BODY WORLDS 4 and the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) today welcomed the 100,000th visitor to the exhibition.

This achievement, less than eight weeks into the exhibition’s run, coincides with MOSI’s announcement that it has doubled its visitor numbers compared to the previous year.

The 100,000th visitor was David Holt of Blackburn, Lancashire, who was enjoying the half-term holidays with his son Rhys, age 12. David was presented with a bottle of champagne, free admission on the day, complimentary passes for future visits with the rest of his family, books, DVD’s and a complimentary lunch at the museum restaurant.

BODY WORLDS 4 is forecasted to be the most popular visiting exhibition in MOSI’s history.

‘It is terrific news that we've hit the 100,000th visitor in such a short time, said Tony Hill, Acting Director at MOSI. ‘A lot of BODY WORLDS 4's popularity is down to word of mouth, as the exhibition has really got people talking and thinking about how their own bodies function. By holding this exhibition at MOSI, we have helped to stimulate debate and discussion about the human body, which is all part of our goal to make science and industry inspirational.’

Since BODY WORLDS 4 opened on the 22nd February 2008, visitors of all ages and backgrounds from across the country have joined the nearly 25 million people worldwide who have experienced the BODY WORLDS exhibitions which offer an unparalleled opportunity to view the complexity and beauty of the human body.

Tony Hill added: ‘The human body is relevant to every one of us, and BODY WORLDS has helped to make human biology and health accessible for people who may not have been particularly interested before. Special exhibitions like BODY WORLDS 4 draw visitors who may never have come to the Museum before, and encourage them to look around the rest of the museum, which is free.’

BODY WORLDS teaches visitors about anatomy, physiology and health with real human bodies, preserved through the remarkable process of Plastination. Invented by Dr. Gunther von Hagens in 1977, the plastination process replaces the natural fluids in each specimen with liquid reactive plastics that are hardened and cured with gas, light or heat depending on the polymer used. Before hardening the plastic in the specimens, the plastinates are fixed into lifelike poses, illustrating how our bodies internally respond to everyday movements and activities. This unique process also provides the flexibility and strength needed to display and preserve the plastinates in their true-to-life form.

There is still time to visit the exhibition. BODY WORLDS 4 continues until the 29th June 2008.

Teachers are witnessing an increase in gang-related activity in schools, according to research.

More...

The number of people teaching in state schools without qualified teacher status has risen five-fold in 10 years, figures suggest.

More...

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — Like a bouncer at a nightclub, Melissa Gladwell was parked at the main entrance of Cheektowaga Central Middle School on Friday night, with a list of 150 names highlighted in yellow marker, the names of students barred from the after-hours games, crafts and ice cream because of poor grades or bad attitudes.

“You’re ineligible,” Ms. Gladwell, a sixth-grade teacher, told one boy, who turned around without protest. “That happens. I think they think we’re going to forget.”

In a far-reaching experiment with disciplinary measures reminiscent of old-style Catholic schools or military academies, the Cheektowaga district this year began essentially grounding middle school students whose grade in any class falls below 65, or who show what educators describe as a lack of effort.

Such students — more than a quarter of the 580 at the school as of last week — are excluded from all aspects of extracurricular life, including athletic contests, academic clubs, dances and plays, unless they demonstrate improvement on weekly progress reports filled out by their teachers.

The policy is far stricter than those at most high schools, which generally have eligibility requirements only for varsity sports teams. It is part of a larger campaign to instill more responsibility in young adolescents in this town of 80,000 on the outskirts of Buffalo. Starting this week, the students also automatically get detention on any day they fail to wear their identification cards; 13 were punished on the first day of the new policy and 14 the second, including several repeaters.

And there are social rules that govern nearly every minute of the day, from riding the bus to using the bathroom, as part of a program known as “positive behavioral interventions and supports.” Students are required to keep to the right of the dotted yellow line down the middle of hallways. They are assigned seats in the cafeteria and must wait for a teacher to call them up to get food. If enough students act up or even litter, they all risk a declaration of “silent lunch” in the cafeteria.

“I’d like to go to a normal school,” said Anthony Pachetti, 12, a seventh grader who has been barred from activities for failing math, science and social studies. “It’s not doing anything for me except taking everything away.”

Such harsh regimens are rare, and generally have been found in tough urban schools like Eastside High in Paterson, N.J., where Joe Clark, an Army-drill-instructor-turned-principal, famously expelled dozens of students in a single day in the early 1980s, and inspired the movie “Lean on Me.” Now tough policies are spreading to outlying areas like Cheektowaga at a time when they are facing increased pressure to improve academic achievement. Middle schools, in particular, have long struggled with performance slumps and competing theories on how to strike the right balance between structure and independence for students at a transitional, volatile age. But few have gone as far as Cheektowaga has in clamping down on the natural disorder of early adolescence.

Even Joe Clark’s Paterson district backed away from requiring that 10th, 11th and 12th graders maintain a 2.5 grade-point average to participate in extracurricular activities in 2006. Instead, it adopted a lower standard — a 2.0 average only for athletes — after community opposition.

Critics of the tough-love approach cite studies showing that students active in extracurricular activities tend to perform better in class, and they worry that without structured activities after school, troubled youngsters will be more apt to find trouble.

“A child who only has detention to look forward to at the end of the day is less likely to come to school,” said Laura Rogers, a school psychologist in Harvard, Mass. and the co-author of “Fires in the Middle School Bathroom.”

Deborah Meier, a senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education and a former New York City principal, said that such “law and order” approaches are counterproductive.

for full story - NY Times

Figures show that almost one in 10 pupils in England did not sit five GCSEs including English and maths.

More...

Further education college lecturers are to hold a one-day strike on the same day as school teachers.

More...

Businesses are to help fund 20,000 university places as ministers seek to boost the nation's skills.

More...

One of England's newest universities is running tailor-made degrees in the management of selling beds.

More...

A support group says teachers are being hit by the credit crunch as they struggle with their mortgages.

More...

Exam rooms could be fitted with CCTV cameras to prevent cheating and false claims against invigilators.

More...