STEM Friday

March 8, 2019February 12, 2019

Explore dolphins with an expert

Absolute Expert: Dolphins
by Jennifer Swanson, with Justine Jackson-Ricketts
112 pages; ages 8-12
National Geographic Kids, 2018

Justine Jackson-Ricketts is a marine biologist who loves dolphins. Good thing, because she is our guide into the world of dolphins. She does research on community ecology – that means she is learning how dolphins interact with each other and their environments.

In this book she and Jennifer Swanson team up to tell us all about dolphins, beginning with how they are related to each other and where to find them. Then we get a close-up look at dolphins, inside and out. They have streamlined heads so they can cut through water quickly, and their flippers have bones that look almost like fingers. They’ve got rubbery skin, layers of blubber, and a brain designed for problem-solving.

What I like about this book: The photography is gorgeous! And I really enjoy having Justine along for the read, because she (and Jennifer) explain everything in terms a non-dolphin can understand. I love the “Deep Dives” at the end of each chapter – hands-on activities that extend your understanding of life as a dolphin. And I love the Dolphin Personality Quiz. Turns out I’m a bottlenose dolphin. Click-ck-ck! Squeeeek? Bzzzzt!

Head over to Archimedes Notebook for another dolphin book and some beyond-the-book activities.

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

March 1, 2019

Animal Noses by Mary Holland Stands Out

Today at Wrapped in Foil we are highlighting the new STEM picture book Animal Noses by Mary Holland, whose previous title, Animal Mouths, received a NSTA/CBC Outstanding Trade Science Award.

Unless they are stuffed up due to a cold or allergies, we generally take our noses for granted. However, they serve two critical functions: they allow us to breathe and to provide our sense of smell. In this book, readers explore how many different animals use their noses in special ways, including for finding food, finding mates, communicating with one another, and being alert to danger.

The book is illustrated with photographs of animals ranging from bald eagles to shrews, which allows the reader to see the range of different noses. There’s even a luna moth, which although it doesn’t have a nose, has structures that serve the same purposes.

Arbordale books always have wonderful pages to explore in the backmatter. In this case the “For Creative Minds” section has a detailed explanation of the sense of smell and “Fun Facts” (like the fact an albatross can smell it’s food 12 miles away!), as well as activities. You can see the pages here.

Overall, Animal Noses is a fun and educational look at a particular animal sense that will appeal to educators, and also thrill young naturalists and scientists. Sniff out a copy today!

March 1, 2019

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
by Valerie Bodden (Author)

Booktalk: A historical account–including eyewitness quotes–of the devastating 2010 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the resulting oil spill’s harmful environmental impact, ending with how the disaster’s victims are memorialized today.

Snippet:

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

March 1, 2019February 12, 2019

Bats!

The Secret Life of the Little Brown Bat
by Laurence Pringle; illus. by Kate Garchinsky
32 pages; ages 6-9
Boyds Mills Press, 2018

The sun has set. A July sky dims, then grows darker.

For most of us, that means time to sleep. But for Otis and his family it is time to WAKE UP! There’s so much to do before they fly into the night. The book takes us into the family life of little brown bats, how parents know their pups, and first flight.

What I like about this book: It’s such a personal look into the lives of little brown bats. I love the nearly step-by-step instructions Laurence Pringle gives us on how to hunt using echolocation – not that I’ll ever use it (unless I’m hunting moths maybe). If the bat’s name, Otis, seems familiar that’s because it comes from the genus name Myotis, which means mouse-eared. The illustrations are perfect – with a soft feel that you almost want to snuggle up to.

Head over to Archimedes Notebook for another book review and some hands-on activities.

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

February 22, 2019February 21, 2019

The Squirrel Manifesto

The Squirrel Manifesto
by Ric Edelman (Author), Jean Edelman (Author), and Dave Zaboski (Illustrator)

Booktalk: A modern-day fable in the spirit of The Ant and the Grasshopper that teaches kids–and their parents–the value of spending money, saving for the future, and giving to charity.

Snippet:
If we save just a little
a couple nuts at a time,

it leads to what matters:
Squirrel Peace of Mind.

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

February 22, 2019February 13, 2019

Snowman – Cold = Puddle

In some places spring is already poking through. Not where I live – that won’t happen for another month. Maybe more, given the unpredictable nature of this winter … But I couldn’t wait for things to totally thaw to share this book, published just a couple weeks ago.

Snowman – Cold = Puddle, By Laura Purdie Salas; illus. by Micha Archer
32 pages; ages 4-8. Charlesbridge, 2019

science + poetry = surprise!

“Science is why and how a flower grows,” writes Laura Purdie Salas. “Poetry is looking at that flower and seeing a firework.” This book may look like math, but it is poetry in disguise. Laura takes us on a seasonal deep dive, exploring spring through a series of equations.

snowman – cold = puddle
breeze + kite = ballet
1 dandelion X 1 breath = 100 parachutes

Smaller text includes more information about these seasonal observations, along with context. For example, dandelions depend on wind to spread their seeds. And some of those seeds can travel hundreds of miles before settling down.

