January 25, 2012

Welcome to Writing Wednesday! Every Wednesday you can publish your own creative writing on the Seymour Science blog.

Writing Wednesday has two simple rules: 

1. Give us the best you’ve got in 5 minutes. That’s right - five minutes of creative writing. Think of it as a word extravaganza to warm up your brain for the rest of the day!
2. Tell us your first name, the name of your school, and how old you are. 

Ready? Let’s go!

As a scientist wrote yesterday, "THE SUN IS WAKING UP." The sun goes through regular cycles, and we have entered a period of high solar activity. Huge solar storms have been sweeping the surface of the sun for the past week, sending bursts of geomagnetic radiation called "solar flares" toward Earth. When this radiation hits Earth’s magnetic field, it causes bursts of light that we call the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights. Sometimes they look like ghostly fingers in the sky; sometimes they look like huge explosions of colored lights. 

Here is a photograph of the Northern Lights as seen in Finland this week. Take five minutes and write a list of five words to describe this nighttime sight. Enter your writing by clicking on the yellow "Comments" at the bottom of this blog post.

 Happy writing!

 Photo: Arnar Bergur Guðjónsson

January 19, 2012

Snowman looks at the city. He is happy because friends are being created! 

The cities and towns around Seattle, Washington received up to 8 inches of snow yesterday, officially making the winter storm one of Seattle’s 10 worst since the early 1940s, when record-keeping began. Schools and businesses are closed again today, as freezing temperatures have turned slushy roads into sheets of ice. I have a feeling there was a shout of joy early this morning from Seattle kids, who don’t often get a snow day. The snowman is happy, indeed!

The caption for the photograph above was written by Will from Ohio. He submitted this lovely piece of writing as part of yesterday’s “Writing Wednesday.” Nice job, Will!

Photo: Sam Jennings

I have created a Guide called “Writing Exciting Nonfiction,” which you can download by clicking on this link. It outlines different techniques that I use in my writing, and includes many examples from my books. I have posted it so that you can use it with your students. Please let me know if it is helpful, and share any other feedback about how we can make this blog a productive tool for you to use in exploring and encouraging nonfiction writing with your students.

January 11, 2012

Welcome to Writing Wednesday! Every Wednesday you can publish your own creative writing on the Seymour Science blog.

Writing Wednesday has two simple rules: 

1. Give us the best you’ve got in 5 minutes. That’s right - five minutes of creative writing. Think of it as a word extravaganza to warm up your brain for the rest of the day!
2. Tell us your first name, the name of your school, and how old you are.

This is one of the new species they found. It is called a VAMPIRE SQUID, and it lives in Monterey Bay, off the coast of Northern California. Click the "Comments" button below and take five minutes to write about what you see in this photograph. Use descriptive words and strong verbs to describe the animal and the dark waters where it lives. You could use a comparison to help your reader imagine this creature….or appeal to the reader’s emotions to set the scene (how does it make you feel when you look at a Vampire Squid?).

What you write is up to you. Have fun with it!

January 10, 2012

Are you tired of the unusually warm winter we are having? Do you miss having snow to play in and snowstorms to close schools? If you are, you’re in good company. Most of the U.S. is experiencing warmer-than-average temperatures this winter.

People who live in Cordova are used to snow, of course, but they have never seen anything like this. Most people who live in areas at risk of avalanches have moved in with friends for the time being, and the town is setting up a pet shelter.

Can you imagine 18-feet of snow? Picture four fifth graders, standing on each others’ shoulders, one on top of the other. That is about the height of the snow that has fallen this month in Cordova!

Photo: Kate Herring

January 9, 2012

The latest development in locating people trapped in the rubble after disasters like earthquakes is called PAWS - rescue dogs equipped with a camera, microphone and speaker.

PAWS stands for Portable, All-terrain, Wireless System. An inventor in England has developed a harness that holds a very lightweight camera, mounted on the dog’s head. The dogs are trained to play a game - "Go find your toy!" When they race through the rubble and come to a stop in front of a human, the rescuers are able to see on video places that they would otherwise be unable to reach.

Want to see what it looks like? 

This is a border collie’s view of his owner through the Paws head camera. 

December 19, 2011

As a major winter storm begins hammering parts of the High Plains in far northeast New Mexico, northwest Texas, western Oklahoma, Colorado and Kansas, we started wondering about the snowiest places. Where in the U.S. do people get the most snow every year? 

According to the Weather Channel, #5 on the "snowiest list" is Lead, South Dakota. Lead is in the northern Black Hills, where powerful north winds swirl through the surrounding hills.

• Average yearly snow: 201.4 inches
• Population: 3,124
• Snowiest month: March (35 inches)
• Snowiest day ever: 52 inches (March 14, 1973)
• Record Depth: 73 inches (March 1, 1998)

#4: Truckee, California. Truckee is in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which have a long, deadly history of burying pioneers and wagon trains, as well as modern trains, in the mountain passes during huge snowstorms.

