Most of us are familiar with the company Gallup from the polling they do for US Presidential elections. Since Presidential elections only occur every four years, the company is also involved in forecasting other activities including economic and GDP growth. One of the topics that made headlines recently is their prediction about the coming war […]
Recently, my daughter has taken an interest in riddles. Apparently, a group of her friends at school like to try and stump each other during recess and lunch. To help her prepare for these encounters, I have gone online looking for challenging, but kid friendly riddles. One of my personal favorites is the following: […]
Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, an influential economist and thinker in the first half of the twentieth century, wrote that “An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.” Although he may be referring to economic theory and application, I think his words have a much broader meaning. I am not sure […]
Everyone is familiar with the advantages gained in life when you know how to read. Without reading, we wouldn’t be able to discover new ideas, gain knowledge, or even safely drive a car. Although the benefits from reading in our society are obvious, the benefits of writing are less clear. Most of us don’t […]
My three children love slides. They find something liberating about dropping quickly from a high altitude and whooshing to the bottom. My children have even discovered how sliding down on a piece of wax paper can actually make the whole experience faster. The “Summer Slide” is also a metaphor that refers to the amount […]
Have you ever gotten lost in a book? The first book I recall immersing myself in was Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet. I read it over the summer when I was ten years old and was transported to Northern Canada with Brian Robeson, the main character, as he learned how to survive alone in the wilderness. […]
Gamification [n]: the use of game design elements in non-game contexts. That idea is the heart and soul of Brain Chase and the reason the Summer Learning Challenge is a big opportunity to boost students up a level this summer. Our work is to harness the best elements of game design and bring them to […]
Throughout the Brain Chase website you read about how the Challenge begins at 9am Eastern on June 30th. But what does that mean exactly? Can children participate even if they’re not logged in at that very moment? Can they participate if they’re traveling, in summer camp, or just not in the mood to log […]
In designing Brain Chase, we took advantage of the surprisingly large collection of research about how to help children stay smart over the summer. One great resource is the book Making Summer Count: How Summer Programs Can Boost Children’s Learning. Its author is Jennifer Sloan Combs, Ph.D., a senior officer at the RAND Corporation. Here […]