Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2018 i Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children

Mountains inspire and motivate. Artists pay tribute to them. Adventurers want to conquer them. Vast and beautiful, they are one of the Earth’s most revered features. Here are five facts to get you started. 1. The largest volcanic region on Earth is located two to four kilometers (1.5 to 2.5 miles) below the surface of vast Antarctic ice sheets. Among the volcanoes are 91 that were previously unknown until recently. The volcanic eruptions may not reach the surface, but could melt the ice from beneath and speed up the flow of ice into the sea. 2. Mount Everest has a trash problem. Litter and human waste left behind by hikers cause environmental issues all along this Himalayan peak. The Nepalese government and several organizations are working to clear the waste…

What’s to know about mountains in Antarctica? Mile-thick glaciers cover the entire region to make an enormous, flat continent, right? Wrong as a sunbather in a snow storm! (More on that topic later . . . ) Antarctica may be covered by ice, but the land beneath has high mountains, deep valleys, and even volcanoes, just like every other continent. And Antarctica’s geography may affect you more than you realize. Antarctica is actually divided into two main regions, East and West Antarctica. A 2,000-mile-long chain of mountains called the Transantarctic Mountain Range separates these two regions. Land formations suggest that East Antarctica is an older, high ice-covered plateau that was attached to other landmasses in the distant past. West Antarctica seems to be the southward extension of the Andes Mountains…

History has seen a wide range of volcanic eruptions, from little burps of lava to catastrophically explosive super volcanoes. The power of such eruptions is measured using the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI). Developed in the 1980s, it is similar to the magnitude scale for earthquakes. The scale goes from 1 to 8, with each higher level representing an impact ten times greater than the last. There haven’t been any VEI-8 eruptions in the last 10,000 years, but scientists have been able to identify some of the most powerful and devastating eruptions before and during human history. Needless to say, the survival of organisms and ecosystems near and far can be affected by a major volcanic eruption. So, in chronological order, here is a brief description of the strength and human/environmental…

• A 1937 bill introduced into Congress proposed adding Susan B. Anthony’s head to monument. The bill was unsuccessful. • No one died, and only one person was seriously injured while working on Mount Rushmore. • Work on the mountain was frequently interrupted by funding and weather delays. Those days outnumbered the days that were spent on carving. • A small room known as the Hall of Records was blasted into the mountain behind Lincoln’s head. Borglum intended it to be used to store historical records related to the project. • The millions of pounds of granite that were removed from Mount Rushmore sit in a heap at the bottom of the mountain.…

It is said to be the second most climbed mountain in the world, with only Japan’s Mt Fuji welcoming more climbers every year. About 125,000 hikers climb it every year. It has also been climbed and written about by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. And yet, it’s only 3,165 feet (965 meters) tall, and is just two hours north of Boston and five hours north of New York City. This is Mount Monadnock, and it rises above the towns of Dublin and Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Mount Monadnock gets its name from an Abenaki Indian word that means “a mountain that stands alone.” The tallest mountain in the area, Monadnock, does just that. Early settlers in the area adopted the Abenaki word, and later American geologists began using the…

Paul Cezanne is a Post-Impressionist artist known for his colorful landscapes. He spent time outdoors observing, sketching, and painting. He simplified the subjects of his paintings into basic geometric shapes and bands of colors. He used one-point perspective techniques to create distance and depth. Cezanne also explored a new idea of stereoscopy—placing a pair of two-dimensional images next to each other so that the viewer sees it in a three-dimensional way. The person’s eyes see two images, but the brain converges them into one image. This was an important new idea in painting that later led to more dramatic styles like cubism. If you want to paint mountains that look like they are far away, here are a few helpful tips. Materials: Drawing pencils Sketching paper Watercolor paper Watercolor paints…

Mountains are one of the Earth’s most important geographic features. One in every 10 people in the world lives on a mountain. Mountains supply fresh water to more than half the world’s people. Many people consider mountains to be sacred places. What makes a mountain a mountain? The easy answer is that a mountain is higher than a hill. Some geologists consider any hill more than 1,000 feet high to be a mountain. Mountains can be found on every continent and under the oceans. Some are famous for their height—Mount Everest is considered the world’s tallest. Others, like Mount Fuji in Japan, are known for their beauty and their religious importance. And many others, like Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, are known as places for recreation and fun. It’s important…

