• The Burning Question: What do you think of blood sports?

  Amy Elkinson p
  

• Big fears for little children

  Children worry. Some worry more than others, but the average child has six or seven intense fears, research shows. Some of these fears vary from culture to culture. Patricia Owen, a child psychologist, travelled around the world comparing children's fears. Writing in Psychology Today, she reported that children from US inner cities are most fearful of gangs, guns and drive-by shootings. p
  

• Drink ads fuel kids' fantasies

  The other night I heard my kids shouting from the TV room: "We want Baileys! We want Baileys!" Advertised during Friends on RTE TV, Baileys appears to my kids to be something akin to chocolate milk. p
  

• Do the kids a favour: look after yourself

  Know thyself is an ancient dictum, but it has timeless relevance to all of us, particularly parents, teachers and other professional people who have responsibility for the care and guidance of children. p
  

• Your web questions answered

  Send your WebWorld queries to pcollins@irishtimes.com or by post to Padraig Collins, The Irish Times New Media, 4th Floor, Ballast House, Aston Quay, Dublin 2 p
  

• Use interest weblogs and avoid the logjam

  The definition is simple: a weblog is a log of the web. It is a site, or often a section of a site, which links people to the good and great sites that the weblogger has come across on the Internet. p
  

• More sites to see: Our web critic looks at Irish museum sites

  www.modernart.ie p
  

• Site of the week: www.pgil-eirdata.org

  Sometimes the best stuff you come across on the web is found purely by chance. I happened upon the Princess Grace Irish Library - Electronic Irish Records Dataset (hence the odd URL, it has nothing to do with the phone company) one day by following a link from another site. Before using this wonderful site you have to accept that "PGIL-EIRData is a scholars' notebook and not a commercial publication of any kind" and "should be cited in any publication involving materials found here", which is very good advice for any use of the web. p
  

• US using Irish past to shape its future

  Those Irish-Americans, at it again. In 1996, when the New York State legislature voted to include "the mass starvation of Ireland from 1845 to 1850" in school human-rights lessons, right beside slavery and the Holocaust, you could nearly hear the esteemed representatives of certain classes in Dublin, on reading the news in The Irish Times, cease their chattering long enough to emit an embarrassed groan or a sneering laugh. p
  

• Inspired by experience to make the connection

  Lunchtime is winding down at Intermediate School 292, in the notorious neighbourhood of East New York, in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. A few kids are hanging out in Adeola Tella's classroom - because, I'm told, they prefer to avoid the noise and anarchic mess-making that prevails in the school cafeteria. p
  

• Let us hear those views on science

  If you have views on science education in this State, it's not too late to make them known. The Task Force on the Physical Sciences, which was established last autumn, is still keen to receive submissions - particularly from students, parents and teachers. p
  

• Celtic Tiger lecture series

  Like the last lecturer, Father Peter McVerry SJ, Professor Kathleen Lynch believes that the Celtic Tiger has created a polarised economy in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Lynch believes that we are witnessing a new rise of the politics based on Thatcherite monetarism - a rise of the "New Right" in Irish political culture, which benefits the most wealthy and most powerful. p
  

• Course Profile: MA in international relations

  Institution: DCU p
  

• And those who can, teach

  Growing up in north County Mayo, Cathal Kearney had always wanted to be a teacher. Even when he became a financial accountant with Digital in Galway, he still wanted to be a teacher. p
  

• Blooming bouquets and early mornings

  He's up in the middle of the night snipping, stripping and pinning blooms into shape. It's dark outside but he works away intently on his craft. A colour theme will determine what flowers he'll use. Roses and lilies are currently popular. p
  

• Factfile - Floristry

  The umbrella body for the floristry industry is the Irish Flower Council p
  

• Computing is the business for students at Tralee IT

  Most computing degrees have a certain business content but in the Institute of Technology in Tralee, Co Kerry, they have gone one step further with a four-year ab initio degree in computing with enterprise studies. p
  

• Principal's private project paid off

  When the bells rang to herald the much-hyped millennium, there was great celebration in the Smyth household. With 23 years as a school principal under his belt, Harry Smyth had decided to take early retirement and January 1st, 2001, marked the start of the rest of his life. p
  

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