Saudi Arabia's Heritage Commission has announced the discovery of ancient human and animal footprints dating back more than 120,000 years in Tabuk in northern Saudi Arabia, reports Xinhua.

Jasir Alherbish, head of the Heritage Commission, said during a press conference in capital Riyadh that the archaeological discovery in Tabuk, which represents the first scientific evidence of human life on the Arabian Peninsula, was made by a joint team of Saudi and international archaeologists.

The team identified footprint traces of seven humans, 107 camels, 43 elephants and other animals, according to the results of the archaeological survey.

In addition to the footprints, hundreds of fossils were found at the site, including 233 skeletal remains of elephants and oryx, along with signs of the presence of predators at the time by identifying traces of their tusks on the bones.

Alherbish said that such discoveries "help us better understand the journey of our forebears from ancient civilization to where we are today."

The Heritage Commission is currently overseeing the conservation and restoration of several archaeological sites, which will eventually be open to visitors.

Plans to host archaeological exhibitions locally and abroad are also underway.

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Amid debate among city dwellers over protecting stray dogs, Lal Sabuj Society, a voluntary organization, came forward with a unique initiative to save street dogs as well as  people.

The organization put reflecting belts around the necks of 50 stray dogs at TSC and Kala Bhaban area of Dhaka University on Sunday,  aiming to protect them from road accidents and make pedestrians aware about their presence, said a press release.

Reflecting belt is a type of belt that reflects light even if  slightest light from a distant place falls on it, read the release.

Drivers of different vehicles will realize from a distant place that there is a dog there and it will  help reduce the number of accidents as well as loss of lives of both human and dogs.

Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC)  reportedly took an initiative to relocate stray dogs from the capital city to other parts of the country.

But hundreds of animal lovers put up a fight against the decision, urging the DSCC to change their stance over the issue.

Also read: Attention DSCC: "Dogs' Lives Matter"

Following an online campaign, animal lovers formed a human chain in front of Nagar Bhaban recently to press home their demand.

The participants said the move to relocate dogs from the city is a violation of the Animal Welfare Act, that was amended

Describing dogs as essential to the urban environment, they requested the authorities to retract  so as not to disturb the balance in the city's ecosystem.

Also read: Indonesian city slaughters, eats 13,000 dogs a month

The detrimental effect of the COVID19 pandemic is yet to over. The second wave of this pandemic is about to rise around the world. In the meantime, the government has decided to keep the educational institutes closed until the situation improves. But should the process of education remain closed? Homeschooling can be a safer and pragmatic solution to keep the children active and enlightened during the pandemic days. Though homeschooling can’t compete with academic education, following some effective ways you can make it work. Read this article to know some valuable homeschooling tricks for parents during the coronavirus pandemic.

Effective Homeschooling Tricks for Parents

Outline Education Goals for Your Child

With a vision of utilizing the quarantine period properly in teaching your child at home, you need to prepare a plan about how far you want your child to go. Prepare an outline for education goals for your child depending on its age and current level of learning. Then align a day-to-day curriculum for your kid to achieve the expected learning outcomes.

You can prepare separate objectives for different subjects considering the areas where the kid needs more attention. It would be the best idea, to share the designated learning goals with your kid. As every child is different, they have different concerns regarding learning. If your kid is a little grown-up, you can create the homeschooling education plan together to make it more effective.   

Utilize Free Online Resources

By virtue of technological advancement, the homeschooling process has become versatile. At present diverse local and international platforms are providing huge online resourceful targeting the process of homeschooling. Navigating to these websites, you can access creative study materials compliant with the curriculum of your child. 

For providing online education to the Bangladeshi students, Sangsad Television runs the program ‘Amar Ghore Amar School’. Students can participate in their online classes free of cost. To get the updated routine for students of class one to ten, check out the following link http://dshe.gov.bd/.

JAAGO Foundation has started a praise-worthy initiate ‘Ghore Boshei Shikkha’ to encourage online education for pupils all over the country. This program is designed with free digital classes for students up to class-five. The latest routines for classes one to five are available at https://jaago.com.bd/DigitalClass.

Read Online Resources for Homeschooling Children during Coronavirus Pandemic.

Besides these, diverse international sites are offering enormous online resources that can help your kid’s homeschooling process. Navigating to these online knowledge-sharing platforms you can also learn about some useful homeschooling tricks for parents during the COVID19 pandemic.

