behavior · community · creativity · work

Organize an Office Recess and Create Your Own Game | Play on GOOD

Beth Kelley

Yes! I’m in!

When you think of our everyday endeavors and going through life as adults, we’re not really encouraged to be playful. But when we play games, we relax and become more receptive and less judgmental. Games trigger our creative juices—through solving problems, navigating complex systems and managing resources. They present us with hard problems; like solving a puzzle or defeating a boss. As players we need to be creative and come up with good ideas to solve those problems. They make us more playful in our way of being and experiencing life. Best of all, games bring us together. Go ahead, organize an office recess and create your own game—and use the toolkit at the link to help get you started.

sign up and find out more at Organize an Office Recess and Create Your Own Game | Play on GOOD.

architecture · creativity · Nature

DIY Vertical Gardening

Beth Kelley1 Comment

Make your space a little greener, using recycled materials.

Unknown's avatarTHE DIRT

garden
Who knew? You can turn those leftover soda bottles into a vertical garden with some supplies and a bit of crafting skills. This is Do-It-Yourself (DIY) vertical gardening.

This concept come to us from Brazilian design firm Rosenbaum, as part of their partnership with TV producer Luciano Huck. According to This Is Colossal, this is part of a series where “teams went through dozens of Brazilian homes” in an attempt to execute “dramatic makeovers of interior and exterior spaces.”

garden2
This urban garden, which was featured in their 48th home in the series, was such a hit that Rosenbaum released these instructions so anyone create their own. The instructions are in Portuguese, so here is a version translated into English:

Materials

•    2-liter plastic bottle, empty and clean
•    Scissors
•    Clothesline rope, twine, or wire
•    Washers (two per bottle if rope or wire is chosen)
•    Dirt
•  …

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anthropology · community · culture · happiness · Social

The Happiest States In America In One Map (INFOGRAPHIC)

Beth Kelley

Where you live apparently can influence your happiness – or maybe happy people just tend head west?

Which way to happy? Geographically speaking, it’s the route to Hawaii, Maine or one of the clusters of blissful cities in California and Colorado.

The map below is based on results from a study of geotagged tweets published earlier this year in PLoS ONE by researchers at the University of Vermont. The team scored more than 10,000 words on a positive-negative scale and measured their frequency in millions of tweets across the country, deliberately ignoring context to eliminate experimental bias. What emerged was significant regional variation in happiness by this calculation, which correlates with other lifestyle measures such as gun violence, obesity and Gallup‘s traditional wellbeing survey. A sadness belt across the South includes states that have high levels of poverty and the shortest life expectancies.

Huffington Post, Happy, United States Map

more via The Happiest States In America In One Map (INFOGRAPHIC).

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behavior · community · happiness · Nature

The tent is too damn high: Camping comes to the city

Beth Kelley

Using some creativity, playfulness, and friends to bring “nature” and community to the city? Yes, please!

design · Mental · mental health · Nature

Serious New Funding for Innovative Research on Restorative Urban Nature

Beth Kelley

So many studies have found natural spaces to be beneficial for healing and mental health, so it is crucial as we become more urbanized to allow space for nature to sneak in.

Unknown's avatar

So many studies have found natural spaces to be beneficial for healing and mental health, so it is crucial as we become more urbanized to allow space for nature to sneak in.

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brain · children · creativity · education · learning · play · school

Games Without Frontiers: Games, simulations, and the new school year.

Beth Kelley
Tic tac toe. Español: Ta te ti Polski: Kółko i...
Tic tac toe. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For teachers, it’s time to start thinking about Back-to-School planning. Thankfully this teacher’s got an awesome plan to teach world politics:

Ask any student the following question; would you prefer to start the year with a lecture or playing a game? I’d wager the that nearly all learners would choose to spend their time with the game. As a younger student, I recall only being able to play in class once all of the curriculum was “done”, usually at the end of the school year. Of course, we know that learners of all stripes acquire, apply, synthesize, and communicate knowledge through participation in games and simulations. As a result, there’s a strong case to be made to embed complex critical thinking simulations and games right from the outset of the school year.

