Senor Parrot's Perch

Did Fleming Rescue Churchill?: A Research Puzzle by James Cross Giblin, and illustrated by Erik Brooks.

Reading level: Ages 9-12
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); 1st edition (April 1, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-0805081831

Did Fleming Rescue Churchill?: A Research Puzzle illustrates the problems of historical research and the work that goes into establishing what is true and how to make facts into an interesting story. It’s also a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of internet research. While researching a well known scientist, fifth grader Jason finds three conflicting stories and must sort out the truth.

Jason had missed class so he could see the dentist because of a toothache. Too bad, because he missed getting his choice for a scientist to research and report on. The only one left was Alexander Fleming, and who was he? His teacher, Ms. O’Mara, insisted he was a great choice because he discovered penicillin, the antibiotic that has saved millions of lives.

When Jason agrees, he mentions to his teacher that he’ll start on the internet and go from there. Jason’s teacher warns him that the internet is a poor place to start, not everything is true. He accepts her advice, but he’s turned off by the biographies he finds, and settles for the encyclopedia. Here he learns the details of Fleming’s career and that he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Then, his teacher gives him useful pointers for organizing and writing his report, and most importantly, he learns how to make his report interesting for others.

Jason’s report grows more interesting to him, also, as he proceeds. Inspired to find the truth about a link between Fleming and Winston Churchill that he has learned about on the internet, Jason spends every free moment looking for some source that will settle the questions that have arisen during his research. How will he resolve the conflict stories about Fleming?

All in all, this book was fun to read. More importantly, it taught important lessons about research and writing at a middle school level. I really do think that this book is worth reading. It -Yeah, right Dad! – would even make a good jumping off point for keeping a kid or two busy for a while during the upcoming summer. Have him or her read the book, then assign someone who has won a Nobel Prize as a subject for a three page paper, using the lessons from this book as a guide.

Well, Senor Parrot, you’ve laid a big goose egg, I hear you say, Not over summer break!� But a trip to a water park would make a good reward, if you need help kicking up the enthusiasm.

Its raining today. The kids are home sick, too. They’ll want to get on the computer and play Webkinz or something like that, or they’ll want to watch TV all day. All brain rot, really. They’ll be bored and drive my wife crazy. They need an activity, and a fun one, and why not a brain building one?

Cool Gravity Activities: Fun Science Projects About Balance by James Hopwood is full of fun, simple, and thought provoking science activities. Beginning with some basic instruction on scientific method, the book sets some rules for the activities. Really, they’re hints on what to look for, and set the stage for kids to learn.

Second, there is a two page layout of things the kids can find around the house to use in their experiments. Maybe a hockey stick, or a rake, or a ruler or thread. Get some eggs, metal forks and wooden popsicle sticks. A few more things and you’re ready. I’d skip on the bathroom plunger, though. Yuck! Maybe a kid’s garden shovel, or something like that.

Now to the activities. Each has pointers on what to look for, instructions on performing the experiment, an explanation of the science behind the activity, and a practical application for real life. There’s quick projects like balancing a plunger, or a more suitable substitute, making tops from oddly shaped pieces of paper, or how an uncooked egg spins compared to a hard-boiled egg. Some of these will be fun for your kids to use to show off to their friends. Try balancing two forks and a popsicle stick on one finger!

None of the experiments takes too long and each incorporates writing data and findings in a journal. This writing part is critical. Scientists write down everything and then misplace it. Engineers know where they put everything. If you kid loses his or her notes, you know they’ll be a scientist. If they tidy them up, file them alphabetically and cross-reference them, they’ll be librarians. But if they just keep them organized on a bookshelf, they’ll be engineers.

Little Rat Sets Sail by Monika Bang-Campbell, illustrated by Molly Bang.

Little Rat Sets Sail introduces kids to sailing without really downplaying their ambiguous feelings. The book depicts learning to sail pretty much the way they will experience it for themselves.� As Little Rat grows in experience and overcomes some of her fears, she grows in confidence, too. It’s also very entertaining for young readers along the way. The illustrations are great. Illustrator Molly Bang has fantastic fun exaggerating Little Rat’s fears, and she shows what it’s like to be out in the boat, the way sailing really is.

