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Field Trip: Corning Museum of Glass

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3839612465_25aeac4b67When you think of glass do you think Corning? Well if you don’t you should. And if you can take a glass vacation The Corning Museum of Glass is the place on the east coast to go. It’s located in Corning, NY which is upstate from NYC. they have a studio where you can take classes and see glass blowing and they have the coolest museum that houses an incredible collection of the history of glass. I went years ago for a Society of Glass Beadmakers conference (before they became the International Society of Glass Beadmakers), before they renovated the museum. I am really looking forward to my next east coast vacation so I can fit in a trip over to the museum.3840401436_1fb5c6f699

If you wander around their web site you can see the museum is chock full of activities and glass learning experiences. The pictures I’ve posted show a bit of the museum’s attempted at creating the world’s largest glass pumpkin. Crazy…but totally cool. Check out their flickr account to see all of the pictures. Just traveling around their web site and their flickr account will make you want to go to Corning to check it all out. I know I want to go.3840401522_7267decb0b_m

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Fun Facts About Flags

Whether you celebrate Flag Day (June 14 in the United States, it honors the day in 1777 that the American flag was officially adopted) or just want to do a flag unit study, there are lots of interesting flags around the world that you can talk about.

For example, did you know there’s one flag that isn’t a rectangle? The flag of Nepal is the only national flag that isn’t quadrilateral (Switzerland and Vatican City both have flags that are square). Nepal’s flag is shaped like two stacked triangles, which represent the Himalayan Mountains, as well as the two main national religions, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Several flags feature animals, mostly lions, bears and eagles. Two flag feature dragons. The flag of Bhutan has a representation of a Druk, a mythical thunder dragon, while the flag of Wales has a Welsh dragon.

Paraguay is the only country recognized by the United Nations that has a flag that is different on the front and back. The flag has red, white and blue horizontal stripes, with the nation’s coat of arms on the front and the seal of the treasury on the back. (Oregon is the only US state with a flag that is different on the front and back. The front shows a seal with an eagle, 33 stars for its number in the union, and the words “state of Oregon” and the date it was admitted, 1859. The back has a picture of a beaver.)

The flag of Denmark, known as the Dannebrog, is the oldest continuously used flag in the world. Legend has it the flag fell from the sky during a battle in 1219 in present-day Estonia, helping the Danish to an unexpected victory. Because of that, it was adopted as the national flag and has been in use for more than 800 years. Denmark’s flag is celebrated on June 15 each year, called Valdemar’s Day after the king leading the crusade where the flag allegedly appeared.

Purple is a rare color on national flags because it was historically expensive to produce. The only flags that use it (and it’s sometimes hard to see) are Dominica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico and Spain. The Wiphala flag of Bolivia also contains purple.

There’s a fun page on Wikipedia that shows different flags arranged by design, so you can see all the tricolor flags, all the flags with stars, triangles, people and more. You can also look at flags by color.

If this has piqued your interest, maybe you’ll want to learn more about vexillology, the study of the history, design and symbolism of flags.