News from KLRN Education

Learning Measurement and Math Skills this Holiday Season
Yvonne Yates
Director of School Services, KLRN

With the holiday season nearly upon us, I find myself drifting into memories of my mother’s kitchen. The holiday season, was and still is, a time when all the women in my family go into full cooking/baking mode. I learned at a young age how to properly measure the ingredients that went into my mother’s famous cheesecake. I learned to read a scale, measure out dry and wet ingredients. My mom taught me that you need to measure accurately in order to get a yummy result. Cooking and baking continues to be a passion of mine, ask any of my co-workers who blame me for their extra pounds this past year.

As teachers, a struggle that we constantly run into is the “Why are we learning this?” and “When will I EVER use this?” The holiday season is a perfect time to remind students why they need to learn measurement and math skills. Not only will the younger ones want to help in the kitchen but the older ones will be asked to help put up holiday decorations and they will need their math skills to make sure they have enough room and also that the weight of those decorations will not come tumbling down. Why don’t you challenge your students to use what they have learned — through math and science thus far — and come up with a holiday activity or gift for someone? Have children make those real world connections and come back and tell you how they used what they learned in your class to come up with their project.

These next two months race by in the blink of an eye. Teachers are looking for fun ways to not only teach concepts before the holiday vacation but also entertain their student to keep them engaged and not day dreaming of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Visit PBS.org and look through our extensive teacher resources.

How are you using PBS resources in your classroom? Leave a comment, and let us know what you find helpful. This month’s newsletter will be short, but be on the lookout in January for our next Education e-newsletter.

Resources from KLRN Education

KLRN PBS Learning Media Clips to use:

Sid’s Holiday Adventure-Part 3 (Grades PreK-1)
Join Sid and his classmates for Run Time with Miss Susie as they discuss the holidays and temperature.

A Cage to Save a Whale (Grades 2-5)
In this Cyberchase video segment, the CyberSquad must estimate the measurements of Spout the Whale in order to find a cage that will fit him. It took 100 short stories and several books worth of writing before Shannon Hale felt worthy to be published

What’s a 360? (Grades 5-8)
In this Cyberchase video segment, Harry tries to snowboard and learns how to measure and identify many common angles.

Landscape Architect (Grades 9-12)
A landscape architect describes how he uses geometry and measurement in landscape design projects.

Resources from KLRN Education

KLRN PBS Learning Media Clips to use:

Advice for Aspiring Writers (Grade K-8)
Grace Lin shares her advice for becoming a children’s book author. She believes that authors have to love their own writing before they can expect other to enjoy it, and that if a person wants to become a writer, he or she first has to be a reader.

Becoming a Writer (Grades 4-9)
It took 100 short stories and several books worth of writing before Shannon Hale felt worthy to be published.

Read, Read, Read (Grades 4-12)
If children want to become good readers or writers, Katherine Paterson points out an enjoyable way to learn about writing is to read often.

News from KLRN Education

Get Reading and Writing!
Yvonne Yates
Director of School Services, KLRN


When a child opens a book and begins a journey of a lifetime, they can travel to faraway places, magical lands and experience adventures. This is all done without the need of an airline ticket or passport. When a child learns to read, they begin to learn that what an author writes can change their view of the world. They learn early in their lives that writing and reading go hand in hand. To be a writer, you must be an avid reader.

With each turning of the page students learn that written words have a sound and meaning. These magical discoveries turn into rough draft diamonds when students begin to write. A student is eager to write their own stories and not be limited by grammar, spelling and rules. They illustrate stories if we are lucky, they will share them with their teachers and parents. As teachers it is our job to teach our students to love to read, write and sneak in those pesky grammar lessons.

As a teacher the best story I ever read was by a student who misspelled every other word and yet the imagery and imagination of the story brought me to tears. The student passionately wrote when I told him to just write. It was not an assignment but just something he wrote over the weekend and he wanted to share with me. We fixed the spelling mistakes and submitted it to a writing contest. He did not win but he did learn to use a dictionary to help with his spelling.
It is no surprise to me that National Book Month and the National Day of Writing both fall in the month of October. My wish for each student is that they fall in love with one or more authors and that these authors aspire to write. Three authors have influenced my life, Chris Van Allsburg, Roald Dahl and Jane Austen. Who are your favorite authors that inspire you? Share them with your students.

Visit http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting to find out more about The National Day of Writing.

So my question to you this month is: What is your class writing about this month? Share your ideas with us.

Resources from KLRN Education

Try This:

Human Impact on the Water Quality (Grades K-12)
Students explore human impact on water resources, investigate the quality of their community’s water supple and consider ways to clean up and avoid further pollution.

An Alaska Native Community Helps Seals (Grades 3-12)
This video from First Alaskans Institute spotlights the Alaska Native community of St. Paul and its hands-on commitment to care for the land and animals on which it depends.

Community Garden (Grades 3-8)
Orville Edwards describes how community gardens help improve the quality of life in the city.

News from KLRN Education

Let Us Join Together!

