Learning Nugget March 2021
What is the Great Green Wall of Africa? The Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, Victoria Falls: these are some of the natural wonders of the world. In 2007, the African Union announced a plan to create a new one called the Great Green Wall. The idea behind the wall is to battle desertification by planting a network of […]
Learning Nugget February 2021
Coaching: In search of a change For most of the 20th century, the word “coach” usually meant one of two things: a horse-drawn carriage or a person who helps athletes improve. But in the 1980s and 90s the idea of a “life coach” emerged, and that profession is now what many non-native English speakers first think of when they hear “coach.” […]
Learning Nugget January 2021
Get paid to take an education vacation Did you know that in most of Germany there’s a law allowing workers to take extra paid days off beyond their normal amount of vacation? And, no, we’re not referring to new relief measures related to the pandemic. In some states, this law has been around for over 40 years. In U.S. English, you could call it an “education vacation” […]
Learning Nugget December 2020
Don’t let your gifts this year be “giftig” Even if there are no big parties to attend or Christmas markets to visit this year, there’s still one holiday tradition many of us will take part in: exchanging gifts. And with fewer distractions from the gloom of the long nights, picking just the right gift for a loved one might seem […]
Learning Nugget November 2020
What’s your favorite meat with six legs? In the United States, the phrase, “Let’s have some grub!” means, “Let’s eat something.” However, almost no one thinks of real grubs (fat insect larvae) when they say or hear it. A growing number of experts and investors think that could change very soon. They believe insects will […]
Learning Nugget October 2020
Hello darkness, my old fiend On October 25, all of Europe experienced the hour between 2am and 3am twice as Daylight Saving Time (known in Germany as summer time) comes to an end. The good news is that, theoretically, we got an extra hour of sleep, and the bad news is that darkness will come an hour earlier.. […]
Learning Nugget September 2020
Who is Smokey Bear? In the western United States, over 20 wildfires are burning that are so large and creating so much smoke that pollutants from them have even reached northern Europe. Tens of thousands of people have lost or been evacuated from their homes, and it’s likely there’s worse to come. The reasons for these fires are a hot […]
Learning Nugget August 2020
6 tips for making a difference! Many people’s lives have become increasingly digital due to the pandemic. Conference rooms have been traded for Zoom calls. Without festivals and concerts, staying in and streaming TV shows and films is now an even more common form of entertainment. Given this trend, we at TIP TOP wanted to explore how we could make our growing […]
Learning Nugget June 2020
Fighting for pride June is Pride month in the U.S.A., and today we tell you about the event credited with starting the organized movement for LGBTQIA+ rights. To ignite a group’s willingness to fight for change, there needs to be a spark. For the LGBTQIA+ community in the U.S. and across much of the Western world, it […]
Learning Nugget May 2020
Handwashing saves lives This story might sound eerily familiar. It’s set in a time when simply washing hands could have prevented the spread of a deadly disease. There are people in power ignoring data and facts at the expense of lives. But this story is far from modern. Instead, our setting is mid-1800s Vienna. There, […]