Set up a Learning Space, and Environment 

Your kid can play at any place or corner of the home. But for regular study purposes there must be a designated place, like a study room, reading table, or study corner, etc. Give some effort to prepare a place where your child can find interest to sit and study with patience. Here comes the necessity of a learning environment. If the learning space is noisy or untidy, the kid may not pay attention to study. Therefore, it is behooved upon the parents to designate a neat learning space assured with a peaceful environment.

Prepare a Learning Schedule

Kids can do better when their life is organized by a daily routine. The journey of homeschooling would be much easier if you can prepare an effective schedule depending on how much time you can give to teach your child. Like the class routine, you can assign different days for different subjects and reserve some time for playing, eating, and sleeping amidst learning hours. Using color pencils, sign pens, or markers, you can make the routine look attractive for your child. However, if you have multiple children, make special learning schedules for each kid.

Collaborate With Other Homeschooler Parents

It is a good idea to keep a connection with the parents of your child’s classmates. Sharing your problems with other parents can not only assist you in solving your problems but also help those parents too. Furthermore, while sharing experiences you can learn about some helpful ways or online resources that can make your kid’s homeschooling process more successful. Such collaboration can encourage both you and your kid in running the homeschooling battle with greater enthusiasm and creativity.

Create Passion Projects and Fun Activities

The proverb goes ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’. During the pandemic situation, you may not allow the kid to play outside. But you can find some innovative ways that can both assist the learning process and provide fun to your kid. Knowing the specific area of interest of your kid, you can plan a passion project like writing an essay, solving analytical problems, doing science projects, spelling contest, etc.

Read How to Keep Your Child Occupied during the COVID19 Pandemic?

Encourage Your Kids with Rewards

If your kid can reach its weekly or monthly study goals, don’t forget to celebrate this success. Reward the kid with its favorite dish, comic book, or virtual game. These little incentives would encourage the child to continue the learning process with more excitement. 

Bottom Line

So far we have discussed some homeschooling tricks for parents. However, these tips and tricks may not work equally for every kid. Depending on the specific nature, persona, and age level of your kid, you can customize and invent ways to make the learning process effectual and fun for the child. Happy Learning!

Read Basic Life Skills to teach Your Childres during Pandemic.

French lords designed an elaborate underground castle nearly 1,000 years ago for a doomsday attack that never came.

From outside, the Chateau de Breze may appear to be just another opulent castle in France’s Unesco-designated Loire Valley with its crenellated towers, glittering ballrooms and Renaissance-style exterior. But if you descend below its dry moat, there's a surprise for you.

You'll find that the bulk of this medieval royal residence lies hidden underground in a vast maze of hand-dug fortifications that stretches more than 3km, forming the largest subterranean estate in Europe and one of France’s first doomsday bunkers, reports BBC.

Dating from at least the mid-11th Century, the castle and its subsequent secret chambers were likely designed and developed by the chateau’s long line of lords as an escape against France’s many Viking raids during the Middle Ages.

Over time, these limestone-hollowed tunnels expanded to encompass underground bedrooms, storage spaces, bakeries, stables, ice houses, defensive galleries and a deep sky-lit hall, forming a true castle under a castle where royalty could wait out anything from pillaging to pandemics.

Also read : Germans flock to Frankenstein Castle for spooky Halloween

Nearly 1,000 years after the tunnels were first dug, much of this underground labyrinth remains undiscovered, with only 1km accessible to the public. Ironically, we’ll never know how effective these elaborate bunkers were, because from the time they were built, the castle was never actually raided.

During the pandemic situation, most of the people are looking for home-based income opportunities. Online writing profession could be a dream job for anyone who wants to stay home safe and earn good money with dignity. Nowadays, diverse local and international platforms are offering writing jobs online. But many writers couldn’t grab those jobs due to several issues, like lack of proper skill, choosing unsuitable job, inappropriate way of application, lack of professional profile, inadequate portfolio, etc. Read this article to know some tips to get hired for online writing jobs in local and international platforms.

How to Get Hired for Writing Jobs Online

Know Your Interest and Skill

Not all writers have the same level of interest in different domains of writing. Some are proficient in business writing, some choose translating works, while some others prefer blogging, article writing or even ghost writing tasks.

As a writer you have to ask yourself in which domain of writing you are good at. Interestingly, the online freelancing platforms are offering jobs for various branches of writings. So, you need to focus on your specific field of interest and level of skill without getting bothered about other categories of writings.

