Nature – Page 5 – Froebel Decade

Little Scientists

$4 million has been committed to the Little Scientists program in Australia to inspire three year old and four year old children, through active engagement with the world around them. Young Australians are becoming more numerate and scientifically literate by learning to count with little towers of wooden blocks and blowing bubbles. Nurturing the imagination of each child ensures they will go on to create the prosperity for Australia to remain a first world, generous social welfare net, high wage economy. read more

Activities start with familiar objects and experiences. Each child asks questions, which can be explored rationally. Making connections, drawing inferences, and creating new information are the building blocks for a culture of science and technology to create an innovation nation.

The curriculum encourages the autonomy, self confidence and self esteem of each child, based on the progressive ideas of Friedrich Fröbel, the renowned educator, who developed the Kindergarten concept 175 years ago. The program sparks interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics by encouraging teachers to implement ideas and concepts from workshops, while exploring together with the children in their care.

Source: Little Scientists Australia

The five year olds agree: trees make the wind by shaking their branches. Their teacher does not correct them, but instead asks whether anyone has seen the wind in a place where there are no trees. One boy recalls a visit to the seashore, where the wind was whipping up water and sand with no trees in sight. Another child says that moving cars make fallen leaves twirl. Perhaps, they decide, trees are not the source of a breeze.

Little Scientists marks a departure, says a kindergarten teacher who participates in the programme. “You have to be willing to do something with the kids that might not lead to a result. They will not take something home that they can show their parents.” Teachers trained in the method encourage children to ask questions about natural phenomena and everyday objects. read more

Ilm Valley

From Ilmenau to Kranichfeld | 36 km

Leaving Ilmenau cycle through floodplain forest along the banks of the Ilm River. Along the route are Griesheim and Stadtilm. Enjoy a cool draft beer in the brewery museum in Singen. Past the Mustard & Arts Mill in Kleinhettstedt you reach Kranichfeld and its two castles.

Ilm-Valley Cycling Route: The most popular cycling route in Thuringia and a 4-star-quality trail. — Ilm Valley Cycling Route: The most popular cycling route in Thuringia and a 4 star quality trail.

Nature, history and culture:

See the varying landscape of Thuringia on a cycling tour of more than 123 km length. Start at the source of the Ilm River and follow it to its flowing into the Saale River.

Explore castles, palaces, manor houses, World Heritage Sites and enjoy the savoury Thuringian cuisine at your leisure.

The Ilm Valley Cycling Route was the first to be recognised with 4 stars for being a quality cycling trail by the ADFC (German Cyclist’s Association). Cyclists enjoy a picturesque landscape and also a high standard in terms of sign posting, safety and service.

This historic building complex, including a half timbered house from the 16th century, is located directly on the Ilm. You can taste and buy high quality mustards from on site production.

Nearby Barchfeld there is a picnic area with a roofed table and a barbeque hut right next to the cycling route.

Holbach

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach was a philosopher, translator, and prominent social figure of the French Enlightenment.

Holbach made significant contributions to the European Enlightenment in science and religion. He translated German works on chemistry and geology into French, summarizing many of the German advances in these areas in his entries in Diderot’s Encyclopedia. Holbach also translated important English works on religion and political philosophy into French.

Holbach remains best known for his role in Parisian society. The close circle of intellectuals that Holbach hosted and, in various ways, sponsored produced the Encyclopedia and a number of revisionary religious, ethical, and political works. Holbach’s broader visiting guest list included many of the most prominent intellectual and political figures in Europe. His salon, then, was at once a shelter for radical thought and a hub of mainstream culture.

French nobles, as well as ambassadors from countries across Europe: Denmark, England, Naples, Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Wurtemburg, and Sweden attended his dinners. So did prominent intellectuals of all kinds, including, at different times and with different degrees of enthusiasm, the philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the mathematician Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, the historian Edward Gibbon, the writer Horace Walpole, the chemist Joseph Priestley, the social critic Cesare Beccaria, the philosopher Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger, the statesman and scientist Benjamin Franklin, the actor David Garrick, the philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius, the philosopher David Hume, the economist Adam Smith, and the novelist Laurence Sterne.

Holbach was born in 1723 in Edesheim. He was raised in Paris, principally by his uncle, Franciscus Adam d’Holbach, and attended the University of Leiden from 1744 to 1748 or 1749. Holbach particularly enjoyed the parties there. It is likely that, at least at first, the dinners Holbach gave in Paris were modelled on the parties he attended at Leiden. In 1749, Holbach married his second cousin, Basile-Geneviève d’Aine. About 1753 or 1754 both his uncle, Franciscus, and his father in law died, leaving Holbach a considerable fortune.

Holbach used his great wealth to throw the dinner parties for which he is famous. He owned a house in Paris in rue Royale, Butte Saint-Roch, which, generally, had a guest list restricted to serious intellectuals, and a chateau at Grandval.

Holbach was known in France as le premier maître d’hôtel de la philosophie. Many in Paris coveted invitations to rue Royale, and Holbach’s house was the first stop for many prominent international visitors.

Why Grow Up?

Thinking for oneself is a difficult and lifelong undertaking.

In her new book, Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age the philosopher Susan Neiman takes on the predicament of maturity, that dates back to the 18th century.

Source: ‘Why Grow Up?’ by Susan Neiman

An American born philosopher who lives in Berlin, Neiman wants you to think for yourself.

