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.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
We Meet Origami Yoda!
Last night at our fabulous local independent book store, Quail Ridge Books, we had a real treat! We got to hear a talk by the author of one of the books that my son and I both had on our 2011 Newbery top 5 list: Tom Angleberger, writer and illustrator of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda. We love that book (read my reviews here and here), so we wanted to go meet the author in person.
Tom is such a fun and animated speaker that it is hard to get a non-blurry picture of him while he is speaking. But here he is with the star of the book--Origami Yoda himself.
As I said, Tom is a really funny and lively speaker, and he interacts with the kids really well. In addition to telling one of the chapters in the book and showing us some of his drawing of the characters, he let us in on what is coming next for him. His latest book, Horton Halfpott, a silly Victorian-era inspired mystery, will be coming out in May. Then his sequel to Origami Yoda will come out in the fall, and will feature--brace yourself--DARTH PAPER!
Of course, no visit with Tom Angleberger would be complete without some origami. So he provided paper and instructions for us all about how to create not only Origami Yoda, but also Darth Paper.
And he is someone who is worth getting to sign your book, because he includes at least one drawing in every book! He asked the students who their favorite character in Star Wars was, and tried to draw them if he could. When my son said he liked learning the acronyms of the different vehicles (ATAT and such), Tom was interested by that, and said he might try to work in a vehicle acronym in his next Star Wars book.
So see! Go talk to your favorite author, and your ideas may show up in a future book!
Tom is such a fun and animated speaker that it is hard to get a non-blurry picture of him while he is speaking. But here he is with the star of the book--Origami Yoda himself.
As I said, Tom is a really funny and lively speaker, and he interacts with the kids really well. In addition to telling one of the chapters in the book and showing us some of his drawing of the characters, he let us in on what is coming next for him. His latest book, Horton Halfpott, a silly Victorian-era inspired mystery, will be coming out in May. Then his sequel to Origami Yoda will come out in the fall, and will feature--brace yourself--DARTH PAPER!
Of course, no visit with Tom Angleberger would be complete without some origami. So he provided paper and instructions for us all about how to create not only Origami Yoda, but also Darth Paper.
And he is someone who is worth getting to sign your book, because he includes at least one drawing in every book! He asked the students who their favorite character in Star Wars was, and tried to draw them if he could. When my son said he liked learning the acronyms of the different vehicles (ATAT and such), Tom was interested by that, and said he might try to work in a vehicle acronym in his next Star Wars book.
So see! Go talk to your favorite author, and your ideas may show up in a future book!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Pi Day Celebrations
Man, yesterday was a red letter day here with all the interdisciplinary math we had going on during Pi Day 2011! In the morning, my son and I worked with Maria Droujkova of Natural Math on a one-page book showing division of fractions that I am writing and my son is illustrating (both of us with Maria's wise counsel, of course).
In the afternoon, we did some of our other work, but then we kicked off the evening with our traditional (well, at least we've done it for the past couple of years since Maria has introduced us to Pi Day) Pi Day dinner of Pizza Pi(e)s. Each one of us had our own pies with varying degrees of pi-ness.
My husband's pizza was pretty typical, with pi mostly being represented by rounds of sausage:
Mine was more of a celebration of circles. I began with a circle of ricotta cheese (an idea I took from a recent Cooking Light magazine), then a circle of organic basil, then a circle of feta cheese, then another circle of basil.
I then layered that with circles of onion, then layered tri-circles red and green pepper on top of that.
My son had the most Pi pie, though. He cut his pepperoni and mushrooms into the shape of pi.
It was a fun and delicious way to mark Pi Day.
Then, after dinner, we had a wonderful discussion with author Joe D'Agnese about ways to use his book Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci in exposing students to a variety of math ideas, but also in relating math to both history and real life. Thanks to those who joined us for the talk. If you missed it (or want to review it), you can access the recording of the discussion through this link.
