4Kids.org - Week of May 23, 2004

Week of May 23, 2004

Paintings at Sea

Say “bonjour” to Manet and the Sea at www.philamuseum.org/
micro_sites/exhibitions/
manet/home.htm. Edouard Manet was one of the first Impressionists, a group of artists who rebelled against tradition. He loved painting light reflecting off water. Flip through the Boulogne Sketchbook to see his watercolor and pencil sketches. As a child, Manet loved the sea and wanted to be a sailor. Breeze by Manet for Kids and build a boat to sail into the sunset.

Nominate a cool Web site at https://4Kids.org/nominations/

Visit the Featured Web sites to find the answers.

What French town did the Manet family visit while war raged in Paris?

Marseilles
Arcachon
Lille

What do gorillas at the Atlanta Zoo drink from a cup each evening?

water
fruit juice
milk

Who first used the steel pan as a drum in Trinidad?

trained musicians
children
slaves

At Home Away From Home

Caring for Gorillas at www.animalexplorers.org/ gorillas/index.asp will show you how zoos keep a captive gorilla from going ape by feeding him right, creating a nurturing environment and keeping his health in check. You can read about gorilla snacks as well as the dietary staples that keep them going. In Enrichment, find out how Ivan the gorilla knows to put a bag above his head when it rains. Be sure to figure out your gorilla personality with the quiz “Which Gorilla Would You Play With?” (This site is no longer available.)

Feel the Rhythm of the Beat

You’ll find the beat with Science of Music: Accidental Scientist at www.exploratorium.edu/ music. Watch and listen as four musicians play instruments from around the world to lay down a good beat. Peter Whitehead, an instrument builder, shares some of his homemade musical contraptions. With Step Re-Mix, you can choreograph your own dance, mixing a rhythm of claps and stomps. You’ll also discover why your voice always sounds better in the shower and why some songs get stuck in your head.

What stories in the news
do you like to follow?

Speak Out Here!

Dear Amy: What is the difference between CDs and DVDs?
— Daryl, St. Louis

Dear Daryl: The first difference that comes to mind is how CDs and DVDs are most commonly used. We use DVDs for movies and we use CDs for music and general data storage. A CD does not have the storage capacity required to store an entire movie. However, an uncompressed movie file is too large for a DVD as well, so a form of compression called MPEG-2 is used to decrease a movie file’s size.

The physical differences between CDs and DVDs are found in the size and organization of the pits and bumps on the reflective material of the disks. The pits are what the CD and DVD players read to interpret the data on the disk. The pits on DVDs are smaller and closer together than those of CDs, allowing you to store more data on a DVD than on a CD. Also, DVDs may have one to four layers of data storage space, which increases their storage capacity even more.

If you need to brush up on your CD and DVD knowledge, glance at http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd1.htm and
http:// electronics.howstuffworks.com/dvd1.htm for some extra info about these storage disks.

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