• Teaching and the f word: From the New Zealand INTERFACE article....putting the fun back into teaching while dealing with the competing tensions of assessment and covering the curriculum. For primary and secondary teachers.

...and here is some other 'trivia' ...

• Every four days the worlds population increases by one million people.

• The Sun loses 360 million tonnes of material each day.

• DNA unravels at 7000 RPM (revolutions per minute).

• The DNA in a single human cell is 37 metres long when unravelled.

• Most people put their right sock on first.

• A single bacteria cell, given all the food it needs, could divide into a ball of cells the size of the Earth in 24 hours.

• The oldest living thing is a Box Huckleberry bush growing in Pennsylvania, USA. It is 13,000 years old.

• Some species of Bamboo can grow at the rate of 1 ½ metres in 24 hours.

• The head of a Woodpecker striking a tree is travelling at more than 1,300 miles per hour - twice the speed of a bullet.

• A sneeze leaves your nostrils at the speed of 180km/hr.

• Your brain consumes about 20 percent of the oxygen that your body takes in, even when asleep - it never rests!

• Your blood vessels, if laid end to end, would encircle the globe twice over.

• Men have more blood in their circulatory system than women and more red blood cells.

• Hair grows faster in the summer than in winter, just like your nails do

• Ringworm is not caused by a worms but by a highly contagious, very itchy fungus infection, tinea.

• Your muscles produce enough heat to boil one litre of water for an hour - that's what shivering is all about.

• You can get bloodshot eyes from a sneeze.

• Less than half a kidney can take over all the tasks that two kidneys usually accomplish together.

• 10 million people around the world have a birthday on the same day as you.

• The largest ovarian cyst weighed 134 kg and had to be carried out of the operating theatre on a trolley.

• Babies are born far sighted - their eyes start to focus properly between 3 to 6 months of age.

• A Russian woman, between the years 1725 and 1765, produced 69 children including 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets and 4 sets of quadruplets.

• Phobias are named after the Greek or Latin of what is feared: