February 15, 2012
Welcome to Writing Wednesday! Every Wednesday you can publish your own creative writing on the Seymour Science blog.
Ready? Let’s go!
Background:
We have been experiencing full-blown LIN-SANITY around here, since Seymour Simon is a NY Knicks fan. For those of you that don’t follow basketball, 12 days ago a 23-year-old player named Jeremy Lin came off the Knicks bench to lead the team to six straight wins. Lin has more points in his first five starts (136) than either Michael Jordan or Shaquille O’Neal did when they started playing.
One of the reason everyone is so surprised was that after Jeremy Lin’s great senior year on the Harvard University basketball team, he was not selected in the NBA draft. He was finally picked up by the Golden State Warriors, but spent most of his first season sitting on the bench.
Last year was spent in the NBA’s version of the minor leagues, playing on an NBA Development League team. Although he was not a big star there, he earned a reputation for being "tough around the basket." The New York Knicks decided to give him a try, and he began this season once again sitting on the bench. Jeremy Lin has been sleeping on his brother’s couch, not sure he should sign up for an apartment in NY in case he was going to be cut.
Then, twelve days ago, due to a series of injuries and other problems, the Knicks needed to put him into the game. The rest is Lin-sanity history! Lin’s old teammates at Harvard, by the way, say they are not surprised. The thing they remember most about Jeremy Lin is his extraordinary commitment to hard work.
Your Assignment:
Write one or two paragraphs about the importance of not giving up. You may describe Jeremy Lin’s success, or you might just write about an experience you have had, where deciding not to give up led to a big payoff.
Two simple rules:
1. Give us the best you’ve got in 5 minutes. That’s right - five minutes of creative writing. Think of it as a word extravaganza to warm up your brain for the rest of the day!
2. Tell us your first name, the name of your school, and how old you are.
Give it your best shot! When you are finished, enter your writing by clicking on the yellow "Comments" at the bottom of this blog post.
Posted by: Liz Nealon
February 14, 2012
There are many ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but that’s not what these Kissing Gouramis are really doing. They are actually fighting by pressing their mouths together and pushing against each other. Valentine’s Day is a holiday for people showing affection to other people; it’s not really for fish.
Everyone here at Seymour Science wants to wish each of our readers a very human and happy Valentine’s Day!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 13, 2012
This image from the Hubble space telescope shows two galaxies, NGC 4038 and 4039, experiencing a galactic collision. They will eventual merge into a single galaxy. As they go through this process, billions of stars are being born!
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 11, 2012
This week we ran a contest called 3 CHEERS FOR PLUTO! for students at schools that I visited in Wayne, New Jersey, Skillman, New Jersey, and Newtown, Pennsylvania. I asked students to do some research about Pluto, and write three facts about the dwarf planet. 163 students and classes left comments on the blog with their answers. Wow!
How did I come up with a winner among the many correct answers? The winner was randomly chosen by a true random number generator on the website www.random.org. First we listed all the entries on page after page, in order of when they were received. Then we used the random number generator, first to pick a page number and then to pick a number on the page. The winning pick was Ainsley, in Mrs. Rodgers’ Class, at Sol Feinstone Elementary School.
Ainsley wrote:
1. The region of its orbit is known as the Kuiper belt.
2. Puto’s distance from the sun is about 3,670,050,000 miles [5,906,380,000 kilometers]
3. Pluto’s surface is one of the coldest places in our solar system.
The class pick, for Kindergarten through second grade, was a little different. We put each class entry on a small slip of paper, put all of the class entries into a paper bag and then I put my hand into the bag and picked up one of the slips of paper without looking. The winning slip of paper was Mrs. Doheny’s 2nd grade class at Sol Feinstone Elementary School. They wrote:
On August 24th, 2006 Pluto’s status was changed from planet to dwarf planet.
Pluto is the only planet named by a kid.
Pluto has three moons.
Our second grade class had so much fun researching facts about Pluto this afternoon. The children can’t wait until Seymour Simon comes to visit us tomorrow!!!
See you soon,
Mrs. Doheny’s Second Grade Class
Congratulations to both winners. Ainsley will receive an autographed copy of OUR SOLAR SYSTEM, and Mrs. Doheny’s class will receive an autographed copy of PLANETS AROUND THE SUN.
Now, some of you very advanced planet studiers may have noticed that just a few months ago, astronomers identified a fourth moon orbiting Pluto. For now, it is just being called P4 - it is so new that it has not been given another name yet. Since it is so new, we did not disqualify any entries that said that Pluto has three moons, Charon, Nix and Hydra.
For those of you who are interested, here is a recent diagram from NASA, showing Pluto’s satellite system, which includes all four moons.
Congratulations to everyone who entered the contest! All of your entries have been posted as comments on my blog. Look for your name and your entry on my website, www.seymoursimon.com. Some of you put your comments on stories other than the contest story, so if you don’t see it there, you’ll probably find your comment under another blog story.
Please keep in touch by telling me about what book of mine you’re reading, and what subjects you like the most!
I had so much fun meeting you all last week. Thank you for your enthusiasm for paper airplanes, strange mysteries, and Pluto!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 9, 2012
Today’s Cool Video of the Week is the cutest puppy dance we have seen in a long time. Our friend Henry, from Connecticut, has been videotaping his corgi, Sparky, doing his kibble dance at feeding time.