What I ~~like~~ love about this book: What a fun way to explore a season! And turning math into poetry is definitely a plus. I like that she includes a variety of math functions (addition, subtraction, multiplication) and divides her poem into three acts: early, mid-, and late spring. I like that there are two levels of reading this book, the math-poetry and the nature notes.

I love the artwork! In her notes at the back of the book, Micha Archer says that for her, spring = color. She used collage to create the illustrations, layering tissue papers, using crayon-rubbing resists with watercolor washes, carving her own stamps, then snipping, slicing, and gluing down the papers. She used oil paints to add the children’s faces.

But what I really, really, really love about this book is the equation she has left readers to solve on the very last page.

you + the world = ?

Head over to Archimedes Notebook for some Beyond the Book STEM-ish activities.

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

February 15, 2019

Do Doodlebugs Doodle?

I was in the mood for something fun and light this morning, so I’ve highlighted the picture book Do Doodlebugs Doodle? Amazing Insect Facts by Corinne Demas, Artemis Roehrig, and illustrated by Ellen Shi at Wrapped in Foil blog.

Overall, Do Doodlebugs Doodle? has a lot of positives going for it. First, there’s the engaging premise, which is to ask silly questions relating insect common names and then astonish the reader with an actual fact about that group. For example, the authors ask, “Do horseflies gallop?” The accompanying illustration shows a jockey riding a horsefly. Turning the page, the reader learns that although horseflies don’t gallop, they can fly faster than a horse can gallop. Cool!

Ellen Shi’s illustrations are just the right mix of silly fun and realistically-portrayed insects.

It also has some pedigree. Corinne Demas is an award-winning children’s author and Artemis Roehrig is a biologist who works with invasive insects. Persnickety Press is the sister imprint of the Cornell Lab Publishing Group, which is doing Jane Yolen’s wonderful bird series.

Despite all the positives, I have to admit I was a tiny bit disappointed with one aspect of this book. If you’re curious, visit the blog for more details.

The authors dedicate their book to budding entomologists. Check out a copy and find out if doodlebugs do indeed doodle.

February 15, 2019February 9, 2019

Sea Bear

Sea Bear: A Journey for Survival
by Lindsay Moore (Author / Illustrator)

Booktalk: A solitary polar bear travels across the sea ice in pursuit of food. As the ice melts and food becomes scarce, she is forced to swim for days. Finally, storm-tossed and exhausted, she finds shelter on land, where she gives birth to cubs and waits for the sea to freeze again. Includes backmatter about Arctic animals, climate change, and sea ice.

Snippet:
Polar bears are patient beasts,
as patient as glaciers.
We know how to hope and how to wait.
I learned to be patient long ago
from my polar bear mother–

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

February 15, 2019January 26, 2019

Charlotte’s Bones

Before I could read words, I “read” books by looking at pictures. My favorite book at the time was my dad’s geology textbook that had an entire section on fossils and dinosaurs. That could explain my love of children’s books about paleontology (the branch of science concerned with fossil animals and plants). So here’s a book about the lives of animals whose bones we find in stones…

Charlotte’s Bones: The Beluga whale in a farmer’s field
by Erin Rounds; illus. by Alison Carver
36 pages; ages 5-9
Tilbury House, 2018

Many thousands of years ago, when a sheet of ice more than a mile thick began to let go of the land… the Atlantic Ocean flooded great valleys…

Some of those glacier-scoured valleys were in Vermont. When they became part of the sea, Charlotte and her Beluga buddies swam into the bays. They hunted salmon and raised their young. But one day Charlotte got trapped in a marshy area and her pod could not rescue her.

What I like about this book: The wonderful way that Erin Rounds shows the process of decay and sedimentation that covered her. And how, thousands of years later, in 1849, railroad workers found Charlotte’s bones. A naturalist wanted to know more, so he pieced the bones together. Then he wondered, how did a whale get to a farmer’s field in Vermont?

I like the extensive back matter that helps to answer the naturalist’s questions. There is more information about other ice age mammals whose remains have been discovered in Vermont as well: Musk oxen, woolly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers.

Head over to Archimedes Notebook for another dino book review and some Beyond the Books activities.

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

February 8, 2019

Birds of Every Color

I don’t usually mention a book before it is published, but this week we are featuring Sneed B. Collard III’s new book Birds of Every Color, which is due out next month.

Right up front I should mention that this isn’t a concept book about colors. Instead, it delves deeply into the whys and hows of the fascinating array of bird feather hues.

For example, one page explains how birds get certain pigments from the food they eat and another explains about melanins, brown and black pigments that birds and other animals manufacture internally. Ever hear of psittacofulvins? You’ll find out about those, too.

Look closely and you will see bird colors may be different from place to place, season to season, and even between individual birds. Did you know that the extensiveness of the black bib of house sparrows. and the black and white patches on the heads of chickadees reflect their status in the flock?

As for the illustrations, on the last page we learn that either Sneed or his son, Braden took all the photographs for the book. Cool!

Birds of Every Color will enthrall budding ornithologists and nature lovers in general. Look for it in March.

If you love birds and want to participate in citizen science, check out the accompanying information and links for the Great Backyard Bird Count next weekend.