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The Amazon Rainforest is probably one of the most famous forests there is on the earth. This should not come as a surprise because it is the largest one found in the planet. However, many should know that there is more to this place than its width. What are other facts about the Amazon Rainforest that not all people are familiar of?

First of all, the Amazon Rainforest is considered to be the biggest in the world. This tops the two largest listed namely the Indonesia and Congo Basin. As a matter of fact, the enormity of the Amazon Rainforest is the combination of the two latter mentioned.

In measurement, it is in 6.9 million square kilometers. If this is to be converted, it reaches almost 2.72 million square miles. The South American continent is actually covered by the forest. The Amazon Basin is responsible in such. It comprises almost 40 percent of the continent. Biogeographically speaking, this comes with the Guianas, which is another rainforest present. However, what makes this different is that it is situated outside the Amazon Basin. This only encompasses 7.8 to 8.2 million square kilometer of the United States. In here, only 80% is the area forested.

What goes with the forest is the Amazon River. Just like the rainforest, this is also considered the largest because of the volume it can hold. This features 1,100 tributaries to its name. Almost 17 of this is 1000 miles longer. There was a time when the Amazon River flowed in the west-ward. This was in contrary to its east-ward direction. Today, it was in the latter direction already. This was also in connection to the rise of the Andes. This flows in the Atlantic Ocean.

In totality, there are 16,000 tree species in Amazon. Almost 390 billion of these are individual trees. In Brazil alone, there is two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest. Since it is a reflection of a reach ecosystem, it is a given that there are also insects in the Amazon forest. To date, there are 2.5 million of them listed. Half of this is claimed to be living in the canopy. However, this is yet to be proven.

The GDP of South America is mostly produced in areas which are meant to receive water from the Amazon. The same is also true for rainfall. As a matter of fact, there is 70 percent of this. Deforestation became rampant in Amazon too. This declined though came 2004. The rate of this solely fell in Brazil alone. There were reasons for this. This included the new area protection, macroeconomic trends, law enforcement improvement, monitoring through a satellite, among others. Basically, the private sector helped in this endeavor. Various environmental groups were also present and involved in the process. This was the way for preservation to be made possible. In the Amazon, cattle ranching was given a really high regard. It was one of the reasons for the case of deforestation. Good thing, this was put to a stop now.

In the southwest part of Paris, the Palace of Versailles can be found. This is considered to be the seat of their French royalty. The mentioned palace serves as the house of their government in France. The same was also true for its royalty. This kind of practice was started during Louis XIV’s reign. This was also observed during the time of Louis XVI and Louis XV. This stopped though after the occurrence of the French Revolution in the year 1789. These are some of the palace of Versailles facts known to many.

As mentioned above, the palace is situated in southwestern Paris. It is around 10 miles in in the said border. It goes side by side the Versailles settlement. Prior to the palace’s construction initiated by the desire of Louis XIV, the settlement used to be a large urban center, the largest actually, in France. This was a dubbed as a helmet during the revolution. The population of the people living their almost reach 60,000 people. This was the reason why it was seen as a really big center for urban.

The Versailles palace held the gardens, palace, and hunting ground for the royals, small structure called the Grand Trianon and an estate meant for Marie Antoinette. This was the status of the complex before the revolution was carried out. There were even buildings in the place. These were seen in the town and in the palace itself. These was offered as a house for the war and even that of the foreign affairs ministries. The residences were also there because they were not allowed to use the palace as their residence.

Upon entering the palace, sculptures and paintings will definitely be seen. There were also rooms which were designed with ornaments. The Hall of Mirrors can be taken as an example. Even during that time, technological innovations were also witnessed. This was evident with the presence of pressurized water fountains. These were seen in the garden. These were meant to jet water which was in the air. The area was also made up of a banquet hall. This was intended for dances and balls. This transpired because of the opera house in the palace. This opera house was created with a mechanical device. This enable the rising of the stage from the orchestra.

To sum up everything, the palace was meant to leave a lasting impression to spectators. It was claimed as a mirage and even a place for entertainment. The architecture was a full embodiment of the power and glory of France. It was the extension of the place’s magnificence, luxury and art. There were so many publications written for Versailles. There were some published by Valerie Bajou.

Who would have thought that the place was originally a hunting palace? Louis XIII was responsible for this. This was the time when he bought a land up. Then it came with a chateau. Afterwards, he participated in various hunting trips. This then ended up as a hunting lodge.

Creative behavior is an important, but often overlooked, topic of consideration for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Individuals with ASD are often described as behaving in a repetitive or rote fashion and the behavior they display (i.e., expressive language, play skills, expressive writing) is not typically described as being very creative in nature. Therefore, addressing creativity across a number of domains in individuals with ASD offers to be an important undertaking that could favorably affect their abilities (e.g., to play in a more naturalistic way and to engage in more diverse conversation) in those areas.

Research on Creativity in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Research has been conducted on increasing creative responding in many areas such as the use of sign language or gestural communication, problem-solving skills, imitation of play skills and areas of academics such as creative writing (Rousseau, Krantz, Poulson, Kitson & McClannahan, 1994).

Research has also been conducted to determine how individuals with ASD compare with typical peers and adults in relation to their level of creative responding (Miller & Neuringer). The research has shown that persons with ASD did not behave as variably as their typical peers nor did they respond to novel stimuli (i.e., a new arm added to a maze to push a car through) as much as their typical counterparts. In addition, when they did respond in a new way, it was more likely to be in an alternating systematic fashion, such as a rehearsed response rather than in a random or spontaneous fashion.

Future Research

In the area of social language, individuals with ASD often have great difficulty expressing themselves. When they do try to communicate, they often use simplistic sentence structure or language that is of a repetitive nature. To address this, it is important to first focus on increasing the use of initiations and then on diversifying the expressive language used (McDonald & Hemmes).

Further research is needed in these areas in order for students to directly benefit. Areas such as: artistic creativity, creativity during play (McDonald & Hemmes) and problem solving are areas of particular importance. It is through this type of research based in applied behavior analysis that more information can be gained regarding how to increase creativity in students with autism spectrum disorders.

It may be worthwhile for research in the area of creative play to focus on areas such as: employing peers as trainers or as models of creative behavior (e.g., a typical peer modeling creative painting), maintaining creative behavior through self-monitoring techniques so that the child is able to play with peers without adult intervention; and measuring the long-term maintenance and generalization of creative play behavior for students with autism spectrum disorders.