The “infantile age” she has in mind goes back to the 18th century, and its most important figures are Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. “Coming of age is an Enlightenment problem,” she writes, “and nothing shows so clearly that we are the Enlightenment’s heirs” than that we understand it as a topic for argument and analysis, as opposed to something that happens to everyone in more or less the same way. Before Kant and Rousseau, Neiman suggests, Western philosophy had little to say about the life cycle of individuals. As traditional religious and political modes of authority weakened, “the right form of human development became a philosophical problem, incorporating both psychological and political questions and giving them a normative thrust.”

How are we supposed to become free, happy and decent people?

Rousseau’s “Emile” supplies Neiman with some plausible answers, and also with some cautionary lessons. A wonderfully problematic book — among other things a work of Utopian political thought, a manual for child-rearing, a foundational text of Romanticism and a sentimental novel — it serves here as a repository of ideas about the moral progress from infancy to adulthood. And also, more important, as a precursor and foil for Kant’s more systematic inquiries into human development.

The Geneva born Rousseau traveled across Europe on foot, fathering and abandoning at least five children. Kant rarely left his native Königsberg and never married. Between them, they mapped out what Neiman takes to be the essential predicament of maturity, namely the endless navigation of the gulf between the world as we encounter it and the way we believe it should be.

In infancy, we have no choice but to accept the world as it is.

In adolescence, we rebel against the discrepancy between the “is” and the “ought.”

Adulthood, for Kant and for Neiman, “requires facing squarely the fact that you will never get the world you want, while refusing to talk yourself out of wanting it.” It is a state of neither easy cynicism nor naïve idealism, but of engaged reasonableness.

Perception

Sensory information has no inherent meaning.

We learn to see by finding patterns and associating them with meaning through interaction.

Strive to achieve

The world will become a better place to live, when we all strive to achieve peace and happiness instead of power and control.

Each of us was born with innate gifts, which are different from other people.

When we cultivate our own unique significance through a perpetual cycle of self examination, education and practice, success becomes a natural by product.

What were you made to do?

Once you declare who you are and what you were made to do, then it is time to analyze how well you are applying your skills with the limited time that you have. Only then is it time to start analyzing best practices of the people you most admire and integrating them into a regimen designed specifically for you, your skillset and your calendar.

What will work in your life and what will not?

“People should strive to be the very best version of who they are. There are many paths to success. The best one is the one that allows you to use and develop your innate strengths. Those will look different in different people.”

source: Two Reasons Why Copying Successful People Won’t Make You Successful

Pacific

The Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow.

It is a natural wonder whose most fascinating history is currently being made.

With China on the rise, the Pacific is ascendant with cities, including Seattle, San Francisco, and the long cluster of towns down the Silicon Valley.

Simon Winchester takes us from the Bering Strait to Cape Horn, the Yangtze River to the Panama Canal, and to the many small islands and archipelagos that lie in between.

Following his acclaimed Atlantic and The Men Who United the States, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester offers an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world, exploring our relationship with this imposing force of nature.

Pacific a paean to this magnificent sea of beauty, myth, and imagination that is transforming our lives.

Garden Gnomes

The Gräfenroda company of Griebel can look back on a long tradition of production of garden gnomes.

Philipp Griebel founded his own company back in 1874 and was involved in work on development of the famous garden gnome from 1880 to 1890.

In the museum today, visitors can follow both the history of the company and the story of this lovable little fellow, from an animal and a fairytale figure to a garden gnome, and can judge the quality of the gnomes for themselves.

Source: Garden Gnome Museum

Landscape Architecture

Theodor Froebel (1810–93) and his son Otto (1844–1906) were two of the most significant artistic and commercial gardeners of nineteenth century Switzerland. The work of these key figures paved the way for the profession of landscape architecture.

After having been trained in his native Thuringia, Theodor Froebel came to Zurich in 1834. There, as the first university gardener, he played an influential role in the planning and construction of the new Botanical Garden. By 1835 he had started his own business, and he left his position at the university in 1841. The rest of his professional career was determined by two complementary practices: on the one hand public and private clients engaged him for the planning and construction of parks and gardens, and on the other hand he ran his own business including a tree nursery and greenhouses. His son Otto completed his training at his father’s business, as well as at renowned firms in other European countries. After Otto had entered into the family business in 1865 the plant collection grew, as did the number of the gardens planned and realized.

The planning of public parks and private gardens undertaken by Theodor and Otto Froebel provides information about the role of these two men as garden designers. The business model was transformed from a modest commercial operation to a prestigious business enterprise active across Europe.

This provides a context for the creative work of Theodor and Otto Froebel and helps clarify their significance.

Source: Theodor and Otto Froebel, ETH Zurich, Professor Girot, Chair of Landscape Architecture. | Christophe Girot | Chair of landscape architecture | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich | ETHZ

Theodor Froebel was one of the five nephews for whom Friedrich Froebel founded his first school in 1816 at Griesheim in the Principality of Schwarzburg Rudolstadt.

Philanthropy

Friedrich Froebel took on his share in solving social problems, because of his understanding of Christian responsibility.

He described the development of each person as the unification of existence.

Each individual is created in the image of God, and is responsible for consciously expressing this inner nature.

Froebel created a “living memorial” for the 300th anniversary of the Reformation by educating two descendants of Martin Luther in his school at Keilhau.

Georg Luther went on to study theology. Ernst Luther made the sphere, cylinder and cube as the gravestone for Frobel, designed by Wilhelm Middendorf.

Froebelsruh-bei-Bad-Liebenstein — Made in 1852 by Ernst Luther

As a devout man and a philanthropist, Friedrich Froebel created ways for individuals to live together in peace and harmony with each other and nature.

living together makes our life “a sacred pilgrimage”

As we relate to persons from different cultures, how can we enable each person to say freely what he or she thinks, to be accepted with his or her particular gifts, and to become fully co-responsible?