| By Gale Staff | Small steps toward more accessible resources lead to leaps in equitable learning opportunities. This April, we’re upgrading all Gale resources with ReadSpeaker technology to a new, enhanced version to improve experiences for your learners and researchers. ReadSpeaker is a text-to-speech tool that enables users to listen to content, read along … Read more
| By Amy Hackney Blackwell | It’s easy to see why organizers chose the theme of planet vs. plastics for this year’s Earth Day. Plastics are everywhere. We see plastic in water bottles, packaging, and everyday utensils. Plastic bags are in every shop, restaurant, and garbage can. Food packaging, prescription drug bottles, tools, and toys … Read more
| By Gale Staff | During the summer months, when most K-12 schools are not in session, students across the country experience a phenomenon known as the summer slide or summer learning loss. Understandably, young learners might only progress academically with structured classes. However, data suggests that students actually regress in their educational achievement, losing … Read more
| By Carol Brennan | April is National Arab American Heritage Month, an opportunity to honor the contributions of a diverse and especially resilient class of American immigrants and their descendants. Each month, Gale In Context: Biography is refreshed with new names from the fields of entertainment, science, politics, sports, the arts, and social activism. … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | It’s difficult for most people, much less young people, to imagine a time before cars, but the rise of the automobile is only about 100 years old. In fact, it was 100 years ago this week, on April 15, 1924, that the first Rand McNally Road Atlas was published … Read more
| By Gale Staff | Educators’ focus on teaching students about money once consisted of straightforward lessons about calculating interest rates, creating a savings account, and basic budgeting. Now, with the ever-increasing talk about digital currencies gaining traction across YouTube and TikTok, teaching financial literacy has shifted to include concepts like Bitcoin and blockchain. While … Read more
| By Gale Staff | Since the start of the twenty-first century, new initiatives in American education have stressed the importance of teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to help prepare students for jobs when they enter the workforce. Although readying students for future careers is an important goal of STEM, teachers may want … Read more
| By Gale Staff | June 18 is Autistic Pride Day, a celebration of self-advocacy organized by the autism community to “promote inclusion, understanding, and neurodiversity . . . on [a] journey towards a more inclusive world for Autistic people.” The holiday was spearheaded in 2005 by Aspies for Freedom after members of the group … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | There are certain public figures who are seen as embodying their generation, and if they die before they reach old age, especially in tragic ways, their deaths can be seen as the end of an era. So it was with President John F. Kennedy in 1963, with John Lennon … Read more
| By K. Lee Lerner | The product of celestial mechanics, Earth’s rotational dynamics, and one’s vantage point, a total solar eclipse will cross swaths of Mexico, the U.S., and Canada on April 8, 2024. It will be the last total solar eclipse visible in the continental U.S. until 2044. So many people are reportedly … Read more