Fridaygram: Connected Classrooms, migrating pronghorns, new Helpouts
By +Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog
Editor
When you’re a kid in school, there’s nothing like a field trip to get you out into the world
to learn something new. Now, thanks to the web, there is something like a field trip:
Connected Classrooms on
Google+. This new program lets kids from everywhere make virtual trips to museums, zoos,
factories, and
other cool
places.
Connected Classrooms features great tour guide partners like Seattle Aquarium, Earthecho
Expeditions, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and we expect the list to grow. If
you’re a teacher and you want to find out more, you can
join
the Connected Classrooms community. And if you have a destination to offer and you
want to be considered as a tour guide, you can
fill
out this form.
Speaking of getting out into the world, each year the
pronghorn population of Wyoming
migrates 150 km between their summer and winter homes. Along this route the pronghorns face
their greatest foe: traffic on U.S. Highway 191, which they must cross. To aid the pronghorn
migration, last year the Wyoming Department of Transportation
built a
system of fences, overpasses, and underpasses for safe crossing. At first the
pronghorns weren’t sure what to make of the crossings, but after several hours they began to
cross. This time, in the second year of the crossings, the pronghorns knew just what to do and
crossed without hesitation. The animals (including the human ones) seem to have
adapted nicely.
Finally, take some time this weekend to check out
Helpouts by Google, a new way to get help
on all sorts of issues via Google+ Hangouts. There are Helpouts for
cooking,
fitness and
nutrition,
home and garden,
and a bunch of other topics. You can get help solving a problem, or learn a new skill. Maybe
you can even
offer other developers
some coding help in the
Computers and Electronics
category.
Kids gotta field trip, pronghorns gotta migrate, Fridaygram
gotta publish. Each week we take a break from our usual developer fare to bring you fun and
nerdy stuff to kick off your weekend. Thanks for being here, and please be careful crossing
the highway.
