STEM Tuesday

The first annual STEM Tuesday CoSTEM contest!

STEM TUESDAY from the mixed up files

 

Greetings STEM Tuesday fans!! I know you’re all thinking…  this isn’t a Tuesday. You’re right.

We were SO EXCITED about our

ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY CONTEST,

that we had to take over a  Thursday post to announce it.

 

 

Q. What do you get when you cross a costume contest with STEM Tuesday?

A. The First Annual October CoSTEM contest!

 

Muwahahaha (Cue eerie, ghostly music)

 

As a way to celebrate one whole year of STEM Tuesday blogs, we thought we would do a mash-up of literacy and STEM costumes. So drag out your favorite books, take a good look at the theme, then create an amazing, one-of-a-kind, spectacular costume.

Contest Rules: 

  • This contest is open to all school-aged students, ages 5 and up. 
  • Submit a jpeg of yourself or  your class dressed as your favorite STEM book.
  • Be sure to let us know the title and the author of the book. 
  • The book must be for readers ages 8 and up. 
  • All submissions are due by midnight EST November 6th, 2018. (no exceptions!) 
  • Submissions MUST come from an adult who will grants us permission to post this image on the Mixed Up Files website. 
  • All images will be judged by the STEM Tuesday team. We will be looking for creativity, subject (how close you are to the theme of the book), and authentic (how exact is the STEM theme displayed)
  • Winners will be posted on the STEM Tuesday blog on November 8th, 2018. 
  • Send your images to the following email:  stemmuf@gmail.com

 

Need suggestions for how do create a CoSTEM? Take a look at some of our examples below:

 

                       

2 girls dressed in plastic                                    Book that inspired this

 

                                    

1 girl dressed as a black hole                   Book that inspired this

 

Are you starting to see a pattern?  Good!

I suppose you want to know about the prizes. Well, here they are:

1st Place —  Receives 5 autographed STEM Books from our STEM Tuesday team + $25 Barnes & Noble Gift card

2nd Place — Receives 3 autographed STEM Books from our STEM Tuesday team + $15 Barnes & Noble Gift card

3rd Place—   Receives 2 autographed STEM Books from our STEM Tuesday team  +$10 Barnes & Noble Gift card

 

Here are just a few of the books you could win:

      

   

Have questions? Direct them to the same email as above:  stemmuf@gmail.com

We hope you will ALL participate!  Let’s celebrate a STEM- Literacy MASH-UP, CoSTEM style!!

STEM Tuesday — Pair Up! Comparing Nonfiction Titles — In the Classroom

STEM TUESDAY from the mixed up files

Today is the 11th–a 1-1 pair-up. It’s an especially apt day for continuing with our Nonfiction Pair-up theme. One thing seems sure: You’ll double your impact if you pair nonfiction reading and writing with STEM lessons!

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgIdeas Worth Spreading

Fatal Fever and Terrible Typhoid Mary highlight the social, personal, and epidemiological stories around Mary Mallon, AKA Typhoid Mary. Exemplifying how science and society intersect and examining the difficulties of clashing social and individual interests, this pair offers high drama and nearly endless entry points for curriculum learning.

  • Does the government have the right to imprison someone to keep that person from infecting others?
  • Do students think Mary was “terrible?
    • Students can develop charts with reasons for answering yes and no–then take a stand with mock op-ed pieces.
    • Form student committees to answer “What to do about Mary?” Make sure they consider how any decisions impact Mary and the community.
    • Expand into current day concerns: “What to do when one of us gets sick?” Students might research the school’s policy regarding teachers and students with the flu or other infectious diseases. What options are available to keep everyone safe and able to work and learn?

Looking for infectious enthusiasm? Try these science learning ideas.

  • DragonFly TV’s five-minute GloGerm video offers information, an experiment, and visuals including a powder that glows under UV light and spreads throughout a kids’ bowling party.
    • Show the video to accompany their reading.
    • As an alternative, if you have the resources to purchase GloGerm and a UV light, use the video as an inspiration for a lesson plan. Demonstrate the spread of disease. Then challenge students to design their own experiments.
  • In this lesson using water, baking soda and a simple acid/base indicator, one student unwittingly becomes the source of an “infectious disease”, which then spreads to classmates.  The indicator ultimately reveals “infected” students. As an extension, track down the source student–your classroom’s counterpart to Mary Mallon in 1906, someone who unknowingly spreads disease.
    • What does the student feel like?
    • How would the class feel if all of the infected students now had to stay quarantined despite feeling well, or could no longer do whatever job they would like?
  • Students become disease detectives with an engaging interactive from PBS’s NOVA resource, which allows them to “interview” subjects, collect and review data, and explore possible sources of the new Dizzy Disease. Students might also compare and contrast their methods to those used by the typhoid tracker who found Mary Mallon, George Soper.

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgSupport Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgAnd Now, Some Rotten Ideas

Students can become decomposers as they break down Rotten and Death Eaters, into their essential content and structure. For example, Elementary Nest’s lesson provides suggestions on conducting a compare/contrast of the facts in paired nonfiction titles.

 

Of course, this topic screams for a scavenger hunt! Send students searching for nonfiction text features. Check out these scavenger hunts  and, presto! You’ll gather your own list of features in no time. Follow up with a look at how these features help or detract from the reading experience.

  • How do various features help engage and explain information to readers?
  • Are there places in either book where the reader’s experience would have been enhanced by the addition or omission of a given feature?