• Average yearly snow: 202.6 inches
• Population : 16,180
• Snowiest month: February (44.3 inches) 

#3: Hancock, Michigan. Why do they get so much snow in Hancock? In addition to the fact that it is in the far northern part of the U.S., Hancock is also close to Lake Superior, and the cold winds pick up moisture from the lake.

• Average yearly snow: 211.7 inches 
• Population: 4,634
• Snowiest month: January (65.6 inches)
• Snowiest day: 26.5 inches (January 18, 1996) 
• Record depth: 73 inches (February 28, 1937)

#2: Crested Butte, Colorado. At an elevation of 8,860 feet, Crested Butte has a history of spectacular New Year’s storms!

• Average yearly snow: 215.8 inches
• Population: 1,487 
• Snowiest month: January (39.5 inches)
• Snowiest day: 31 inches (January 1, 1982) 
• Record depth: 120 inches (December 31, 1923)

• Average yearly snow: 326.3 inches
• Population: 3,976 
• Snowiest month: December (71.9 inches) 
• Snowiest day: 47.5 inches (January 16,1990)

Army of Snowmen Photo Courtesy of Nerd Approved.

For those of you receiving iPads or Nook Color/Tablets this season, Seymour Simon has many quality eBooks available for purchase, some discounted as much as 50% for the holidays. If you are adding reading material to a tablet, please consider making Seymour Simon’s exceptional nonfiction for children part of your collection. Happy holidays to all!

December 14, 2011

A New Zealand woman arrived home yesterday and found an unexpected visitor - a baby seal, asleep on the sofa!

The fur seal pup was nicknamed "Lucky" because he managed to cross a busy road, push into the house through a cat door, and climb up some stairs to get to the couch in the living room. What a clever little pup! 

The woman called animal control. Wildlife experts came and woke Lucky up from his nap and released him back into the sea. 

I once discovered baby flying squirrels living in my attic, but I’ve never experienced anything as interesting as a seal on the sofa. Wouldn’t that be exciting?! 

Photo: Christopher Clark/Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai

December 11, 2011

There was a full eclipse of the moon yesterday. Those of you on the west coast of the U.S. got a rare treat, as the lunar eclipse happened just at sunrise. Photographer John Harrison took this magnificent shot of the red moon above San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in the blue morning sky.

These images are from Asia, where photographer Humza Mehbub shot a series of images of the lunar eclipse from Lahore, Pakistan. He started photographing Earth’s shadow slipping across the moon at 5:30 p.m., and continued photographing until 7:30 p.m. in Lahore, when the eclipse hit its peak and the moon glowed a deep orange.

I wasn’t able to see it because I live on the Atlantic coast, where it happened during the daytime and was not visible here. Did any of you photograph the eclipse? If you did, send in your photos - I’d love to see!

December 8, 2011

Forty-nine penguins rescued from an oil spill off New Zealand have been nursed back to health and were released back into the ocean on Tuesday by wildlife rescuers and local schoolchildren.

Don’t you love this photograph of Little Blue Penguins running back into the ocean? 

They were fitted with microchips, so that researchers can track the progress of their recovery.

The birds released Tuesday are among 343 little blue penguins that have been cleaned of oil since a cargo ship ran aground on a reef off the coast of New Zealand on Oct. 5 and spilled some 400 tons of fuel oil. More than 2,000 sea birds died in the spill. Fortunately, marine life experts from New Zealand, Australia and the United States worked together to save the animals who returned happily to the sea this week.

December 7, 2011

The Tokyo car show opened this week, which means we get to see what are called "Concept Cars" - automakers imagining what cars of the future look like, and what they will be able to do. I love new technology and gadgets, so this is always fun for me. 

This year, everyone is talking about Toyota’s Fun-Vii. Vii stands for "vehicle interactive internet," and the car functions like a "smartphone on wheels." The doors of the car are touchscreens, so that drivers can change the way the car looks, communicate with people in other cars, and connect to the Internet while they are driving.

Imagine being able to call up a photograph on your phone, click it, and suddenly your car is wrapped with the photo. 

Or how about you touch the door and video text with the friend who you are meeting?

Perhaps best of all, they imagine that this car will have autopilot, with a virtual reality "co-pilot" who not only drives the car but also reads you your text messages, finds the nearest ice cream shop, or corrects your route when there is traffic ahead.

No one is actually making these cars right now - but it is not quite science fiction, either. Concept cars are based on the technology that engineers are developing right now, so they are almost like a glimpse of the future of driving.

What do you think? Would you like to have a car like this one? Why?

I even wrote a book about them!

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