Finally, after midnight, we had the Random.org number generator pick for the winner of the Blockhead book giveaway. The lucky winner is Ann Murphy! Ann, please email me at ccross@mindspring.com and let me know what dedication you would like on your autographed book (if any) and the address to which to send it. It is kind of fitting that Ann won, because she got an extra five entries because she posted the information about the contest and webinar through her social network. So I kind of like the fact that someone with a statistic advantage actually won the Pi Day giveway--although, as I said, I left it up to the random number generator to pick the winning number.
Congratulations to Ann--let us know how you use the book once you get it. And I will be posting the list of suggested books in a forthcoming blog post.
In the afternoon, we did some of our other work, but then we kicked off the evening with our traditional (well, at least we've done it for the past couple of years since Maria has introduced us to Pi Day) Pi Day dinner of Pizza Pi(e)s. Each one of us had our own pies with varying degrees of pi-ness.
My husband's pizza was pretty typical, with pi mostly being represented by rounds of sausage:
Mine was more of a celebration of circles. I began with a circle of ricotta cheese (an idea I took from a recent Cooking Light magazine), then a circle of organic basil, then a circle of feta cheese, then another circle of basil.
I then layered that with circles of onion, then layered tri-circles red and green pepper on top of that.
My son had the most Pi pie, though. He cut his pepperoni and mushrooms into the shape of pi.
It was a fun and delicious way to mark Pi Day.
Then, after dinner, we had a wonderful discussion with author Joe D'Agnese about ways to use his book Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci in exposing students to a variety of math ideas, but also in relating math to both history and real life. Thanks to those who joined us for the talk. If you missed it (or want to review it), you can access the recording of the discussion through this link.
Finally, after midnight, we had the Random.org number generator pick for the winner of the Blockhead book giveaway. The lucky winner is Ann Murphy! Ann, please email me at ccross@mindspring.com and let me know what dedication you would like on your autographed book (if any) and the address to which to send it. It is kind of fitting that Ann won, because she got an extra five entries because she posted the information about the contest and webinar through her social network. So I kind of like the fact that someone with a statistic advantage actually won the Pi Day giveway--although, as I said, I left it up to the random number generator to pick the winning number.
Congratulations to Ann--let us know how you use the book once you get it. And I will be posting the list of suggested books in a forthcoming blog post.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Happy Pi Day!
Happy Pi Day, Everyone!
This is a special day for me, and not just because we celebrate every holiday we can at our house. This blog has two special events organized for Pi Day:
How to join the webinar
This is a special day for me, and not just because we celebrate every holiday we can at our house. This blog has two special events organized for Pi Day:
- Today is the deadline for entering to win an autographed copy of the book Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci (see this post for details on entering); and
- Tonight at 8:00 PM US Eastern Time (GMT -5.00), we will have a webinar with the author of Blockhead to discuss how to use this excellent picture book to teach not only the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, but many other math concepts (see this post for more information).
This webinar is being offered as part of the Math 2.0 series organized by Maria Droujkova of Natural Math, who wrote up these simple instructions about how to connect to the webinar:
- Follow this link at the time of the event: http://tinyurl.com/math20event
- Monday, March 14th (Pi Day!) 2011 we will meet in the LearnCentral online room at 5:00 pm Pacific, 8:00pm Eastern time. (Check the WorldClock for your time zone.)
- Click "OK" and "Accept" several times as your browser installs the software. When you see Elluminate Session Log-In, enter your name and click the "Login" button
- If this is your first time, come a few minutes earlier to check out the technology. The room opens half an hour before the event.
Check the blog tomorrow to see if you were the big winner, and also to access a link to hear a recording of the session if you happen to miss it.