In Monika Bang-Campbell’s book, Little Rat’s parents enroll her in a sailing class, much to her dismay. She shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Pictures of sailing scenes hang from every wall in her home, evidence that her parents are passionate about sailing. But Little Rat finds danger and distress everywhere, from the steep descent from the top of the hill down to the boats, the deep water that she thinks is filled with eels and jellyfish, and even having a life jacket different from what the other kids wear, not dorky like hers. But she has a good teacher who recognizes her fears and helps her to grow in confidence and courage as the summer progresses.

Sailing can be scary for little folks. Sailboats rock. They are never level. Things happen all the time. The wind strengthens or wanes and changing direction means changing sides and ducking heads to avoid the boom, changing which line is held, and on and on.

For my kids, it wasn’t so much the depth of the water or the thought of what might be waiting just below the surface that upset them. It was the tipping and rolling with the wind and the constant sense of losing their balance. The boat would not stay level or at even the same angle. But these things, disconcerting or not, are much of what later becomes the fun of sailing.

After a while, my kids became eager to get into the boat and spend a few hours out on the lake. As long as they have enough to keep them busy, its a lot of fun. Now they’re old enough to spend some time steering at the rudder, or holding the jib or main sheets to control the sails. Videos can also be helpful. We’ve acquired several and we review them in the spring, or watch them snowy nights when we’d rather be on a warm lake soaking up the sun.

Here’s a video clip from Youtube, cut from a popular video Teaching Kids How To Sail:

Rapunzel’s Revenge is a graphic novel that had plenty of good press before it made it to the shelves of your local book store. Written by girl’s favorite Shannon Hale, along with her husband, Dean Hale, and illustrated by a non-relative coincidentally named Nathan Hale, it started out with an advantage. Later, it won the Cybils award for best graphic novel for the elementary/middle grades.

When I first heard about it, some time before the Cybils, I was excited to get it, thinking my girls would go for this tale. I had, out of curiosity picked up my oldest girl’s copy of Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale, and was very surprised that it was intelligent and well written, instead of some sort of boy-hungry clone. Now I’m a dad who doesn’t want his girls growing up to be vapid boy-hungry clones, so this left me predisposed to hunting out Rapunzel’s Revenge. Then, like a busy dad, I forgot about it.

I came across it a few weeks ago and finally picked it up. Oldest daughter couldn’t put it down, and ended up finishing it that day before she went to bed. She still lights up when I ask her about it. So I read it. It was great. Jammed with action and adventure on every page, it was a truly exciting revision of the well known fairly tale, and far more fun to read. The illustrations were an easy match for the well told tale.

And it is a revision. Somehow, Jack, of Jack and the Beanstalk fame – an occasionally cross-dressing Jack! – even gets messed up in the whole affair, too.

I generally dislike graphic novels/comic books. Usually they have a story not worth bothering to tell. If they have any value, its usually because of the illustrations, but even then, that’s not always the case. I love opera, and in many ways comic books are like opera. The music of opera is unparalleled in western civilization, but if you take the time to learn the story, that can wreck the whole experience because it can be so stupid. Take Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”, for example. The story is beyond stupid and confusing, but the music is so transcendent you can’t pry it out of your head with a two-by-four! Comic books are like that. The story is too often beyond stupid, but the drawing can somehow redeem the work.

However, Rapunzel’s Revenge is a great exception to the rule. It’s story is very well told. The characters are engaging and funny. The drawing is fantastic and imaginative. I have no qualms recommending this to anyone.

So, is someone’s birthday coming up? Find out if she’s read it, and if not, go buy this book and give it to her. (That’s right, “she”. I really don’t think many “he’s” are going to really be thankful, deep down in their hearts, if they were to receive this book. Buy him Artemis Fowl instead!)

Here’s an odd little video from YouTube:

My kids loved this video. Three teens, calling themselves The Galactic Wailers have constructed instruments from Lego bits and pieces and Lego sensors. These are not robots, but they are instruments that incorporate sensors and other stuff used in lego robotics.� Legos are the coolest toys ever made.� It’s� over here is the newspaper article where I learned about this.