After students digest the books in these lessons, they can recycle the morsels of information and insight into new, lively texts, composing short pieces based on the facts that they collected and incorporating the nonfiction text features to help readers engage with or grasp content.

Hands-on science experiences can add to the detail of student writing.  Start with this worm bin building activity and related resources from National Agriculture in the Classroom.

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgThis Trash Talk’s OK

Heighten student awareness of different styles and purposes of informational text with this trio. This Book Stinks is full of small bits of text and splashy graphics. Contrast it with Tracking Trash and Plastic Ahoy!, which combine storytelling, exposition, and characters into a cohesive whole. Challenge students to take passages from each book and turn them into the style and format of the other.

For science experiences, tie these books in with the decomposition books above (pair the pairs!). Or:

 

There’s so much you could do with this month’s theme, maybe you, too, should pair up; find a teaching partner to develop some of these ideas into great experiences for your students, or create your own.

  • What other book pairings can you suggest?
  • Which activities work for you?

Drop a comment to let us know!

 

****** BREAKING NEWS!!****

STEM TUESDAY from the mixed up filesSTEM Tuesday is now a monthly PODCAST! Tune into Jed Dougherty’s Reading With Your Kids Podcast on iTunes to listen to your favorite STEM Tuesday posts! The first airing is right here:  STEM Tuesday Podcast #1 

Be sure to join us the second Tuesday of every month for a podcast update!

 


Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano pairs writing nonfiction STEM books for kids with STEM educational consulting work.  Running on Sunshine: How Does Solar Energy Work? celebrates the innovative spirit and challenges behind engineering solar technologies, and received a starred review from Kirkus.

STEM Tuesday — Pair Up! Comparing Nonfiction Titles — Booklist

This month, we take a look at pairs of books that focus on the same subject or theme. Readers can compare and contrast how authors have each approached these fascinating stories to craft their nonfiction middle grade books. In some cases authors have taken a different approach in organization and in others a different point of view. Reading both will provide more details and information on each topic, and also show that all authors find their own way into each story.

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Mary Mallon, known as Typhoid Mary, unwittingly spread the deadly disease as a cook. Read two nonfiction titles that tell this amazing story.

Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary by Gail Jarrow tells the investigative story behind the tale. 

Terrible Typhoid Mary by Susan Campbell Bartoletti approaches the story as a biography. 

 

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The history of chocolate is important to both science and history. These two authors have provided books that delve into chocolate’s origins and its history as the confection we love.

Chocolate: Sweet Science & Dark Secrets of the World’s Favorite Treat by Kay Frydenborg 

The Book of Chocolate: The Amazing Story of the World’s Favorite Candy by HP Newquist

 

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If learning about scavengers (and the important part they play in the food chain) is up your alley, then these two new titles are for you.

Rotten:  Vultures, Beetles, Slime, and Nature’s Other Decomposers by Anita Sanchez will be released in January of 2019 and delves into all kinds of decomposers. 

Death Eaters:  Meet Nature’s Scavengers by Kelly Milner Halls also focuses on decomposition and provides lots of interesting photos.   

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgThese three titles focus on our waste and where it ends up. Eco-justice readers will be inspired by all three.

Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion by Loree Griffin Burns focuses on how ocean currents move debris around

Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by Patricia Newman follows a team of scientists who study the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for the first time.

This Book Stinks! Gross Garbage, Rotten Rubbish, and the Science of Trash by Sarah Wassner Flynn dives deep into the cycle of trash.

 

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These two titles provide a look at how dogs use their perfect sniffers to help us.

Poop Detectives: Working Dogs in the Field by Ginger Wadsworth focuses on conservation canines.

Sniffer Dogs: How Dogs (and their Noses) Save the World by Nancy Castaldo introduces readers to all kinds of sniffer detection dogs. 

 

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Two great volcano titles for geology units.

Eruption: Volcanoes and the Science of Saving Lives by Elizabeth Rusch deals with the science of eruption. 

Life on Surtsey: Iceland’s Upstart Island by Loree Griffin Burns focuses on the aftermath. 

 

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Budding naturalists will love learning about how apes are studied in the wild with these two titles.

Gorilla Doctors: Saving Endangered Great Apes by Pamela S. Turner

Untamed: The Wild Life of Jane Goodall by Anita Silvey

 

STEM Tuesday book lists prepared by:

Nancy Castaldo has written books about our planet for over 20 years including her 2016 title, THE STORY OF SEEDS: From Mendel’s Garden to Your Plate, and How There’s More of Less To Eat Around The World, which earned the Green Earth Book Award and other honors. Nancy’s research has taken her all over the world from the Galapagos to Russia. She enjoys sharing her adventures, research, and writing tips. She strives to inform, inspire, and educate her readers. Nancy also serves as the Regional Advisor of the Eastern NY SCBWI region. Her 2018 title is BACK FROM THE BRINK: Saving Animals from Extinction. www.nancycastaldo.com

Patricia Newman writes middle-grade nonfiction that inspires kids to seek connections between science, literacy, and the environment. The recipient of  a Sibert Honor Award for Sea Otter Heroes and the Green Earth Book Award for Plastic, Ahoy!, her books have received starred reviews, been honored as Junior Library Guild Selections, and included on Bank Street College’s Best Books lists. New in 2018:  Eavesdropping on Elephants: How Listening Helps Conservation. During author visits, she demonstrates how her writing skills give a voice to our beleaguered environment. Visit her at www.patriciamnewman.com.