March 2022 – STEM Friday

March 25, 2022March 24, 2022

Inside In: X-Rays of Nature’s Hidden World

Inside In: X-Rays of Nature’s Hidden World
by Jan Paul Schutten (Author), Arie van ‘t Riet (Illustrator), and Laura Watkinson (Translator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Arie van ‘t Riet is a Dutch artist and medical physicist who uses X-ray equipment to create “bioramas”–X-ray portraits of animals and plants. While teaching the physics of radiation and radiation safety, he became interested in the application of low-energy X-rays to capture delicate objects. Now you can discover nature’s secret world with this collection of X-ray photographs of animals and plants!

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

March 18, 2022March 17, 2022

Wheels! All About Transport

Wheels! All About Transport
by Moira Butterfield (Author) and Bryony Clarkson (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Come and hitch a ride in vehicles of every shape and size –from family cars to double-decker buses, chugging tractors to speedy supercars, and gigantic monster trucks to noisy fire engines.

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

March 11, 2022March 10, 2022

MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA series

MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA series
by Anastasia Suen (Author)

Booktalk: My MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA series came out during the pandemic and now all four books are online as e-books. Hooray! Click the links under each title to find them at your library.

@ Hoopla | Overdrive | WorldCat

These middle grade expository books are written in prose, but I’ve been writing STEM poetry for years, so that’s what I did for this author visit mini-comic.

In the What is your favorite BIG animal? mini-comic, I’ve written two pocket poems about two of the creatures in the MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA Creatures of Today book. Each pocket poem is based on two facts from the book.

What will the third poem be? That’s up to you–and your students! Write two facts about your favorite BIG animal on page 6 and write a pocket poem using those facts on page 7. Then draw your animal on page 8.

Sylvia and Janet are hosting Poetry Friday at Poetry for Children

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

March 4, 2022

Little Killers: The Ferocious Lives of Puny Predators

We all know middle grade readers who can be a little jaded and hard to please. That’s why you should make sure you have Sneed B. Collard III’s newest, Little Killers: The Ferocious Lives of Puny Predators, in your arsenal.

With just enough humor sprinkled in, Collard introduces us to some lesser-known predators that have a big impact regardless of their size.

Take the pteropods. More commonly known as sea angels or sea butterflies, he calls them the “potato chips of the sea” –isn’t that great imagery?– because so many critters eat them. But it turns out at least some of these “potato chips” have a bite. The sea angels turn on their mostly vegetarian cousins the sea butterflies and eat them!

After revealing the killer instincts of invertebrates from flatworms to driver ants, the final chapter is a call to action to protect these creatures that we often don’t see or notice, but which serve such important roles in ecosystems.

Little Killers will grab the attention of both budding biologists and reluctant readers. Get your claws on a copy today!

Visit Growing With Science blog for the full review and activity suggestions.

March 4, 2022March 3, 2022

Bones Unearthed!

Bones Unearthed!
by Kerrie Logan Hollihan (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Combining history with science, the third book of the Creepy and True series unearths the truth about famous bones by exploring forensic evidence, archaeology, anthropology, medicine, and folklore. Chapter by chapter, these cryptic tales of murder and mayhem span across cultures and millennia, covering everything from Aztec skull racks, the cannibals of Jamestown, and Benjamin Franklin’s basement boneyard, to frozen sailors in the Arctic and the centuries-long search for the body of King Richard III.

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