July 31, 2015

For the Classroom

Untitled Capture-03Vic Skeptics produces original classroom material, which we make available free.
It’s mainly aimed at Science teaching and learning, but it serves a wide range of topics and age groups.

We invite you to look over and sample our down-loadable .pdfs, which include:

  • “A Skeptics Guide to ……“  discussion sheets
  • Crosswords (blackline masters)
  • Wordsearches and quizzes (blackline masters)
  • Cryptograms (blackline masters)
  • The Darwin Day Suite of classroom exercises

Go HERE or click on the USEFUL INFO tab at the top of the page

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July 31, 2015

August Puzzles

 

puzzles graphicThe

AUGUST 2015 CROSSWORD PUZZLE

has the theme of OSTEOPATHY, in the light of our recent article on that topic.

There’s the usual monthly set of

LOGIC & MATHS PROBLEMS

with seven new Picture Puzzles and twenty new Mixed Bag Questions  at the top of the PUZZLES PAGE

Enjoy!

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July 4, 2015

Review – Psychic Sally in Melbourne

Psychic Trippy Try 3-5 mod colur 800W

By Mal Vickers

 After the self-promotional video Sally walks on stage to applause:

 “Now, there is a young boy here, as I walked on, he came on with me. I’ve not had a chance to process him. His name is James. He is saying (putting on the voice of a little boy) ‘I am sorry, I am sorry’.”

Sally Morgan’s show is underway.

For the benefit of readers, I set aside an evening along with fellow Skeptic Tony Pitman to report on popular UK psychic Sally Morgan’s show. Braving a very cold mid-winter’s Melbourne night to attend, we sat amongst 500 people in the audience of the Athenaeum Theatre which was at approximately 50% capacity.

Sally Morgan is one of the best known psychics in the UK, but is less well known in Australia. She has certainly attracted a fair share of controversy in the UK (see here, here and here).

I did a little research before attending; well, when I say ‘research’ I mean that I watched a few of Sally Morgan’s promotional You-Tube videos. The most obvious difference between the promotional videos and the actual live gig View More Review – Psychic Sally in Melbourne

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June 30, 2015

July Puzzles

holmespuzzle2

Our

JULY 2015 SKEPTICAL CROSSWORD PUZZLE

has the theme of CONSPIRACY THEORIES

There’s also a set of
JULY 2015 LOGIC & MATHS PROBLEMS

Seven new Picture Puzzles and twenty new Mixed Bag Questions have been placed at the top of the PUZZLES PAGE

Enjoy!

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June 23, 2015

“Mixed Bag” Questions September 2015 – Answers

1. Honey (”Hunny”)

2. Praised

3. She had defected from a Russian Cruise ship by diving overboard.

4. Cats

5. Nine Days Old

6. Katherine Hepburn 1981; Sally Field 1984; Jessica Tandy 1989

7. Little Shop of Horrors

8. My Country, ‘Tis of Thee

9. Bendigo

10. C. Ethiopia

HARDER:

11. Bird of paradise

12. Damage from earthquakes

13. She sank herself with her own torpedo

14. J

15. St Paul Minnesota

16. Compete in 8 Olympic Games

17. Groundhog Day

18. A cria

19. It had a moveable jaw

20. Australian Grand Prix

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June 21, 2015

September 2015 Logic & Maths Problems – Solutions

1. Yellow opposite orange, red opposite green, pink opposite blue

2. A. Emily B. Colin C. Fred D. Irene

3. The hole will become larger.

4. Treble 13, Double 18, single 16

5. 3

6. The water level of the pool will fall (The cannonball is much denser than the water. Let the cannonball have a volume of x litre. Assume the cannonball is ten times as dense as the water. Its mass will therefore be 10x kg. When the cannonball is placed in the boat, the boat settles by an amount which displaces 10 kg of water or 10x litres of water. However, when the cannonball is taken out of the boat and placed directly in the water, it only displaces its own VOLUME of water or x litres. This will have the same effect on the water level of the pool as taking 9x litres out.)

7. There are no “E”s

8. Treble 18, double 4, single 13

9. 2519 prisoners

10. The rule is: double the first number then take away 8. The answer is therefore 20

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June 13, 2015

“Mixed Bag” Questions August 2015 – Answers

1. They all pop

2. 25th century

3. Laurence Olivier

4. Nelson Mandela

5. I, Claudius

6. The Jordonaires

7. Rome

8. Labour, Conservative, Liberal-Democrats

9. 1968

10. French, German, Italian, Romansch

HARDER:

11. Published a September 31 issue

12. W.C. Fields

13. Teflon

14. The Twelve Apostles

15. He shorted out Glasgow’s electricity supply

16. Movies

17. Uranus

18. He was a Pope and was dead. The succeeding pope had him exhumed in order to put him on trial.

19. All attempted to assassinate Queen Victoria

20. Her body was grossly swollen due to gout

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June 13, 2015

August 2015 Logic & Maths Problems – Solutions

1. a = 44 , b = 19 , c = 10,

2. a. No b. Yes c. No d. Yes

3. a. fruit; b. bread; c. aisle 4

4. U, E, N

5. The pear is grown inside the bottle

6. Z – Set 1 contains letters composed entirely of straight lines

7. Option C. There is as much water in the milk/water mixture as milk in the water/milk mixture.

8. Looks like 88.

9. 9 metres [As one of two equal length diagonals of the rectangle, the dark blue line has length equal to the radius of the circle, which is (6 + 3) = 9 m]

10. 2.5 km [If Bill and Fred are 2km apart and approach each other at 10 km/hr each, their closing speed is 20 km / hr. They therefore meet in 0.1 hours (6 minutes). How far can Fido run in 0.1 hr at 25 km/hr? Answer: 2.5 km]

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