Label: Video

February 12, 2019

Exoplanets, my latest book, is about a topic near and dear to my heart. In this BookTalk, an interview conducted by science education professor Wendy Saul, we discuss why I’ve loved the idea of exploring beyond our solar system since I was a kid.

January 27, 2016

Did you see the video that the Smithsonian’s National Zoo captured after last weekend’s blizzard? When male giant panda Tian Tian (tee-YEN tee-YEN) woke up to a lot of snow, he was pretty excited about it.

Unlike you and me, Tian Tian did not need to bundle up to be comfortable in the snow. Giant pandas have thick woolly coats that keep them warm in the snowy mountains of China.

Since it is Writing Wednesday, let’s take this opportunity to do some descriptive writing. Watch this video of Tian Tian in the snow, and imagine all the sensations he is feeling. Describe what he was smelling, seeing, feeling, tasting…..all the things that made him want to roll over and over in the big white stuff!

 Be patient while the video loads below. If you are using a tablet you may not be able to see this video. Try viewing it on a desktop computer. 

When you are finished writing, click on the yellow "Comments" button at the bottom of this post to share your work with others. Happy Writing! 

January 5, 2016

As anyone who has read my PAPER AIRPLANE BOOK knows, I love folding and flying paper airplanes. I’ve been doing it since the days when I was teaching middle school science and teaching about the properties of air.

This video captures one of the best paper airplane flights I have ever seen. Look how the plane rides the air currents, slowly, slowly down to the ground.

Enjoy the video, but remember, you should never try this at home (nor should you ever go near an open window).

Be patient while the video loads below. If you are using a tablet you may not be able to see this video. Try it on a desktop computer.

October 13, 2015

Seymour Simon recently visited Relay Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland. His visit was covered on the district’s website, BCPS News! Check out the video here.

April 10, 2014

Seymour Simon’s new book, EARTH’S MOON: A SHIPMATE’S GUIDE to OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, has just been published by StarWalk Kids Media. It is available as an eBook right now, and we hope to publish it as a print book in the next year.

The Moon is our closest shipmate in space, and as Seymour Simon writes in the book, we travel together on our journey through the Milky Way galaxy. This fascinating book answers questions like: Why does the Moon change shape in the night sky? Why does it look as though there is a face on the Moon’s surface? And will we ever visit there again?

This is the second installment in Seymour Simon’s important new space series, A Shipmate’s Guide to Our Solar System. The first book, EARTH: A SHIPMATE’S GUIDE came out last year, and received an excellent review from Kirkus.

You can view a video trailer of Seymour Simon’s newest book and find out how the Moon was formed - it was a dramatic event! 

April 4, 2013

Something extraordinary happened on the first spring day up in the country (the Hudson Valley in New York State). Not the first day of spring (that’s March 21^st) but the first day that feels like spring, which can be any day from early March to mid April. Well, we had a day like that last week and naturally we went looking for early signs of spring like spring peepers. So we were visiting pond after pond but most of them showed no signs of spring. Many of the ponds were still partly frozen and even those that had no ice still showed no signs of frogs, frog eggs, or tadpoles.

All that changed when we drove past a small spring pond with the car windows open and heard a deafening chorus of what sounded like a mixture of peepers and birds honking. We immediately stopped the car and got out to look. In addition to the usual high pitched chirping of the tiny spring peepers, the pond was alive with honking sounds and large, thrashing frogs. The sounds were deafening. The water looked alive with frogs leaping and grasping and showing sudden bursts of speed. I had never seen anything like it before. I had binoculars and a camera but the frogs were too far away from where we stood to really identify them. It was only after I got home and did some research that I found out what kind of frogs they were and what was happening.

I went to my computer, opened up the Google Search, and typed in "Frogs Quacking like Ducks". Sure enough, the answer popped right up.

The frogs were wood frogs, a small (1 to 3 inches long) blacked masked frog that lives in the eastern United States from Georgia all the way up to the Arctic Circle. It is the only frog known to live north of the Arctic Circle. Usually they live in wet grasslands or moist woodlands. But they hibernate during the winter and as soon as they thaw out in spring, they head for temporary ponds formed by spring rains and snow melt.