Yvonne Yates
Director of School Services, KLRN

Nothing says community like an event that gathers people from all over our city for a common goal. This year, September is full of community involvement happenings, from the 9/11 10th anniversary memorial events to KLRN’s Not in Our Town Week of Action September 18-24. San Antonio is a community that has come together many times to celebrate our diversity and culture. We each have a role to play in strengthening our community and it is the job of all educators, parents, and teachers to lead by example.

We teach our students from a young age to share and be kind and as they get older they continue to share their lunches with friends and are kind to the elderly gentlemen at the grocery store. However, how many of us take those early lessons and apply them to service in the community? Are we showing students that community service isn’t about padding one’s resume, but about realizing that by helping others we gain an understanding of each other and a sense of human compassion? We as teachers have a responsibility to show our students that it is our civic duty to provide support for one another.

Our mission at KLRN is to enrich our viewers with quality educational programing and events. One such event is KLRN’s Not in Our Town Week of Action (September 18-24), during which we’ll be having a FREE public screening of the film on Tues., Sept. 20 at 6:00 PM at the P.E.A.C.E Initiative Offices at the San Antonio Mennonite Church (1443 South St. Mary’s Street). This film documents the effects that hate can have on a community. Following the screening, there will be a panel discussion. We want our community to be informed in order to prevent this from happening in our fair city.

This is just one event that is happening in our city that can inspire your students to take action and make a difference. There are so many opportunities to work with your students to strengthen our community by engaging them in service. Plant a community garden, collect can foods for the San Antonio Food Bank or maybe just help by picking up the trash around your campus. Every little bit helps

So my question to you this month is: What are your students doing to help in their community?

Saturated fats not bad for you?

My mother-in-law forwarded this on to me. To sum up, several studies have been done that show that saturated fat doesn't raise your cholesterol, but in fact simple sugar, particularly High-fructose-corn syrup, does raise your risk of heart disease, cholesterol and type 2 diabetes.

I listened to a lecture given to med students that said pretty much the same things. The lecturer said that the study that showed that saturated fat raised cholesterol didn't cross reference the study, and they based their findings on other countries whose diets where low in saturated fat (think Italy, Japan), but these countries also have diets low in SUGAR!

So here is the link, and here is the article that I copy and pasted from that link.

You're correct that my thinking on saturated fat has evolved. One catalyst was a scientific analysis of 21 earlier studies, which showed "no significant evidence" that saturated fat in the diet is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease. The 21 studies analyzed included nearly 348,000 participants, most of whom were healthy when they were enrolled. They were followed for five to 23 years, during which 11,000 developed heart disease or had a stroke. Looking back at the dietary information collected from these thousands of participants, the investigators found no difference in the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, or coronary vascular disease between those individuals with the lowest and highest intakes of saturated fat. This goes completely against the conventional medical wisdom of the past 40 years. It now appears that many studies used to support the low-fat recommendation had serious flaws.

In the meantime, as nutritionists have been recommending low-fat foods, consumption of added sweeteners, especially high-fructose corn syrup, has been steadily rising. This may be at least partially due to the fact that low-fat prepared foods are often highly sweetened. A study from Emory University and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in April, 2010, showed that sweeteners appear to lower levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol and raise triglycerides. Both of these effects increase the risk of heart disease. What's more, through their direct effects on insulin and blood sugar, refined starches and sugars are more likely than saturated fat to be the main dietary cause of coronary heart disease and type-2 diabetes.

Another study, published in the Dec. 21, 2010 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine,showed that a natural substance in dairy fat, trans-palmitoleic acid, may substantially reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes (and, as result, of heart disease). The research team from the Harvard School of Public Health looked at more than 3,700 men and women age 65 or older in a National Institutes of Health funded Cardiovascular Health Study who had been followed for 20 years to evaluate risk factors for cardiovascular diseases in older adults. The investigators found that participants who reported eating more whole-fat dairy products had higher levels of trans-palmitoleic acid in their blood. Over the following years those men and women who had the higher levels of trans-palmitoleic acid were about 60 percent less likely to develop diabetes than those whose blood levels of trans-palmitoleic were lowest.

In addition, the findings from two other studies conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health on the health effects of dairy products are intriguing. One found that consumption of low-fat dairy foods contributed to infertility caused by failure to ovulate, while consumption of full-fat dairy foods may help the problem. The second showed that drinking skim milk was associated with a higher incidence of acne in teenage boys.

Given the results of these studies, I no longer recommend choosing low-fat dairy products. I believe the healthier choice is high-quality, organic dairy foods in moderation. My personal choice would be high-quality, natural cheese a few times a week. I don't advise eating saturated fat with abandon, because the foods that are full of it (salty bacon, conventionally raised beef, processed cheese) are often not the best for our health. Try to limit it to about ten percent of daily calories. You may choose to use your "budget" of saturated fat calories on ice cream, butter or high-quality natural cheese, or even an occasional steak (from organic, grass-fed, grass-finished cattle, please). I still recommended skinless chicken and turkey because poultry fat (concentrated just beneath the skin) contains arachidonic acid, which promotes inflammation. I also still recommend strictly avoiding foods that contain chemically altered fats (such as hydrogenated vegetable oils found in many prepared foods), as these do appear to raise cardiovascular disease risk.

Continue to emphasize fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and limit sweeteners and other high-glycemic-load carbs.

Andrew Weil, M.D.