STEM Friday – Page 3 – Booktalking #kidlit

From Butterfly Wings to…Display Technology

From Butterfly Wings to…Display Technology
(21st Century Skills Innovation Library: Innovations from Nature)
by Josh Gregory (Author)

Booktalk: Have you ever noticed that is it more difficult to read an electronic display screen when you are in bright sunlight? Find out how butterfly wings inspired the invention of new digital display technology that solves this problem.

Snippet: The development of this remarkable new technology began when an engineer named Mark Miles read an article about the way butterfly wings reflect the sunlight in a special way. This reflection is what creates the wings’ bright colors as the insect flutters through the air on a sunny day. Miles realized that this process could provide important clues that might help him create a better kind of display technology. He knew he would need to not only re-create the butterfly’s wing structure using available materials but also find a way to make his invention change colors on demand.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days

100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days
by Bruce Goldstone (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: It’s the 100th day of school–what can you do to celebrate?

Here are 100 different ideas for celebrating this fun and important day.

Snippet:

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Bombs over Bikini: The World’s First Nuclear Disaster

Bombs over Bikini: The World’s First Nuclear Disaster
by Connie Goldsmith (Author)

Booktalk: In 1946, as part of the Cold War arms race, the US military launched a program to test nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean. From 1946 until 1958, the military detonated sixty-seven nuclear bombs over the region’s Bikini and Enewetak Atolls. The twelfth bomb, called Bravo, became the world’s first nuclear disaster. It sent a toxic cloud of radiation over Rongelap Atoll and other nearby inhabited islands.

Snippet: “I began to feel a fine powder falling all over my body and into my eyes. The coconuts changed color. By now all the trees were white, as well as my entire body. I didn’t believe this was dangerous. The powder fell all day and night over the entire atoll of Rongelap,” Moyor John Anjain later recalled.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Learn to Program with Scratch: A Visual Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math

Learn to Program with Scratch: A Visual Introduction to Programming with Games, Art, Science, and Math
by Majed Marji (Author)

Booktalk: Rather than type countless lines of code in a cryptic programming language, why not use colorful command blocks and cartoon sprites to create powerful scripts? Scratch is a fun, free, beginner-friendly programming environment where you connect blocks of code to build programs. While most famously used to introduce kids to programming, Scratch can make computer science approachable for people of any age. Hands-on projects will challenge you to create an Ohm’s law simulator, draw intricate patterns, program sprites to mimic line-following robots, create arcade-style games, and more!

Snippet: In Scratch, you won’t type any complicated commands. Instead, you’ll connect graphical blocks together to create programs.

This book covers Scratch 2, which was released in May 2013. This version allows you to create projects directly in your web browser so you don’t have to install any software in your computer…

To start Scratch, go to the Scratch website and click the TRY IT OUT link.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

The Next Wave: The Quest to Harness the Power of the Oceans

The Next Wave: The Quest to Harness the Power of the Oceans (Scientists in the Field Series)
by Elizabeth Rusch (Author)

Booktalk: Journey to the wave-battered coast of the Pacific Northwest to meet some of the engineers and scientists working to harness the punishing force of our oceans, one of the nature’s powerful and renewable energy sources. With an array of amazing devices that cling to the bottom of the sea floor and surf on the crests of waves, these explorers are using a combination of science, imagination, and innovation to try to capture wave energy in the hopes of someday powering our lives in a cleaner, more sustainable way.

Snippet:
POWER NEAR THE PEOPLE
A great deal of energy generated around the world is lost from resistance in wires when transported long distances. One of the benefits of ocean energy is that electricity can be generated–and used–near where people live. More than half the U.S. population lives near the coast and more than half the world’s population lives within 125 miles (200 kilometers) of the ocean.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

A Trip into Space: An Adventure to the International Space Station

A Trip into Space: An Adventure to the International Space Station
by Lori Haskins Houran (Author) and Francisca Marquez (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Visit the International Space Station, where astronauts work, sleep, and walk in space!

Snippet:
Tasting a drink
That may float around
Sipping in space

Taking a walk
Without any ground
Flipping in space

Two in One!

This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up will be hosted by Today’s Little Ditty.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Vibrations Make Sound

Vibrations Make Sound
by Jennifer Boothroyd (Author)

Booktalk: Young readers will learn how vibrations make sound that we can hear with simple text for beginning readers.

Snippet: Sound is what we hear.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

The Soda Bottle School

The Soda Bottle School
by Laura Kutner (Author), Suzanne Slade (Author) and Aileen Darragh (Illustrator)

Booktalk: In a Guatemalan village, students squished into their tiny schoolhouse, two grades to a classroom. The villagers had tried expanding the school, but the money ran out before the project was finished. No money meant no wall materials, and that meant no more room for the students. Until they got a wonderful, crazy idea: Why not use soda bottles, which were scattered all around, to form the cores of the walls?

Snippet: The empty bottles weren’t strong enough to build a wall, so students stuffed the bottles with trash to create eco-ladrillos. Using small sticks, they shoved old chip bags, grocery sacks, and plastic trash into the bottles.

See how they made the bottles into eco-ladrillos and built a wall.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Survive! Inside the Human Body, Vol. 3: The Nervous System

Survive! Inside the Human Body, Vol. 3: The Nervous System
by Seok-young Song (Author) and Hyun-dong Han (Illustrator)

Booktalk: When Geo and Dr. Brain find themselves inside Phoebe’s brain, they must brave shocking electrical signals and navigate a maze of neurons and synapses. Will the dynamic duo finally escape? And what’s the matter with Phoebe, anyway?

Snippet:

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Howtoons: Tools of Mass Construction

Howtoons: Tools of Mass Construction
by Saul Griffith (Author), Ingrid Dragotta (Author), Nick Dragotta (Author, Artist) and more!

Booktalk: Howtoons celebrates their 10th anniversary with a 360 page remastered collection containing more than 70 projects of the “best of” Howtoons over those years, along with new material, photos, and essays by the creators of the series.

Combining comics and real-life science and engineering principles, Howtoons encourages kids to become active participants in the world around them. Follow Celine and Tucker as they learn through play! Challenged to make something “other than trouble,” this brother-and-sister pair use everyday objects to invent toys that readers can build!

Snippet:

See the large scale hovercraft video!

See the zoetrope video!

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)