The wood frogs use these ponds to make and lay eggs. The male frogs call to the females with duck-like quacks. The females lay their eggs and the males fertilize them in huge masses that contain 1000-2000 eggs. The females move the floating egg mass into the shallow ends of the pond in a large raft of other egg masses. Then all the frogs leave the pond leaving the eggs to survive on their own. The eggs are even able to withstand freezing weather and ice formations. The eggs hatch in a few weeks as tadpoles and the tadpoles take about six weeks to develop into frogs. Another amazing story of the natural world!

I recorded some of the scene using the video setting on my camera. Click play below to hear (you may have to wait up to one minute for the video to load, depending on the speed of your connection. Be patient - it’s worth it!). The wind is blowing, which makes it a little noisy. But, listen past the gusty wind. The first thing you’ll hear are the high-pitched peepers. Listen more closely, and you’ll hear quacking, as if there was a flock of geese flying by. That is the sound of the wood frogs, and it was even louder in person!

January 25, 2013

When a dolphin needed help off the coast of Hawaii, he swam right up to a scuba instructor and let him know.

Keller Laros was leading a group of divers on a tour off the coast of Kona, Hawaii, last week.  "All of a sudden I heard a loud squeak, and I turned around, and the dolphin was literally three feet behind me," Laros said. "He swam right up to me."

The diving instructor could tell that something was wrong, and looking more closely, he saw that there was a fishing line hooked onto his fin.

"I said, ‘come here,’ and he swam right up to me," he said. "I put my hand out and I tried to get the fishing hook out of his left pectoral fin." But the animal was having trouble swimming because his fin was still tangled up in the fishing line. The 10-foot long dolphin - almost twice as long as his rescuer was tall - waited patiently while Laros rummaged through the dive tools that he carries in his suit, pulling out a pair of small scissors.

He was able to clip the line off of the dolphin’s mouth and fin, but there was still a little left. They waited while the dolphin went up for a breath of air and came back down. Then Laros and another dive guide removed as much line from under the fin as they could. 

"I guess the dolphin was happy with our work. He swam away and we never saw him again," he said. "It’s a huge thrill to be able to help an animal that clearly knows what’s going on," he said. "He made the effort to come to us… The dolphin is really intelligent. It’s a relationship. He came to us because he had a problem." 

One of the divers in the class that Laros was teaching had a video camera and filmed the whole interaction. Here it is for you to see. Isn’t that a magnificent moment between two intelligent mammals?

Video courtesy of Jack’s Diving Locker, Kona, Hawaii 

December 12, 2012

I had such a great time yesterday with the students and teachers at Eleanor Roosevelt Elementary School in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, and they took so many great photographs that Liz (my wife and editor of this blog) decided to make an Animoto video. Click Here to view.

I hope you like it. I really enjoyed my time with you all yesterday!

April 5, 2012

Today’s "Cool Video of the Week" is an animation that puts me in a holiday mood. Just looking at it makes me feel like I can smell chocolate!

The video below is an example of what is called "Stop Motion" animation. Do you see the black camera on the right hand side of the photograph? It is mounted on a stand, and the animator take a photograph, then moves the pieces of chocolate on the cake slightly, takes another photograph, moves the pieces a little further, and so on. When you put all the photographs together, it seems as though everything is moving. It takes a lot of patience to make this kind of animation, but it certainly pays off.

Press "Play" (below) to see it - just for fun.  And best wishes to all my readers for a Happy Easter and Chag Same’ach (Happy Passover)! 

March 26, 2012

When Seymour Simon visited Carl Sandburg Elementary School, a  student named Jacob read his independent writing to welcome Seymour. Jacob’s principal, Mr. Kincaid, wrote: "What a special moment that was for all of us who were fortunate enough to hear him read it to Seymour that morning in the hallway at school!"

Take a look (below). We think you will agree!

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