Many of us are stuck at home for the time being to lower the spread of COVID-19. While we can all feel great by doing our part, still, it is inevitable that eventually, we will run out of things to do. You can only rearrange your living room so many times. Here are our recommendations on how to have fun while social distancing:

 

1. Google Earth National Parks Virtual Tours

When you’re feeling sick of the same four walls and your mind is numb from boredom, why not virtually escape your house and visit an American National Park? Google Earth has released free virtual tours of 31 National Parks! Don’t let COVID-19 stop you from experiencing nature! I’ve always wanted to take a stroll through a National Park from the comfort of my bed…

 

 

2. Online Fitness Instruction

Some fitness corporations know that we still need to be getting our summer bods ready. Here are some cool options for guided workouts from home: Peloton is an app that gives you free access to view thousands of live and on-demand workout classes. Planet Fitness is hosting a free lead exercising session daily at 5 P.M. MST on Facebook Live!

 

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Trust us, our vision is perfect.

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3. Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari 

The Cincinnati Zoo is one company out of many who have closed their doors to the public at this time but the service they are offering instead is incredible. The zoo is offering a free look into what the animals are doing each day via their Facebook Live. Every day at 1 P.M. MST. We’ll see you there.

 

 

4. NASA Media Library

NASA has provided a great source of entertainment by opening their entire media library to the public! Take social distancing to the next level… Hang out in space for a while! The final frontier?! I’ve never seen Star Trek.

 

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Are you @nasahubble? Because you seem…reflective. ???? ? Okay. It's time to get deep. Real deep. We live in a time when we can witness the marvels of the universe and look into the past. We can look at the stars to learn about what we're made of. We are made of star stuff. ???? ? The hydrogen, helium and nitrogen that formed in stars? That also makes up our bodies and it’s how we’re connected to the Big Bang—the birth of the universe. Our great space observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the recently decommissioned Spitzer Space Telescope have peered millions of light-years into the past to better understand our place in the universe. So, the next time you gaze up at the stars, remember this: you are star material.????? ??? ? 1. Galaxy NGC 4258 located about 23 million light-years away. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/P.Ogle et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA??? 2. Carina Nebula’s “Mystic Mountain." Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)???? 3. Messier 2 star cluster located in the constellation Aquarius. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et al.???? 4. Unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 5033, located about 40 million light-years away. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt???? 5. A brilliant nebula located in the constellation Centaurus, about 4,900 light-years from Earth. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA???? 6. Arp 299, located about 140 million light-years from Earth. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Crete/K. Anastasopoulou et al, NASA/NuSTAR/GSFC/A. Ptak et al; Optical: NASA/STScI???? 7. Image released in 2017 of the Horsehead Nebula in infrared light. Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team???? 8. Galaxy NGC 6861, part of a group of at least a dozen galaxies called the Telescopium Group. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; acknowledgement: J. Barrington???? 9. The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, assembled by combining 10 years of Hubble photos. Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch, University of California, Santa Cruz; R. Bouwens, Leiden University; and the HUDF09 Team???? ??? #YouGotThis #hubble #space #nasa #yes

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5. Free Online Courses 

There are TONNES of free online courses that can have you learning a skill you didn’t have time for before… Now is that time. Class Central is a good resource for free University documents and courses on a wide variety of subjects. LinkedIn has made its online courses available to the public, covering everything from tips for leading video conferences to advice on how to best work from home. Plus, you can’t forget about YouTube! Watch homemade/corporate tutorial videos on basically any subject for free. The last one I’ll list (but definitely not the least) is Adobe. They have granted students and educators with free at-home access to its Creative Cloud applications which includes Photoshop, Premiere Pro and many more digital tools for creators.

 

 

 

6. Make Music Online

Moog and Korg have made their synth apps free to help musicians stuck at home. Send your buddies your loops and start collaborating on that hit song! Regardless of the reason you use these apps, fun is inevitable. Fun fact, some of the hardware being converted to apps are worth over $4,000!

 

 

7. Finally Learn How To Solve a Rubik’s Cube

Enough procrastination. The time is now. Dig up the Rubik’s Cube you’ve abandoned years ago and visit Cubing MKE. Owned and operated by 15-year-old Levi, a professional Rubik’s Cube teacher with over 100 success stories, Cubing MKE is offering free online one-on-one classes. Visit his website and get to cubin’!

 

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Another new cuber.

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8. Free (7-Day Trial) Broadway Plays! 

The title says it all! Add a little pizazz to your social distancing by viewing streams of Broadway plays! For a limited time, BroadwayHD is letting people watch filmed productions of Broadway musicals for free!

 

 

9. Netflix and Isolate 

No matter what streaming service you use, there are so many shows people are talking about right now. Use this time to catch up with the action! Have you caught Love is Blind yet? Ozark Season 3 is coming out March 27th… You could watch the first 2 seasons and be ready for the release day!

 

 

10. Read a Free eBook

Everything in moderation. Even Netflix can get boring sometimes. If you need to break up your routine you can browse the free eBook catalog at Project Gutenberg. This website offers over 60,000 eBooks so don’t tell me you can’t find something to read! The Edmonton Public Library also has an extensive list of free eBooks available to borrow!

 

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The Underworld by James C. Welsh ??????1/2 I read this to potentially use for my dissertation as I’m planning to write about the Proletarian novel genre. This book is essentially a bildungsroman for its title character, as he goes to work in the mines at the age of 12 and eventually becomes a major local figure in the Trade Union movement. The author is writing from experience as Welsh was also a miner from age 12 who would go on to become a member of parliament and an active Trade Unionist. It’s a really interesting novel that depicts unflinching poverty but also reflects the heart at the centre of mining communities, exemplified by Nellie, Robert’s mother. At times the writing was a little trite but equally the message it makes is well done and sincere. I look forward to researching the topic further. There’s loads more I want to say about the novel but I’ll save it for my dissertation… #robertsinclair #theunderworld #jamescwelsh #thestoryofrobertsinclairminer #reading #read #reader #proletarian #proletariannovel #review #dissertation #books #kindle #ereader #projectgutenberg

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