“Its existence is a challenge,” said English mountaineer George Mallory when asked why he was attempting to climb Mount Everest. He said it was related to “man’s desire to conquer the universe.” Mallory and his climbing partner died on Mount Everest in 1924. No one knows if they ever made it to the top. Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999. He is one of the more than 250 people who have died while climbing Mount Everest. It was New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, who made history in 1953 when they reached the mountain’s summit. Since that time, almost 5,000 climbers have made it to the top of the world’s tallest mountain (some more than once). Mount Everest, part of the Himalayas, is located on…

The carving on Georgia’s Stone Mountain was created to honor Confederate leaders of the Civil War. It depicts Army Commander Robert E. Lee, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, and confederacy president Jefferson Davis. All three men are on horseback. The carving is so large that men who were working on the project took shelter from storms in the mouth of one of the horses. It has been described as possessing the “detail of a fine painting.” Facial features, strands of hair, and even belt buckles were carved with a small thermo-jet torch. The torch revolutionized mountain carving and allowed carvers to add intricate details to their work. Mount Rushmore’s Gutzon Borglum was the first sculptor hired for the job. He worked on the carving from 1923 to 1925. Disagreements with project…

1. Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan, is a sacred place for many practitioners of Shinto (a Japanese faith). They worship kami (the deities of their faith) and often pay visits to Mount Fuji. 2. Mount Olympus in Greece stands 9,573 tall. It is commonly known as home of the Greek gods. Ancient myths tell of the belief that Zeus, his wife Hera, and many other members of his family dwelled on this mystical peak. 3. Mount Agung in Bali is 10,308 feet tall and is considered the center of the universe. The holiest temple in Bali, called The Mother Temple of Besakih, sits about 3,000 feet up the mountain. 4. Popular and widely visited by many Christians, Mount of the Holy Cross is located in Colorado. This mountain…

This was my first encounter with an American pika. As you can imagine, it was difficult to stay focused on the lesson, as the hamster-like pika kept poking its head up between different rocks. Sometimes it would run off to find mouthfuls of wildflowers and grass to bring back to its den or give chase to a neighbor who crossed into its territory. The pika may appear cute and cuddly, but make no mistake–it is one tough survivor. It can live on treeless slopes of mountains where most other animals would not venture. Though it looks like a rodent, the pika is the smallest member of the hare and rabbit family. It has soft, grayish-brown fur to help it blend in with rocks, a stout body, big round ears, and…

The wind threatens to push us down a cliff. Wind speed frequently exceeds 100 km/hour. When there is a particularly strong gust, we squat and push against our trekking sticks. The view is worth the climb—blue lakes of Patagonia—are at our feet, and the mountains of the Paine massif spread out before us. I often bring my clients here. I work as a guide in the national park Torres del Paine in the south of Chile. Challenge at the Edge of the World The southern region of South America is known as Patagonia. Argentina and Chile share this land. Known for its inaccessible rock faces and lakes in many shades of blue, Patagonia has become synonymous with “the edge of the world.” My “office”—the National Park Torres del Paine—is its…

From your high vantage point amid mountains with names like Kongen (The King), Dronningen (The Queen), and Bispen (The Bishop), you look down on a scene that appears to be straight out of a folktale. The incredibly steep way you’ve traversed winds back and forth in tight turns from the valley below to where you now stand. Could it be the path of a giant serpent? Or possibly it was formed by the massive hands of mountain trolls. Who else could have hewn a path straight into these rocky ledges? Norwegian mythology is filled with stories about many fantastical creatures including dwarves, elves, and Valkyrie. The legends from this particular mountainous region tell of trolls who roam the area by night. However, once the first light of day strikes them,…

CHARACTERS: Narrator 1, Narrator 2, Narrator 3, Gaia, Hermes, Pan, Athena, Zeus, Typhon, Prince Cadmus Narrator 1: Gaia (Mother Earth) was angry with Zeus for imprisoning her sons, the Titans, in the Underworld. She often told the story to her youngest son, Typhon, who was the last of the Titans. Gaia: Typhon, when you are grown, you must get revenge for your brothers by destroying Zeus and the Immortals. Then YOU can rule in their place. Narrator 1: Typhon did indeed grow. And grow and grow . . . until he was so tall that the waves far out in the sea came only to his knees. Then Typhon came striding toward Mount Olympus in Greece with the rage of a thousand hurricanes. The Immortals were in a panic. Hermes:…