Good luck to all, and have fun today investigating all things Pi!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Writing Contest Encourages Intergeneration Connections
Next month will mark the 11 year anniversary of my organizing monthly visits to a local assisted living facility. Ever since my son was one year old, he and his peers have been going every month to bring some joy and to create some bonds with some seniors. We have done so many different things with the residents of this assisted living community--played games, done old fashioned dances (Charleston, anyone?), watched educational films, made ice cream in a bag, read Christmas stories, carved Halloween pumpkins, and done many, many crafts together. We've benefitted a lot from the regular contact with older citizens, although I also consider it to be one of our community service projects.
This year, however, the assisted living facility is having our students interview the residents about their lives and opinions. Each month, one or two students ask a resident one question on what advice they would give young people about....one month, it was education, another month, it was being married or having a mate or partner. At the end of the year, the company will compile all the responses and publish them as a book. It has been really interesting, because we are learning more about the lives of the residents, and I hope our children are listening to some of their wise advice.
So I can recommend entering a writing contest I discovered lately. The "Listen To A Life Contest" being sponsored by the Legacy Project seeks to connect young writers with people over 50 (parents not included). The elder tells the student or students (ages 8-18) true stories about his or her life, and the student(s) turn it into a 300 word (maximum) essay. There is one grand prize of a computer and iPod nano, $800 in learning software, and an additional $25,000 of software for the school, and 20 runner up prizes of an MP3 player and $400 in software. However, the deadline is March 31, 2011, so writers will have to get started soon (click here for a full set of rules).
Of course, I think everyone can be a winner with this contest, because I think anything that encourages our kids to learn from these wise, seasoned elders is a great gift than any piece of technology.
This year, however, the assisted living facility is having our students interview the residents about their lives and opinions. Each month, one or two students ask a resident one question on what advice they would give young people about....one month, it was education, another month, it was being married or having a mate or partner. At the end of the year, the company will compile all the responses and publish them as a book. It has been really interesting, because we are learning more about the lives of the residents, and I hope our children are listening to some of their wise advice.
So I can recommend entering a writing contest I discovered lately. The "Listen To A Life Contest" being sponsored by the Legacy Project seeks to connect young writers with people over 50 (parents not included). The elder tells the student or students (ages 8-18) true stories about his or her life, and the student(s) turn it into a 300 word (maximum) essay. There is one grand prize of a computer and iPod nano, $800 in learning software, and an additional $25,000 of software for the school, and 20 runner up prizes of an MP3 player and $400 in software. However, the deadline is March 31, 2011, so writers will have to get started soon (click here for a full set of rules).
Of course, I think everyone can be a winner with this contest, because I think anything that encourages our kids to learn from these wise, seasoned elders is a great gift than any piece of technology.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Curriculum Resource: Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Dangers in Japan
It is a scary thing for all of us to be hearing about the recent disaster in Japan. However, I think that information always helps. So here are some resources you can use in helping your early adolescents understand what is going on with the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear dangers in Japan.
The US Geological Survey maintains a website called "Earthquakes for Kids" that has a lot of good resources for learning about the initial problem, which was the earthquake. They have an entire page of animations to help students visualize the technical terms used to explain the quake.
PBS Online has a great page on tsunamis as part of its Savage Earth series (which also includes information on earthquakes). The page includes a good animation on the cause and effects of tsunamis. The whole site is good if you decide to make this into a larger lesson on geology.
The current problem now, however, is that the disruption of power to the area is endangering the ability of five power plants to keep their nuclear fuel rods cooled down enough to avoid a partial meltdown, like what happened in the US at Three Mile Island in 1979.
Here is an animation that can help students visualize the problem. It is supposed to be a game to figure out how to stop the rods from overheating and melting down, but I haven't figured out how to do that. But it does demonstrate how a disruption elsewhere in the plant can cause big problems for the fuel rods.
The Southern Power company has an interactive animation of an entire nuclear power plant. This allows students to click on different parts of the process and understand how nuclear fuel is converted into electrical energy--and the safety components that are needed along the way.
NeoK12 has developed a series of short videos that explain nuclear power and nuclear power plants.