I’m currently putting the final touches on all of my lesson plans for the first term of both years of IB Global Politics. Here’s a partial list of the games and simulations the students and I will be playing in the first thirteen weeks:

Against All Odds; Fish Forever; Half the Sky; Malaria in Wanzuzu; Model United Nations; Pandemic; Prisoner’s Dilemma; Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock; Rushing River Cleanup; Survival; Tic-Tac-Toe; The Walking Dead

To say that I’m completely nerded out by all of this is an understatement; I can’t (hardly) wait for school to start on the 26th!

via Games Without Frontiers: Games, simulations, and the new school year.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the year unfolds for this class! If the teacher is excited, that’s definitely a good sign.

behavior · mental health · work

Successful People Relax and Take Time Off to Recharge!

Beth Kelley1 Comment

More and more Americans are working through their weekends. According to a 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, more than one-third of U.S. employees log time on the weekends, putting in an average of five and a half hours, and a whopping 81 percent of respondents in a recent GFI Software survey said they check their email on Saturdays and Sundays. But enjoying those precious two days off can actually make you more effective throughout the workweek.

"There are 60 hours between that 6 p.m. Friday beer and that 6 a.m. Monday alarm clock," Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, writes in a Fast Company blog. "That’s plenty of time for fun, relaxation and more importantly, recharging the batteries. In our competitive world, successful people know that great weekends are the secret to workday success. You want weekends that leave you refreshed, not exhausted or disappointed."

From literary icons of the past to present-day CEOs, these successful people make the most of their time off with weekend rituals and habits that don’t involve catching up on email.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/weekend-rituals-of-hig_n_3640661.html

Get the memo, America! Unplug! Relax! Recharge! Take a Sabbath, even if it’s Wednesday evening, whenever! So long as you make space for downtime and contemplation, time to reconnect with family.

behavior · community · health · mental health

Pickleball, Anyone? Senior Athletes Play New Games And Old : NPR

Beth Kelley
Hazel Trexler-Campbell throws spray-painted horseshoes during the Senior Games in Cleveland on July 23. (Benjamin Morris for NPR)

Health and fitness is often focused on the young, to the point that as athletes age they often get discouraged that they can’t compete in their old sports anymore. Well fear not, young-at-heart! There is… the Senior Games, with different age brackets.

A lot of what you’d see at the National Senior Games looks familiar if you’ve ever watched the Summer Olympics: there’s track and field, basketball and swimming. At the Summer Olympics, however, you will not hear voices in the crowd cheering “Go, Grandma!”Everyone at these Games is over 50 and they play some sports that will likely never appear at the Olympics.

more via Pickleball, Anyone? Senior Athletes Play New Games And Old : NPR.

I JUST discovered the Senior Games this morning, and I’m already excited to sign up when I’m old enough to qualify – that’s only 20 years away, so I better start practicing. 🙂

But for those who already qualify, this is a great sporting event that should be shared out with more seniors. People like my dad, a lifelong athlete who tries to keep up with the young folks perhaps a bit too much, would make a killing in some of these events.

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behavior · brain · disease · happiness · health · play

How to live to 100: advice for life and living longer

Beth Kelley

At first it seems like the typical “there’s no golden rule to getting old” article, right?

Some of the supercentenarian advice is sweet, some is a bit strange and a couple are everything we’ve always hoped for. Who knew bacon and whiskey were the fountain of youth?

more photos via How to live to 100: advice for life and living longer.

Some appear silly, and some fly in the face of recent studies (for example, married people tend to be healthier, and ergo live longer).

But if you try to generalize the advice, much of it boils down to one thing: have fun, be playful, don’t stress out too much about the details.

If you want to live to be 100, you have to give yourself space to play!

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community · creativity · environment · Nature

Portland Goes Green On Potholes | kgw.com

Beth Kelley

Portland Goes Green On Potholes | kgw.com Portland

Ah, Portland, specializing in making spaces more friendly and playful in somewhat unique ways:

This flower mysteriously appeared in a not so friendly pothole.The pothole had been reeking havoc on many a car tire and bike riders were terrified of it. But alas the flower has come to the rescue and now Mr Pothole is not intimidating at all as Ms Flower brings a smile too many.

via Portland Goes Green On Potholes | kgw.com Portland.