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Excellent Books I've read lately:

Al Gore, The Assault on Reason. It is hard to put into words how important this book is to those who value our democracy. A very well-reasoned discussion, and well documented.

Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food. Basically, his thesis is: Eat food (as opposed to "nutrients"). Eat less. Mostly plants.

Khalid Husseini, Kite Runner. Better than the movie! Afghanistan before, during, and after the Taliban, from the point of view of a boy as he grows to a man.

Khalid Husseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Afghanistan before, during, and after the Taliban, from the point of view of two girls from different backgrounds as they grow up and on into their years of marriage to the same man. A great book!

Michael Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma. Thinking about corn (everywhere!) and fossil fuels as we make decisions about our food.

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Again thinking about our food sources and decisions in terms of the effects on health, community, and the environment.

Ishmael Beah, Long Way Gone. About child soldiers in Sierra Leone and how many were rehabilitated.

Robert Kennedy Jr., Crimes Against Nature. Things you never hear about what we are doing to our environment, how it is being done and why.

New PBL book!
Boss, S. & Krauss, J. (2007). Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age. ISTE. [Available at http://www.iste.org]

Interesting defection from One Laptop per Child, apparently due to the
abandonment of the constructionist (Papert) point of view.

Several years ago - it is the most amazing thing I've seen - 13-year old Canadian girl, Severn Suzuki, spoke to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro about the global environment and stunned them to silence and then applause. Now I only wish we would do something!

The ENVIRONMENT: Some things you can do as you consider the most difficult problem we all face at this time–

Take a look at this YouTube video by a high school science teacher...and take some action, spread the word, change your light bulbs.
If you haven't seen the series Big Ideas for a Small Planet (Sundance Channel) you can download the videos into iTunes (for a very small fee) or watch clips of these videos (free) on the Sundance The Green site, where it also links to iTunes. This is a fabulous series about things you have probably (if you are like me) never given thought to! Starting this April the Sundance Channel has a new The Green series.

PBL Website: I have partially updated the PBL website for Fall, 2008.If you have any additional links to suggest, please email them to me! .

Drop me a line now and then. You can still email me at dmcgrath@ksu.edu.