings. Don’t worry about how good they are. Enjoy that you are learning to see nature. As…

If you like looking at trees, and bark, and the pattern of veins in leaves; if you are fascinated by clouds or the spots on a ladybug’s back; if you like to split open rocks and see what’s inside, then you are already an outdoor scientist. The best part is you don’t need any special…

If it feels as if you’ve already explored every last nook and cranny of your cramped lockdown life know this: Right under your nose, there’s a hidden world operating entirely out of view.That world is geocaching, a no-contact game of hide-and-seek between hundreds of thousands of strangers. Players hide caches — waterproof containers, usually small…

The Indigenous people of the land now called North America are often only brought up in the past tense in primary school classrooms. The fact is they are a growing population, an increasing demographic in the country and in Congress, yet most Americans are woefully uninformed about their histories and present-day struggles. Podcasts can help…

Have you ever had the dream where you take a test that you haven’t studied for? Or the one where you’re caught in a public place in your underwear? Here’s another common one: You open a door in your home and discover a room you have never seen before. To make this one a reality,…

As students readjust to school after two years of pandemic learning, many are striving to rebuild their academic confidence. Some educators believe this is a crucial moment for teachers and parents to keep their distance when learning becomes difficult, and to be explicit about the fact that the challenges students may be facing can offer…

March 7, 2021The New York Times, through its Learning Network, asked the question, and more than 5,500 responses poured in.In words and images, audio and video, they reported that it was, in many ways, a generation-defining disaster. Being trapped inside — and missing the milestones that ordinarily mark coming of age in America — was…