March 8, 2011
Today’s "Cool Photo of the Week" was taken at the opening of the Grand Aquarium in Hong Kong’s Ocean Park. Although it looks as though these tiny fish are about to become lunch for the humongous Grey Nurse Shark swimming behind them, these fish actually work as a team.
The small fish are pilot fish, and they eat fish lice, little crabs, and blood sucking worms that live on the skin of the shark. The pilot fish suck on the shark’s skin and keep it clean, and in exchange, the shark doesn’t eat them. This is also a smart way for the pilot fish to avoid other predators, because most of their enemies are careful to stay away from sharks.
There have even been reports of smaller pilot fish swimming into a shark’s mouth a cleaning away bits of food caught between its teeth…..like living dental floss!
Photo courtesy of MSNBC.com’s “Animal Tracks”
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 7, 2011
This morning the space shuttle Discovery undocked from the International Space Station and started its final flight back to Earth. SpaceWeather.com says that this may allow people in the US and Europe to see a double flyby - Discovery and the International Space Station traveling together through the night sky!
Click here to go to the satellite tracker website and type in your zip code. It will tell you what time to look, and in which direction. If the skies are clear, you’ll be able to see what looks like two bright lights traveling close together through the night sky.
This is also a last chance to see Discovery in flight, because the orbiter will be retired after it lands in Florida on Wednesday.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 5, 2011
I can’t wrap up my memories of visiting Corpus Christi without a tip of the hat to the first graders at Crockett Elementary. I think that you guys are DINO-MITE, too!
I loved your very, very tall poster!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 5, 2011
I met such smart, respectful, curious students in the four Corpus Christi elementary schools that I visited this week. Don’t you love this shot of my conversation with kindergartner Alex Hernandez, with his classmates Elizabeth Garcia, Alizae Herrera and Noah Cardona looking on?
This photograph is by Michael Zamora, a photographer for the Caller-Times newspaper. Thanks so much for posting this great online story with lots of pictures of the kids, the schools, and all the great posters and billboards they made for my visit.
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Look at this group of 3rd graders with their VOLCANOES poster. All the classes did lots of preparation for my visit, reading, writing, and creating artwork. There were huge murals on OCEANS and THE MOON that were just great.
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Here’s one of the fourth grade classes who read my book EYES AND EARS and wrote about it themselves.
The school also had a writing contest, and I was proud to be photographed with the winners, my fellow authors!
Thank you to all the librarians, teachers, principals and instructional technology specialists who helped to make this a great week! Librarian Alissa Gonzalez gave me a seed packet along with the paper bouquet, so that we can grow Texas bluebonnets in our garden this summer. I’ll think of Corpus Christi every time I see those blue heads nodding in the breeze!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 4, 2011
It is Friday, so what do you find on SeymourSimon.com?
A NEW SCIENCE JOKE OR RIDDLE! Woo Hoo!
Check the home page to find out why this cat is making such a horrrrrrrible noise!
Posted by: Liz Nealon
March 4, 2011
I’ve been speaking in schools in Corpus Christi, Texas this week, which means I have had a chance to walk near the salt marshes and see the huge numbers of birds - many, many species - which live here at the Gulf Coast.
We drove out to Portland, Texas ("over the bridge," as they say in Corpus Christi) and in short order saw a Great Egret, standing on one leg in the salt marsh, a White Ibis (given its name by the Ancient Egyptians, who considered ibis to be sacred birds), an American Avocet (sweeping its long bill through the shallow muddy water in search of food), an endangered Wood Stork, many Royal Terns (dapper in their black and white plumage, these elegant looking birds are cousins to the common gull), and a whole colony of Roseate Spoonbills. When we first saw this mass of pink birds, my wife and I thought they must be flamingoes (we’re from New York City, so we don’t know what we are seeing when it comes to Gulf Coast wildlife!). A very smart sixth grader told us what kind of birds these were.
And of course, we saw many brown pelicans, one of the most common birds of the Gulf Coast. I have always loved to watch pelicans feed in the ocean. They start by hovering high over the water, scanning the waves for fish. When they spot food, they make a steep, hard dive, sometimes from as high as 50 feet (15 meters), and explode into the water - it is like a bomb going off when they hit. I learned something new about pelicans this week. The reason they can dive that way without being injured is that they have air sacs in their shoulders and neck that act like air bags in a car, and protect them from the impact when they hit the water.
In order to identify and learn about all these birds, we bought a laminated bird identification folder with pictures and descriptions of typical bird life on the Gulf Coast. You can do this wherever you travel - hotel gift shops and souvenir stores almost always have them, to use for identifying local birds, fish, or wildlife. It is a great way to learn about nature wherever you go.
Thanks to all the students, teachers and librarians in Corpus Christi for sharing your great city with me. It has been a fun week!
Sun rising over Corpus Christi Bay
Roseate Spoonbills photo courtesy of the Tampa Bay Estatuary
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 3, 2011
A reader named Emily C. wrote today with a question about my book, NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T. Emily asked:
Why don’t I understand some of the stuff in your book? It’s confusing.
