May 8 – Happy Birthday, Henry Baker

(1) Baker developed a new way to teach the hearing- and speech-impaired (known then as “the deaf and dumb”). He was able to make a lot of money with his system – which he kept strictly secret.

(2) Baker was the son-in-law of the writer Daniel Defoe. Defoe wrote a lot of things, but nowadays he is most famous for the book Robinson Crusoe, which is considered by many to be the first novel written in English.

(Why only considered the first novel by many, and not all? Because different scholars have different definitions of the word novel.)

Robinson Crusoe is a castaway on a remote tropical island who meets Native Americans and mutineers and has all sorts of adventures before finally being rescued—28 years later!

Baker used Defoe’s name and fame when he launched a weekly publication filled with essays; it was called the Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal, and it ran about 18 years, with more than 900 issues.

(3) Baker introduced the microscope to the general public with several publications, including The Microscope Made Easy.

Science popularizers are important because they increase interest in and understanding of science in the general population, and THAT often encourages young people to study science. 

Also, Baker won a medal for his microscopical observations of salt crystals.

(1) Have you ever wanted to learn sign language? ASL (American Sign Language) and BSL (British Sign Language) are complete languages, each with its own grammar.

(By the way, the two languages are quite different.)

Here are some resources to try them out: an ASL video dictionary and text dictionary …and ASL lessons here and here.

For BSL: an introductory video, short dictionary and resources.

(2) Here is a super short summary of Robinson Crusoe. And here is the complete version, free online. WARNING: like many old books, this book is horribly racist.

What would you do if you were shipwrecked? Write a story. Maybe you can get rescued in 28 days, rather than 28 years!

(3) Play a “guess what it is?” with microscopic looks at ordinary items. 

If you have a microscope, look at all sorts of things from a human hair to a drop of pond water, from a thread to a leaf.

Above, a human hair; below, wing of a fly

Above, pond water; below, plant cells

If you don’t have access to a microscope, check out this virtual microscope website.

Here‘s a virtual electron scanning microscope.

Above, butterfly scales; below, an ant’s head