What do you think? Cute or Not?
You can read and hear more about the cute things that puppies do in Seymour Simon’s award-winning eBook, WHY DO PUPPIES DO THAT? Click here to go to iTunes and download a free sample for your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad.
Posted by: Liz Nealon
February 9, 2012
Did you know that Seymour Simon’s SCIENCE DICTIONARY is available on his website for you? Here is an interesting definition from the Science Dictionary that may have come up in the research that many of you have been doing this week for your contest entries. Have you come across these words - Kuiper Belt? This is what the Kuiper Belt looks like.
Now click here for Seymour’s definition, to help you understand what Kuiper Belt means.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 8, 2012
Welcome to Writing Wednesday! Every week there is a new opportunity to publish your own creative writing on the Seymour Science blog. This week, we are asking you to use your writing to convince people to support an important cause.
The Problem: 2012 is one of Alaska’s snowiest winters ever. 92 inches of snow have already fallen in Anchorage, Alaska - that’s 18 inches more than they usually get in a whole year! And there are still ten weeks of winter left.
The snow is so deep that moose - the largest deer on Earth - are using plowed highways and railroad tracks to get around. This is dangerous, and they are being hit by trains and cars in record numbers. Although the moose is not officially endangered, the population is much smaller because of hunting and other human activities.
The Alaska Moose Agency wants the governor to declare a "Moose Emergency," so that they can get permission to clear trees and cut paths to give the moose safe pathways to walk on.
Your Assignment: Imagine that you are part of the Alaska Moose Agency, and you are making posters to hang up all around town, asking for a Moose Emergency. The poster can’t have too many words on it, or it will be too hard to read. So, you must argue your case, and make people care about saving the moose…..in 50 words or less.
Tips to Make Your Writing Powerful:
o Set the scene by appealing to your reader’s senses and imagination.
o Include descriptive details to help to convince the reader that your cause is important.
o Use strong verbs to get your reader to take action.
Give it your best shot. When you are finished writing, click on the yellow "Comments" at the bottom of this post to enter your writing.
Photo: Donna Dewhurst
Note to Teachers and Library Media Specialists: I have created a Guide called “Writing Exciting Nonfiction,” which you can download by clicking on this link. It outlines different techniques that I use in my writing, and includes many examples from my books. I have posted it so that you can use it with your students. Please let me know if it is helpful, and share any other feedback about how we can make this blog a productive tool for you to use in exploring and encouraging nonfiction writing with your students.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 7, 2012
We’re getting lots of entries in the 3 Cheers for Pluto contest. Readers can enter by clicking on "Comments" for the blog entry, and telling me three facts that they have learned about Pluto. There is no "correct" answer - any facts that you think are interesting will qualify (as long as they are true!).
Lots of you are writing about the fact that Pluto has three moons, and one of them, Charon, is almost as big as Pluto itself. So, for this week’s "Cool Photo of the Week," I thought you might enjoying seeing what Pluto, Charon, Nix and Hydra look like together in the sky. This photograph was taken in 1990 by the Hubble Telescope.I am enjoying reading what you are all finding out about Pluto, the dwarf planet. Be sure to enter by midnight this Friday, February 10th for your chance to win a personally autographed copy of my book OUR SOLAR SYSTEM!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 6, 2012
Isn’t this a pretty yellow flower, floating in a puddle? Don’t let your eyes fool you. This is a carnivorous (meat-eating) plant, and scientists think it is one of the fastest bug-eating plants on Earth!
Bladderworts eat tiny bugs (smaller than a flea) that live in the water. The plants have bladders (tiny, closed bags) with tiny hairs near the opening of the bag. When a micoscopic bug swims by and brushes against the hairs, the mouth of the bladder pops open, sucks in a gulp of water, and snaps shut, trapping the bug inside!
Until recently, we didn’t have a way to judge just how quickly this happens. But recently, French and German scientists used high speed cameras to capture the ambush, and discovered that it happens in a millisecond (there are one thousand milliseconds in one second).
That makes the Bladderwort one of the fastest plants in the pond. And it looks so innocent!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 3, 2012
Yosemite National Park, in Northern California, is one of nature’s most spectacular sights. John Muir, the great American environmentalist, explorer and "father of our national parks," wrote of Yosemite:
"It is by far the grandest of all the special temples of Nature I was ever permitted to enter."
Yosemite has been officially declared a World Heritage Site, because of its gorgeous granite cliffs, wild rivers, waterfalls, and giant sequoia groves.
Yosemite’s sprawling wilderness covers nearly 1,200 square miles - that’s five times bigger than the city of Chicago! The park is a very diverse habitat, providing homes for many plants, insects, birds and other wild animals, including bobcats and gray foxes.Yosemite National Park is a place that everyone should have the opportunity to see…..but not everyone can travel to Northern California. That is why I was so excited to discover this magnificent, 4-minute-long, high definition video of Yosemite National Park, by filmmakers Sheldon Neill and Colin Delehanty. They used time lapse photography - which means that you film the same scene over a period of time. When it is all strung together into a film, it seems to ‘speed up’ time.
So, this is our "Cool Video of the Week." Enjoy your visit to Yosemite!
Bobcat Photo: U.S. Park Service
Posted by: Seymour Simon
