Growing Stories: Literature in the Garden

It's time to register for this year's NSTA National Science Teachers Association Conference http://www.nsta.org/conferences/national.aspx that will be in Boston in April.

One of the four conference strands will be focused on Science and Literacy: A Symbiotic Relationship.

Today I wrote a conference proposal for our regional NSTA and VA Office of Environmental Educators conference that will be held in Richmond VA in October 16 - 18 2014.
My conference proposal theme is Growing Stories: Literature in the Garden.

Do you want to talk with elementary-age students about utopias, languages and designing your own culture and staple crop?
Read Paul Fleishman's inspirational Weslandia

And check out associated activities in Junior Master Gardener's Literature in the Garden curriculum.
Here's a second grader's design for a staple crop...

Interested in teaching Native American culture, ecology and biodiversity with your class of 8-year olds?

Read Susan Jeffer's Brother Eagle Sister Sky.
And weave a Web of Life with your class using the activity plan from Junior Master Gardeners Literature in the Garden.

Examples of these classes are blogged on:
Arlington Traditional School's Gardening Blog:
Read Weslandia and Design New Staple Crops Second Grade 11/22/2011
Brother Eagle, Sister Sky  Second Grade 3/27/12

For further suggestions on environmental-themed literature for children:
Check out award-winning books from the Junior Master Gardeners and American Horticultural Society's "Growing Good Kids Book Awards"...
Cultivate reading in your garden!

Winter Wonderland? Wonder No Longer

Some Cool LINKS for this WINTER Season....

RePOSTED from SCIENCE FRIDAY: JAN. 06, 2012

Photo from NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) Collection

Plate XIII of "Studies among the Snow Crystals ... " by Wilson Bentley, "The Snowflake Man." From Annual Summary of the "Monthly Weather Review" for 1902.

The winter solstice has come and gone, making it officially winter in the U.S., with cooler temperatures, less sunlight, and, in some places, snow, ice, and frost. A panel of experts discusses the different phenomena that combine to make up the season we call winter, and give tips for how best to appreciate the natural world in wintertime.

Produced by Charles Bergquist, Director and Contributing Producer

GUESTS

• Andrew Fraknoi
  Professor of Astronomy
  Foothill College
  Los Altos Hills, California
• Paul Yeager
  Writer and Meteorologist
  Author, "Weather Whys. Weather Whys: Facts, Myths, and Oddities" (Perigee Books, 2010)
  State College, Pennsylvania
• David Mizejewski
  Naturalist, National Wildlife Federation
  Reston, Virginia

RELATED LINKS

NPS: Winter Ecology Teacher's Guide (PDF)

All About Snow

Snowflakes and Snow Crystals

EarthSky: Everything you need to know about the winter solstice of 2011

RELATED SCIENCE FRIDAY LINKS

Growing Snowflakes In A Bottle (video)

Cure Winter Blues With Light Therapy--Or The Beach

Cracking the Cool Science of Ice

Birdfeeders and Evolution

Birders Fan Out to Count Feathered Friends

Christmas Bird Count 2010

Ode To Ice

Secret Life Of Ice

Snowflake Safari (video)

What's So Cool About Frozen Water? (video)

Secret Life Of Ice (video)

Perspectives on Climate Change and Green STEM Learning

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Jennifer Hammond writes about Green STEM learning in the context of climate change and other major global issues:

"Our climate is changing at an alarming rate, and as a nation our young people are not prepared to provide the solutions necessary to mitigate and safeguard our world’s biodiversity, growing population, agricultural and transit systems and more.  In a digital age, we are able to connect in new and innovative ways and collaborate and create like never before."

Click here for further details from the NWF on:

• the National Wildlife Federation's Green STEM Initiative
• the NWF Eco-Schools USA Program
• and the Next Generation Science Standards

From: http://blog.nwf.org/2013/04/green-stem-an-educational-collision-of-epic-proportion/

April 17, 2013, by Jennifer Hammond

See The Beauty of Math - Visualizing Math in the Everyday

Here's a video by artists Yann Pineill and Nicolas LeFaucheux visualizing the beauty of math in the everyday.

Click for article at Fast Company a blog for innovation by design,

Real World Design Challenge on Precision Agriculture: Unmanned Aircraft System

Real World Design Challenge on Precision Agriculture...

