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9/16/2024 (#16 this year)
It’s a public holiday1 today, but we are at school. We have come in so that your parents
can come and watch how we do classes. Do you think that is true? Have your parents
come in to see how the teachers teach the classes, or have they come in to see how
you take the classes? Haha. When I go to watch demo classes at my daughter’s school,
I must admit2 that I spend more time watching my daughter than I do watching theteacher. I am interested to see what she is doing, how she is interacting with the otherstudents, whether she is doing the work properly3, whether she is happy. What do you
think your parents will think?
8 differences!

Boy Breaks Bronze Age Jar
Last month, a four-year-old boy accidentally6 broke a Bronze Age jar. The jar ismade of pottery and it is probably 4,000 years old. This happened at the Hecht
Museum in Haifa, Israel. The boy is called Ariel and his mother was looking at
another exhibit7 when she heard a loud crash. Her first thought was, “Oh, I
hope that’s not my son!” Well, it was her son. He wanted to see what was
inside the jar and pulled it over so he could look. The jar toppled8 off its standand smashed into pieces on the floor. The jar was probably made in 2200 BC
and was used to hold oil or wine. Ariel’s mother and father explained tomuseum staff what had happened. Ariel was very upset, and I expect theparents were very worried that they would have to pay a fortune9, but themuseum were very understanding. They have a restoration10 expert at themuseum who was able to fix the jar. The museum even used this as anopportunity to teach Ariel and he and his parents were invited to watch the jar
being fixed. The jar is back on display in the museum now. The Hecht museum
has a lot of exhibits that people can touch so that they can feel history. That iswonderful, but I guess it does come with some risks.

Last week’s answer

Something you didn’t know about the Bronze Age
1. The Bronze Age4 started in different places at different times. It began in Egypt andMesopotamia in about 3500 BC and spread across to China in about 2000 BC.
2. Before the Bronze Age was the Stone Age and after the Bronze Age was the Iron Age.
3. The Bronze Age started when people worked out how to make bronze, which ismade by melting and mixing copper and tin.
4. The Bronze Age came before the Iron Age because copper and tin can be melted ina normal fire, but iron needs much higher temperatures5.
5. The first large cities appeared in the Bronze Age. Writing was invented during theBronze Age, as well.

1.public holiday 祝日 2.must admit 正直に言うと 3.properly ちゃんと 4.Bronze Age 青銅 器 時 代 5.temperature 温 度 6.accidentally う っ か り 7.exhibit 展 示 す る も の8.toppled 倒れた 9.fortune 大金 10. Restoration 修復

An Unusual JobWorld record
I wrote this week’s news about a museum, so let’s look at some museum world record.
The Louvre in Paris is the world’s most visited museum. 8,900,000 people visited it in2023, and that is why it is very difficult to get close to the Mona Lisa. The Louvre is also
the world’s biggest museum. It has 73,000 m2 of floor space. The Louvre is the largest
museum, but the Smithsonian Museum is the largest collection of museums. It has 19
different galleries and museums spread out1 all over America. It has a natural history
museum2, a museum of air and space, and an art museum. Altogether, the Smithsonian
has a floor area of 822,960 m2. That is huge. The museums have 137 million exhibits as
well! The oldest museum in the world is the Capitoline Museum in Rome. It was built in1471. Museums didn’t really start until the 19th century. Before that, rich people might
have a collection of antiques, but regular people couldn’t view them.

Underwater Welder
This week’s job is not just unusual, it is very dangerous. Because it is sodangerous, it has a very high salary. Underwater welders4 get “dangermoney” 5. This probably won’t surprise you, but an underwater welder does
welding6 … underwater. Welding is where two pieces of metal are joined
together using heat. To do it, you have to make the metal very hot by using
either a blowtorch7 or electricity. On land, that is not very dangerous, butunderwater, high pressure8 blowtorches and electricity are very very
dangerous. The first danger that underwater welders have to deal with isthat they work deep in the sea. It takes them days to go down and back up,
acclimatizing to the pressure9 at many points. If they have any problems,
nobody can come and help them. The second danger is they have to work in
the dark. Light doesn’t reach that far into the ocean. They have a headlight,
but it is very dark. The third danger is the electricity. They use special
equipment, but water conducts electricity10 very well and if the equipment
is broken, they can be electrocuted11. And the fourth danger is explosions.
The very high temperatures split hydrogen from oxygen in the water, and if
the hydrogen builds up, it can explode12. Because of all these things,
underwater welders can make $130,000 a year. What do you think?

“Friends are those rare people who ask how 1.spread out 広がる 2.natural history museum 自然史博物館 3.rare 珍しい
4.underwater welder 水中溶接工 5.danger money 危険手当 6.weld 溶接する
we are and then wait to hear the answer.”— 7.blowtorch バーナー 8.high pressure 高圧 9. acclimatize to the pressure 圧力に慣れ
3Ed Cunningham

る 10. conduct electricity 電気を通す 11.electrocuted 感電する 12.explode 爆発する