Curriculum Resource: How We Use Energy

About 60 years ago, the average American produced about 4 metric tons of carbon dioxide due to the energy s/he used.  Today, the average is almost 5 times that--19 metric tons per person.  So what changed?

PBS Learning has produced a nice little interactive illustration of the ways that energy usage has changed between now and then.  Check out Changing the Balance.

Curriculum Resource: Population Growth and Climate Change

I found another good resource related to the population growth topic I raised last week when our global population supposedly reached 7 billion people.  The website Population Action International has a lot of great information and resources on it, including an interactive chart where you can see where your birthday falls on the curve to reach 7 billion--and beyond!

But the most eye-opening section to me was a serious of maps that show the connection between population growth and climate change.   In short, it seems that the countries where population growth is the largest are also, in general, the countries who will be most hurt by global climate change, at least in terms of things like reduced agricultural productivity and water availability.  It makes sense when I saw the maps, but I hadn't thought of that before.  Check out this guided tour of the maps, and then you can also make your own maps or research a specific country.

These maps make it even more evident why we need to try to reduce rampant population growth before the full effects of global warming really hit us.  We may or may not be around to have to deal with all this, but our middle schoolers should be, so this is the kind of information about their future world they should know.

Curriculum Resource: Explaining Fall Colors

Today was such a gorgeous fall day--sunny and crisp, with the leaves finally starting to change color here in Piedmont North Carolina.  So it is time for me to review the exact chemistry behind the transformation of our local trees.  I know the general principle, but I always forget what the exact chemical processes are that produce the specific colors.

But I stumbled upon this explanation from USA Today that I thought was really good.  It has a nice interactive graphic that shows the true colors in leaves being hidden by the chlorophyll during the summer, but eventually being revealed in the fall.  They also have a part where you can see which types of leaves turn which colors.  Meanwhile, the article reviews the chemical processes that produce yellow versus red leaves.  Just what I was looking for!

You can check out the article here.

Curriculum Resource: Live Preservers Game Teaches Evolutionary Biology

Here is a great game I found that is perfect for the middle school biology classroom.  It is called Life Preservers, and it was developed by the Games for Entertainment and Learning Lab at Michigan State University.  The game was developed to teach evolutionary biology concepts, but it does it with a twist.  In the game, aliens are going to ship two invasive species to colonize on Earth for their own purposes, but you only have the ability to eliminate one of them before they start reproducing.  The point of the game is to figure out which one will cause the least damage if it is allowed to stay, based on how it will effect the evolutionary development of this planet's ecosystem.

So you begin by learning something about the planet's historical evolution.  The game has two parts; one is about the time of the dinosaurs, while the other is the rise of mammals, including humans.  In each part, you learn about some of the species of those times that became extinct, and some that have continued to develop into modern times.  Eventually, the characteristics of the two potential alien species are revealed, and you get to choose which one to eliminate and which one to allow to land and to see what changes it brings to life on Earth.

So it is quite an interesting and non-obvious challenge (because both will have some kinds of impacts).  There is a lot of good content, and it is not set up as a win/lose scenario.  Also, playing both parts of the game takes 45 minutes, so it can be done within a typical class period (if you are doing it in an actual classroom scenario).

For more information on the game, visit the teachers website.  But if you want to just jump right in and start saving the planet from alien invasive species, try your hand at Life Preservers.

Curriculum Resource: Learning About Hurricanes

So we've got hurricanes on the brain here.  But, as good homeschoolers do, we're just turning it into another learning opportunity!

The favorite thing I've found is an interactive application from the Sun-Sentinel newspaper in Florida (which should know about these things) called Hurricane Maker.  You can play around with the starting place of the hurricane, the wind shear, and the humidity, and see which combinations peter out before becoming a real storm, and which ones result in a major hurricane.

Do you know where the name "hurricane" comes from?  You can find that out, along with other hurricane trivia, by taking the Sun-Sentinel's Hurricane Quiz.  I happened to get that question right, but only scored 53% overall, so I obviously need to brush up my hurricane knowledge.

The Sun-Sentinel also has a bunch of information on hurricanes, which if I had read before taking the test, instead of afterwards, would have helped boost my score!

MiddleSchoolScience.com has gathered a lot of good resources on hurricanes in its Hurricane Tutorial.  Or they have an entire Hurricane Unit, with lots of PDF handouts and worksheets already created, if you are looking for a more school-like information resource.

Hope these help you and your children and/or students better understand what is going on with Hurricane Irene!

Smithsonian and MIT Launching Interactive Science Game for Middle Schoolers

The scientists at the Smithsonian Institute have cooked up a scientific mystery, and they are asking the nation's middle schoolers to solve it.  It is a game, but also serious business: to demonstrate to students in the 11-14 age range that science is not merely memorizing a bunch of facts and figures, but instead involves using scientific clues, tools to make sense of data that at first seems completely random.

The game is called Vanished, and has been developed by the Smithsonian Institute and the Education Arcade (the learning games development center) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  The game will be played both online and in real life over an 8-week period, as students work together to solve a puzzle related to a fictitious environmental disaster.  Clues will be given online each week, but students will also be encouraged to visit local museums and collect data locally in order to figure out the solution.  The middle schoolers will also be able to interact with working scientists from MIT, the Smithsonian, and other locations to get answers they need as they work towards their solutions.  Ultimately, the investigate includes aspects of many different disciplines, including life sciences, environmental sciences, paleontology, archaeology, geology, anthropology, math, the arts, and language arts.

Those in the Wake County area are fortunate, because the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is one of about 20 institutions that are affiliated with the Smithsonian's efforts.  These means that some of the clues will lead to exhibits or information contained in the museum in Raleigh.  These local clues are to be shared with student teams across the country, creating nationwide cooperation among middle schoolers dedicated to solving the problem.

To sign up for the game, visit the website at http://vanished.mit.edu.  Then stay tuned for April 4, when the first clues will begin to arrive in email inboxes across the country.

Curriculum Resource: Qwiki Is Turning Information into an Experience

I've recently discovered Qwiki, which bills itself as the first company to turn information into an experience.

For example, my son recently gave a short presentation on the Mason-Dixon line for our history coop.  But here is what it looks like as a Qwiki:


You can click on many of the pictures to see them in more detail, or if you watch it on the Qwiki website, you can watch it in "Contents" and see the written text all at once with explanations of the related pictures or videos.  Also on the website is the ability to contribute to the "wiki" part of Qwiki by rating the presentation, giving feedback, or offering additional information or resources to improve the experience.

Apparently, it does all this on the fly, searching the web for open source material such as Wikipedia and putting those items into a computer-generated presentation.  So I think that is pretty amazing.  But they are working on a version that publishers can use to create similar presentations out of their proprietary information sources.  The company recently got $8 million in investment money from people like the co-founders of Facebook and YouTube--the kind of people who know what they are doing in the new world of social digital media.  I think this indicates that Qwiki may be a major player in the next level of digital information packaging over the Web.