"By 2050 there will be an estimated additional two billion people on Earth, which will significantly impact 
the availability of food. It has been estimated that there will be a need to produce 70% more food to 
address such a population growth. An increase in food production can be realized through 
implementation of higher yield farming, using precision agriculture."

See details at http://realworlddesignchallenge.org/ and below.

Sign your team up for the 2013-2014 Real World Design Challenge on Precision Agriculture! 

 

Precision Agriculture Challenge:

This year's challenge will be focused on the design and implementation of a UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) to support precision agriculture, specifically the monitoring and assessment of crop conditions to achieve increased yield. The teams will employ a systems engineering design and integration approach and support their work with a business case. Students will learn engineering principle through a inquiry-based approach in a highly interactive and experiential setting.

 

 

The Challenge details are now posted on www.realworlddesignchallenge.org and on the Getting Started Page.  

There will be two new prizes for this year's Real World Design Challenge:

 

1. A $1,000 stipend to the teacher who best integrates the Real World Design Challenge into their curriculum 

 

2. A $50,000 scholarship from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to each student on the national winning team 

 

 

The Real World Design Challenge is an annual aviation design competition for teams of high school students.  The Challenge is FREE for students and teachers.  Each teacher that signs up a team will receive professional engineering software as well as access to mentors from industry, government, and academia. The top team in each state will win an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, DC.

 

Teams can register here or by going to www.realworlddesignchallenge.org.  The team's teacher or coach should complete the registration form

via NOVA STEM Education network

What Makes Trees So Colorful in the Fall?

By Kay Antunez de Mayolo 

Did you know that there are both visible and invisible changes happening in each leaf as they change colors in the fall?

Having retired recently as California PLT State Coordinator, I am finding many fun opportunities to help kids discover answers to questions like this using PLT.  In my role as “Science Nanny” for the afterschool program at Surprise Valley Elementary School in Modoc County, California, PLT is helping me incorporate environmental education and experiential learning to increase student interest, confidence, and knowledge in science.

We used Activity 78, Signs of Fall, from PLT’s PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide to teach students about fall colors and the signs of fall they observe each year. In this activity, students discovered visible and invisible changes in autumn leaves, observed the annual change of seasons, and investigated why leaves of deciduous trees change color. Together my students and I had a lot of fun learning what makes trees so colorful.

VISIBLE CHANGES

All around us, tree leaves are changing. Vibrant shades of reds, yellows, and oranges are great visual indicators that fall is here.

I shared these changes with the afterschool kids, and they discussed seasonal changes they have seen. Due to time and daylight limitations, I brought nature indoors, sharing leaves that I found at home. (If time allows, I’d recommend you take students outside to look for leaves and other signs of fall. Wooded areas, school yards, parks, neighborhoods, even your own backyard are all great places to search.)

I asked students to make rubbings of our fall leaf collection using crayons and paper. Students made impressions of the leaves, cut them out, and later we taped them to the town’s library window for everyone to see.

INVISIBLE CHANGES

Although a leaf may appear to be one color, it actually contains pigments of multiple colors. In the summer, chlorophyll, the green pigment, dominates, concealing others. As chlorophyll breaks down in the fall, other pigments reveal themselves or form, turning the leaves yellow, orange, or red. I led the afterschool students through a chromatography experiment to identify what colors were hiding inside the leaves.

Students first crunched up the leaves and put them in glass jars, using one jar for each leaf color. I then covered the leaves with rubbing alcohol. Next we placed strips of coffee filter paper into the colorful liquid in each jar. After a while, the paper absorbed some of the liquid and we could see streaks and bands of color on each of the paper strips.

We successfully extracted red, yellow, and green pigments from the leaves! Because the color of each leaf is determined by a combination of the pigments inside, each paper strip had bands of colors in different sizes.

Following the activity, one of my students asked, “What would happen if we took a green leaf and painted it yellow?” We may have to try that experiment next time so he can discover the answer. What do you think would happen?

For resources click on Project Learning Tree's Blog
https://www.plt.org/blog-signs-of-fall-afterschool-activity

shared from PLT's Blog 10/30/13

Virginia Cooperative Extension Volunteers Teach “Garden-to-Fork”

Virginia Cooperative Extension volunteers helped coordinate an integrated day-long program of science-based activities for Arlington Traditional School students to celebrate this year's Reading Carnival theme of growing healthy food and kids!

Kudos to staff, students and the community.

More photos at: VCE Master Volunteers Teach “Garden-to-Fork”