Upgrade Your Skill

When you exactly know your field of interest, you can move forward to level-up your proficiency in writing. For strengthening your grip on language, you need to read informative and rich articles, blog posts, and books. Learning new vocabularies will open your door to versatile usage of words. When you read the articles of popular websites or blogs, you get the opportunity to learn different style of writings.

Read Work From Home, Earn and Be Your Own Boss.

Choose Online Outsourcing  Platforms

Are you looking for jobs in local freelancing market or international sphere? In local freelancing platforms, the competition is comparatively low so does the scope of earning. As a newbie you can start with local platforms like Belancer (https://belancer.com/) or Outsource My Job (http://outsourcemyjob.com/).

However, if you are confident enough to fight for a job with the overseas writers, you can go for the international freelancing market places, like Upwork, Freelancer, People per Hour, Fiverr, etc. However, each platform has some pros and cons. Choose one or two depending upon your level of skill.

For instance, Upwork (https://www.upwork.com/) is the biggest online outsourcing platform for freelancers worlwide. Here you can find a wide variety of writing jobs round the day. The payment system is fast and transparent. However, the account approval process is a bit crucial. And the competition is too high, as multiple freelance writers apply for the same job. For the novice writers, getting hired on Upwork can be a bit challenging.

On the other hand, People Per Hour (https://www.peopleperhour.com/), and Fiverr (https://www.fiverr.com/) are also popular outsourcing platforms for Bangladeshi freelancers. Though the commission rate and number of available jobs are lower than Upwork, here you may find writing job opportunities under your chosen category. In these platforms, the account opening process is not so complex. The competition level is moderate to high. Both the experienced and newbie writers can get hired if applied in a proper way with right portfolio.

Read Quarantine Income Opportunities - How to earn Money During Lockdown Period.

Create a Professional Profile

Each outsourcing market place has some specific rules and regulations for opening a new account. For example, Upwork may require you to enter full details of your educational qualification and skills. As a part of the account opening procedure, Upwork may require you to attain some tests to judge your level of skill in writing, including grammar, and vocabulary. However, the other freelancing platforms may have different requirements.

Create a Professional Portfolio

Preparing an excellent portfolio is the most significant factor of getting hired online. If you are looking for article writing jobs, then write a bunch of unique articles in diverse niches like travel, technology, education, etc. You can also follow the advertised jobs to understand  what kinds of contents are required by the clients. Then prepare your sample articles regarding those topics. Don’t forget to check out the uniqueness of your content using free or paid plagiarism check software like copyscape.com. The richer portfolio you have the greater chance to get hired.

Read How to Monetize Your Blog

Choose Appropriate Writing Jobs

Diverse online platforms are looking for writing professionals for different categories of jobs like, academic writing and research, copywriting, editing and proofreading, resume writing, web content writing, article and blog writing, creative writing, grant writing, technical writing, translation works, etc. Some jobs are targeting native writers while some are open for all. Jobs are available for both novice, and expert writers.

You don’t need to haunt all categories of jobs at the same time. Pick the one which suits both your skill and portfolio. Otherwise you are going to miss the job opportunities, which will not only waste your valuable time, but also make you feel discouraged. If you continuously fail to get jobs, it can jeopardize your writing account in the top freelancing platforms like Upwork.

Read How to earn Money from Youtube Channel

Apply for Job in Proper way

After choosing a job, the first thing to do is to read the whole proposal properly.  Then prepare your application accordingly. Try to answer all the questions provided with the proposal. Try to be honest and sincere while preparing your application. Beware of using the same application for multiple jobs; otherwise your account can face unfortunate scenarios like permanent cancellation.

Know the Value of Work

If you can’t evaluate your own skill, none will be. It is a common issue with local freelancers that they are willing to work at under-paid jobs. Such practices are harmful not only for a potential writer, but also for the whole writer-community. Therefore, you should not compromise with the value of your skill and hard work.

While submitting your application against any job proposal, you must ask for reasonable payment. If you are unsure about the range of payment, you can consult with your mentors or other freelancers. Diverse facebook groups (such as Freelancer Bangladesh) are helping freelancers with valuable guidelines and advice at free of cost. However, if you are a newbie writer, you can apply for the basic level writing jobs that are looking to hire novice writers.

Read How to earn Money from Instagram