Here’s their really cool video where they describe their instruments and� perform the theme to Star Wars:

This sort of stuff inspires them. It’s over their heads, right now, but they start aiming higher. I think its great.

For the most part, engineering is applied science. What makes engineering so fascinating is the context of how science is applied to solve problems and to do practical things. A lot of non-engineering� jobs use applied science, as well. Steve Wolf’s fun, informative, and fascinating book, The Secret Science Behind Movie Stunts and Special Effects is all about how he uses science to create special effects for movies and TV. It’s this Hollywood context that makes the book so fun and adds the “Cool” factor often needed to make a kid want to learn more and study harder so that he or she can do this sort of cool stuff, too.

This book isn’t some dumbed-down effort to coax kids to try science, because. Wolf jumps right in, using the example of setting off an explosion, to get started talking meaningfully about the several states of matter and chemical reactions, providing excellent working definitions and examples every time. He works forwards and backwards in his examples, beginning with something he might do on a set, stepping back to explain scientific principals involved, and then moving forward again to show other ways these principals are harnessed to create other special effects. He has an extensive glossary of terms at the end with additional supplemental material.

The book is well written, explaining fundamental scientific principals in clear and accessible language, making this book suitable for kids in middle school and up. It should appeal to all, but I bet that it hooks a lot more boys than girls. I’d recommend trying to get this into the hands of any bright kid who’s just not motivated to study science.� It has fun illustrations showing lots of the special tools and gear that special effects people use and how their special effects are pulled off.

Wolf has a website called, naturally, scienceinthemovies.com, that supports his book and the presentations he makes. He has videos of presentations and lots of links to science sites, grouped by topics.

Rexburg Geeks has a nice post on math education in schools these days.� Actually its not so nice because it’s a bit scarry if your a parent and and you’re concerned with whether your kid is going to grow up to be the head and not the tail in tomorrow’s economy.

Their post is around a video from Youtube entitled “Math Education: An Inconvient Truth”. I’ve inserted the video here, too.

ZDNet Education blogger Christopher Dawson has a related post entitled Is it too late to turn around math/science ed in the US? Dawson’s comments were precipitated upon reading The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Friedman, which calls into question the US’ ability to compete in the future against nations like China and India which emphasize engineering and technology education much more than US school systems.

Dawson goes on to consider the usual suspects: low pay for qualified math and science educators and teaching to tests that emphasize skillsets that are a mile wide and an inch deep, keeping school kids form acheiving mastery in an area of learning.

I’m inclined to think that its more the first cause than the last, and another: we don’t track students. We teach to all levels in a classroom, slowing down the swift and leaving the slow behind. I’ve never been a fan of tracking students by ability, but it seems like we need to address it as a possible solution. Perhaps we can experiment in a school district somewhere and see what happens. I’m curious what others are thinking.

Teen Science Fair Sourcebook: Winning School Science Fairs and National Competitions

Author: Tanya Vicker

ISBN:� 978-0766027114

As kids grow up, science often becomes a tedious exercise in memorization and pointless facts. But if you talk to scientists, these “boring” facts are keys that they use to unlock mysteries. For engineers facts are like legos, snap-together pieces of knowledge that they can use to build anything they can imagine.

Where does the spark come from that transforms these facts into the magic formula of knowledge and new ideas? I think that it is innate in some kids, to be sure, but I also think that bored kids can become excited by the challenge of learning by seeking answers to their own questions and by seeing it modeled while they study their science.

I suspect it has a lot to do with how we teach science as a one size fits all endeavor, too. It appears that Tanya Vicker thinks so, too. In a newspaper article I found online in The Salt Lake Tribune about Vicker, a science fair coach at the Academy for Math, Engineering and Science (AMES) in Holladay, Utah.

Vicker’s book is entitled Teen Science Fair Sourcebook: Winning School Science Fairs and National Competitions (Prime Single Titles).