Ahhh….welcome to the world of Optical Illusions! These pictures are a sort of riddle for your eyes. Some people see one thing when they look at a picture, other people look at the exact same picture and see something totally different. Of course, I don’t want you to feel confused, but this book is designed to get you to look, think, look again, and then think some more. Think of it as a puzzle, and have fun with it.
Here is a simple example of an optical illusion. Which of these lines look longer to you, AB or CD? Most people would say that AB is longer. But, if you measure them with a ruler, you will see that they are each exactly the same length.
Try reading the book with someone else - your teacher, librarian, someone in your family, or a friend. It is fun when you each try to decipher each visual puzzle, and talk together about what you see. The more that you explore optical illusions, the more you will find that you can’t always believe your eyes!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 1, 2011
It is Tuesday, so it must be time for…........TA DA! Cool Photo of the Week!
This 6-month-old panda cub was born in captivity, and now it is being taught how to live in the wild. Researchers at the Hetaoping Research and Conservation Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong National Nature Reserve in China are moving the cub to the second phase of its training, where it will live at a higher altitude and encounter rugged living conditions.
So what is with the Halloween costumes, you might ask? The Chinese researchers believe that if the pandas are going to be successfully reintroduced into the wild, they must never have any contact with humans. So, they are dressed like grown up pandas!
I wonder how they disguise their human smell?!
Photo courtesy MSNBC.com "The Week in Pictures"
Posted by: Liz Nealon
March 1, 2011
Water is essential to life on earth. We need water to grow food, keep clean, provide power, control fire, and last but not least, we need it to stay alive!
Kids often ask me: If water is constantly being cleaned and recycled through the earth’s water cycle, why do we need to conserve it?
So let’s start with understanding how this thing called THE WATER CYCLE works.
1. Evaporation. The sun heats water in rivers, lakes, and the ocean and turns it into vapor (fog, mist, or steam), and the vapor rises into the air.
2. Condensation. When the vapor cools down, it turns into tiny drops of water that cling to each other and form clouds.
3. Precipitation. The water falls from the clouds in the form of rain, snow, sleet or even hail.
4. Runoff. Some of the precipitation is collected in Earth’s rivers, lakes, streams, and reservoirs. In our country, we clean this water in treatment plants and use it to meet our basic needs.
However, there is not unlimited water for humans to use. While it’s true that our planet Earth looks like a big blue ball because 75% of it is covered by water, a lot of that water is not usable in that form, either because it is salt water (in the oceans) or because it is frozen (in glaciers and the polar icecaps). For this reason, water is a limited resource that we must conserve and protect.
There are other benefits to saving water. You save energy by using less hot water (reducing your family’s carbon footprint), and when you’re using less energy, you’re also saving money. A win all around!
What can you and your family do to conserve water? Here’s how you can change your daily habits and make a big difference:
· When it’s time to brush your teeth, fill a glass of water, turn off the faucet, and brush for two minutes. Then, use some of the water in the glass to rinse your mouth, and the rest to rinse off your toothbrush. Voilà! Teeth brushed with just one glass of water.
· If you use a dishwasher, follow these tips:
a. Use the RINSE cycle when there are just a few dishes in the dishwasher (some machines call it "Rinse and Hold"). This will soften or remove most of the food waste on the dishes, so that they can sit for a few days until the dishwasher is full. Then, run the full clean cycle.
b. If you like to rinse your dishes off in the sink before you put them in the dishwasher, don’t keep the water running while you do it. Instead, put the stopper in the drain, run a couple of inches of water, and use your sponge or dishcloth to wipe the dishes before they go in the dishwasher.
· Apply the same idea to doing laundry. Don’t run the washing machine until you have a full load of wash.
Remember, 1 in every 3 people in the world does not have access to clean, safe water to meet their daily needs. That is only going to get worse as our population grows.
Water is an essential resource to sustain life. As governments and community organizations make it a priority to deliver adequate supplies of quality water to people, we all can help by learning how to conserve and protect this precious resource in our daily lives.
Water Cycle Diagram courtesy JEA.com
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 28, 2011
Here’s a question that I am often asked: If water is constantly being cleaned and recycled through the earth’s water cycle, why do we need to conserve it?
The answer is simple: We use up our planet’s fresh water faster than it can be replenished by nature.
And here’s the critical fact about water: About 75 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by water, but only 1 percent of this is available for people to use. The rest is salt water or is frozen in polar ice caps and glaciers.
NOW, do you see why it is important to conserve water?
Water is an essential resource for life and good health. According to WHO (the World Health Organization), 1 in every 3 people in the world does not have access to clean, safe water that meets their daily needs.
I decided to write about this today because I was inspired by this magical and beautiful film, made by an artist in Brazil.
We all need to be part of the effort to conserve water, use it sparingly and only as we need it. We must protect this precious resource, without which life is not possible.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