So that's a start, at least, on some materials you can use to help explain what is going on to your kids. But if anyone else has some good resources to add to the list, please put them in the comments below.
The US Geological Survey maintains a website called "Earthquakes for Kids" that has a lot of good resources for learning about the initial problem, which was the earthquake. They have an entire page of animations to help students visualize the technical terms used to explain the quake.
PBS Online has a great page on tsunamis as part of its Savage Earth series (which also includes information on earthquakes). The page includes a good animation on the cause and effects of tsunamis. The whole site is good if you decide to make this into a larger lesson on geology.
The current problem now, however, is that the disruption of power to the area is endangering the ability of five power plants to keep their nuclear fuel rods cooled down enough to avoid a partial meltdown, like what happened in the US at Three Mile Island in 1979.
Here is an animation that can help students visualize the problem. It is supposed to be a game to figure out how to stop the rods from overheating and melting down, but I haven't figured out how to do that. But it does demonstrate how a disruption elsewhere in the plant can cause big problems for the fuel rods.
The Southern Power company has an interactive animation of an entire nuclear power plant. This allows students to click on different parts of the process and understand how nuclear fuel is converted into electrical energy--and the safety components that are needed along the way.
NeoK12 has developed a series of short videos that explain nuclear power and nuclear power plants.
So that's a start, at least, on some materials you can use to help explain what is going on to your kids. But if anyone else has some good resources to add to the list, please put them in the comments below.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Curriculum Resource: Khan Academy
Only a few more days until Monday's webinar with Blockhead author Joseph D'Agnese talking about using his picture book on Fibonacci for teaching math. (If you missed it earlier, see this post with more details about the webinar and how to participate, or this post about how to win a free copy of the book.) But is you are looking for an even more multimedia approach to math instruction, along with a wider range of topics, a great place to look is Khan Academy.
Khan Academy has a library of 2,100 different educational videos on a range of middle school through college topics, but focused heavily on science and especially math. Just the math subjects offered are extensive--Basic or Developmental Math, Geometry, Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Trigonometry, Differential Equations, Calculus. (In contrast, the History section covers the French Revolution and Napoleon, and that's about it....for now, at least.) So if there is a math topic that your student could use some help with, it's likely that Khan Academy has a video on it.
And the great thing about Khan Academy is that they are giving it all away for free. Sal Khan is a man with a vision--to make education freely available to anyone in the world with an Internet connection. Although he now is getting funding from the Gates Foundation, he started by creating hundreds of video on his own and just making them available via the web. Khan is committed to keep churning out videos until he has the entire curriculum covered. So he's going to be busy for quite a while...
In addition to the videos, he has some interactive exercises and assessments, and a mechanism to allow learning coaches to keep track of their learners' progress through things. It's a wonderful resource for homeschoolers to take advantage of as is appropriate for their students--and the price is certainly right!
Khan Academy has a library of 2,100 different educational videos on a range of middle school through college topics, but focused heavily on science and especially math. Just the math subjects offered are extensive--Basic or Developmental Math, Geometry, Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Trigonometry, Differential Equations, Calculus. (In contrast, the History section covers the French Revolution and Napoleon, and that's about it....for now, at least.) So if there is a math topic that your student could use some help with, it's likely that Khan Academy has a video on it.
And the great thing about Khan Academy is that they are giving it all away for free. Sal Khan is a man with a vision--to make education freely available to anyone in the world with an Internet connection. Although he now is getting funding from the Gates Foundation, he started by creating hundreds of video on his own and just making them available via the web. Khan is committed to keep churning out videos until he has the entire curriculum covered. So he's going to be busy for quite a while...
In addition to the videos, he has some interactive exercises and assessments, and a mechanism to allow learning coaches to keep track of their learners' progress through things. It's a wonderful resource for homeschoolers to take advantage of as is appropriate for their students--and the price is certainly right!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)