The book focuses on using science projects to get teens interested in pursuing science projects that they feel strongly about and then to develop and research for the projects themselves. Driven by their own interests, many students develop original projects that can lead to awards and enormous college scholarship offers. They also learn how to transform their own questions into research and action. I’ve put this on my library list. I suspect that it’s a missing link between introduction to science through rote learning and being a scientist for fun (and profit).

From the article:

It’s about preparing kids for life and post-secondary education. “That means learning to think critically and “celebrating their capacity to become smarter every day,” Church said.

Vickers can think of no better tool than science and says if her students succeed, it’s because of their own ideas and energy.

The “project-based” learning model inherent to science fairs simply unleashes students’ potential, she said. She’s so committed to the ideal, she teaches it at the U.’s education department, training tomorrow’s teachers to weave science into English, history and math curricula.

Kids get so invested in their projects they hardly realize how hard they’re working, Vickers said. Babb, for example, used baby-sitting money to help pay for her test kits. And Vickers recalls another girl whose physics project caught the attention of recruiters at MIT.

“She had never even taken a physics class,” Vickers said. “If you get the right kids matched with the right project, they’ll knock your socks off.”

My robotic future is our kids robotic today. One of my Google feeds delivered a blog link to this video of robots building cars at a BMW plant. It’s amazing to watch – like a mechanical ballet. It was maybe 20+ years ago I sat on a plane next to a newly minted grad who was headed to his new job at General Motors plant where he would program robots for their assembly line.

This plant is far more complex than the line he would start work on. In his day, there were still people working side by side with the robots. Look for people in the video. Maybe they’re on coffee break.

Thanks to Computer Finance and Dark Roasted Blend for the links.

When I was still teaching at the community college where I work, every semester I had a few students who were changing their careers, either because their jobs were obsolete, like many printing industry jobs, or that their former manufacturing jobs were moved overseas. I bet some lost jobs to robots like these.

The question for me is, what do we want to teach our kids, or even to learn for ourselves, that will prepare us for the increasing rate of change we’re facing. I’m falling on the side of emphasizing science and technology to my kids, though that isn’t all that the future holds. Nevertheless, I want my kids left with more than just a toe-hold on a future. I’d rather see them as the ones that carve it out.

Pluto, that distant round thing out there past Neptune, formerly planet number 9, now number 10-maybe, or the un-planet- maybe. How you count ‘em is still up in the air!

Dwarf Planets: Pluto, Charon, Ceres, and Eris (Amazing Science (Picture Window)) is another of the kid’s science books on our solar system I’ve read to get familiar with the recent changes in how we classify and view the objects in our solar system. It does a good job for early elementary school age kids.

There is a big disagreement among scientists and astronomers on the status of whether Pluto qualifies as a planet and there seem to be good arguments on both sides.

For young readers, 2nd to 4th grades, the author Nancy Loewen sidesteps most of the controversy, but does discuss the change in Pluto’s status from planet to dwarf planet. In addition, she tells the stories of three additional dwarf planets that were welcomed into the ranks as dwarf planets as a result of the redefinition of a planet made in 2006.

The writing is simple and short, taking up very little of each page. There are a ‘fun facts’ scattered through the book to provide additional information. At first, I didn’t care much for the style of Jeff Yesh’s illustrations, but looking at what he accomplishes with them, I came to find them very appropriate. He does an excellent job of illustrating the various points of the text, making concepts that might be confusing for a 2nd or 3rd grader very clear.

Just go to Laurel Kornfeld’s Pluto Blog to get a good pro-Pluto perspective.� Laurel comented on my post on books about Pluto and the Solar System (and set me straight on a mistake I’d made). Laurel’s post does a very good job of critiquing the 2006 re-definition of a planet, I think, but it’s beyond young kids, I think.

Or read Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson’ The Pluto Files: the Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet for the un-planet perspective. Listening to a radio interview with him is what sent me down this trail in the first place.

Title: Dwarf Planets: Pluto, Charon, Ceres and Eris

Author: Nancy Loewen

Illustrator: Jeff Yesh

Published 2008 by Picture Window Books

ISBN: 978-1404839595