Ages

Objective: Learn how some cold-blooded animals (ectotherms) regulate their body temperature and why it's important for them to be "warm." Students will: q Learn to identify which colors are best at absorbing heat from light. q See firsthand the value of dark turtle shells vs. light ones. q Learn the difference between ectotherms and endotherms (warm-blooded animals). Materials: q 3 T-shirts (white, medium color, dark) q 2 dishpans q Ice cubes


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To: Readers of TR-856, Identifying Arabic-Language Materials for Children Th at Promote Tolerance and Critical Th inking.
Th e Arabic titles and authors of the books mentioned on pages 29, 30, and 31 were inadvertently transposed during the document production process.
Th e proper spellings are as follows: We regret any inconvenience.
The Materials Search Process and Description of the Collection 29 ous and direct was the code: "At least one character acts in a tolerant or pro-social way." Of the 104 materials reviewed, 62 percent met this criterion. Moreover, within this set of materials, tolerance was often the central theme in the work, with the message communicated directly (i.e., employing scaffolding) or through metaphor. Critical thinking was most directly measured using three coding criteria: "Different ways to think or solve a problem are discussed or shown," "Question rules, authority or societal assumptions while thinking or problem solving," and "Draw different conclusions from the same information." In total, 53 percent of materials met at least one of these three criteria, although it must be recalled that extra effort was made in the search process to locate materials with critical thinking themes. In addition, critical thinking was frequently a secondary rather than a primary theme in these works.
The limited availability of Arabic language children's media promoting critical thinking can be explained by three main factors. The first is that the skills needed to think critically do not develop until children reach the oldest of the age groups considered in this study, so it is not surprising that it was rare to encounter the theme in materials aimed at the 4-6 and 7-10 cohorts. Second, critical thinking tends to be a prominent theme of educational materials (see Appendix A); this category comprised a relatively small share (7 percent) of our collection. Finally, critical thinking is a particularly difficult message to integrate into children's media given that a dominant theme of the works we collected, particularly those written for the youngest children, is actually to reinforce compliant behaviors such as obeying parents. This focus on compliance is consistent with a strong emphasis on such messages in materials produced in the region for young children (e.g., UNDP, 2003). Below, we present descriptions of several works that met our criteria. One work for each of the study age groups is described in some detail.

Title: Sheep Don't Eat Cats
Title (Arabic): Author: Khālid Jum'ah Author (Arabic): Summary: This is the story of a family of cats that are frightened by their new neighbors-a family of sheep. The father of the cat family is particularly anxious and forbids any intermingling with the sheep. However, the curiosity of the youngest cat leads to an exchange with the sheep that confirms that the sheep mean no harm to the cats. The moral of the story is not to demonize "the other" and that young people should move beyond the fears and stereotypes of their parents' generation.