Posts Tagged craft

STEM Tuesday — Digging Up History/Archeology– Writing Tips & Resources

By STEM Tuesday on September 17, 2019 / Archeology/Paleontology, Common Core & NGSS, STEM Tuesday

Introduction (aka The Mike Hays “work-a-Jurassic Park-reference-in-any-chance-I-get” opening paragraph.)

There’s some really cool experimental technology in the first part of Jurassic Park (I know, I know! There’s cool theoretical technology all over Jurassic Park but bear with me.). Take the Thumper, computer-assisted sonic tomography (CAST), technology, for example. The Thumper fires a lead slug into the ground creating waves which are analyzed by a computer to give an image. Dr. Alan Grant distrusts the technology but when the computer transforms the wave echo to yellow contour lines in the shape of a perfect juvenile velociraptor skeleton on the screen, he realizes technology might not be all bad.

By National Park Service – Public Domain

All the Lovely Facts (aren’t always so lovely)

I’m a fact nerd. One of the reasons I enjoy writing is the process of research and the collection of interesting facts on a particular subject. In some ways, my facts nerdom is a blessing. In other ways, it’s a curse.

Why?

Crafting a STEM story, project or homework assignment is usually based on facts. The creative and/or informative work begins with a collection of relevant facts—an often unruly and random collection with a lack of cohesion. In short, the massive collection of somewhat related facts becomes a chaotic mess. These are tossed in a pile, studied, and then lined up in some sort of order that resembles the story inside your head you wish to tell. Then comes the work.

Dig deep
Chip away
Clear away the dust
Extract
Clean

Finding your story is like finding the fossilized femur bone in the side of a mountain. Discover, dig, chip away, clear what doesn’t belong, and shine it until it sparkles and is ready to put on display. Writing becomes a whole lot like archaeology. Your story is out there. It’s buried deep under layers of sediment or fossilized in stone. Keep chipping away until you find it and then do the work to make it shine.

Melissa Stewart had an excellent Celebrate Science blog post in May of 2018 about the importance of focused nonfiction expository writing. Being a story archaeologist is key to producing this type of focused work. Sure one can use a drone camera to identify areas where a find likely exists, but until one gets focused on a site, does the digging, and finds the specific artifact, the drone picture is just a nice picture. A good story is the same. Focused. It grabs the reader from their drone-height view and embeds them into the story.

Hits & Misses

All the data suggests below the spot you now stand is a goldmine of artifacts. Artifacts you’ve spent your entire adult life searching for. Your heart pounds in anticipation as you can almost feel the remnants of an ancient society held gently in your gloved hands. You dream of headlines, prestigious publications, research grants, and museum exhibitions.

The grid is set over the location and the excavation begins. Day after day, week after week, month after month pass without a single discovery. Finally, you give up and admit this site is a dud.

Disappointing? Sure.

Devastating? Maybe.

Time to give up? No way!

You keep going because you know there’s something out there. You learn to accept the failures because you understand failure and success are made from the same cloth. The cloth of taking a chance on an idea. No one ever hit a baseball without swinging the bat. The same is true for science and writing. Moving forward often takes the courage to leap out of one’s comfort zone and into the unknown.

In writing nonfiction and fiction, ideas are cheap. They’re a dime a dozen plentiful. The fully fleshed and polished stories, however, are gold. There are more misses than hits in writing, especially when just starting out. With experience, though, the ratio begins to even out. A writer learns what works and what doesn’t work for them. They learn to focus. They learn to chip away at the rock until the perfect baby velociraptor skeleton of a story emerges.

The key is to keep digging.

Keep swinging.

Your story is out there.

Make it happen.

But please don’t start an amusement park of cloned, extinct alpha-predators without first considering the principles of chaos theory.

Have a STEM-filled 2019-2020 school year!

Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal opportunity sports enthusiasts, that is. If they keep a score, he’ll either watch it, play it, or coach it. A molecular microbiologist by day, middle-grade author, sports coach, and general good citizen by night, he blogs about sports/training related topics at www.coachhays.com and writer stuff at www.mikehaysbooks.com. Two of his science essays, The Science of Jurassic Park and Zombie Microbiology 101, are included in the P utt ing the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming around the Twitter-sphere under the guise of @coachhays64.

The O.O.L.F Files

This month’s Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files uncover some interesting links and information exploring archaeology and history while digging up some STEM funnies.

How do you discover a dinosaur? via The Guardian
Hunting for dinosaur bones in the digital age
- “Nowicki flew drones with thermal and spectral cameras over hundreds of square miles to create high-resolution, three-dimensional maps accurate down to the inch. The process identified 250 likely new locations to find fossils.”
4 New Technologies That Are Driving Archaeology Into the Future
- “Human history can easily be covered by nature, but archaeologists like Cusicanqui can use drones and LIDAR and Muon Tomography to uncover our past.”
Archaeology unearthing the past using modern technology
- “Archaeology has always been very interdisciplinary,” says Heather Richards-Rissetto, an archaeologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln told NBC’s MACH. “But I think now there’s a lot more collaboration between science and engineering than before, and archaeologists are a part of that, helping to develop the technologies to study the past.”
Tech in the Sediment: 12 Ways Archaeologists Use Technology
Not quite as exciting as Dr. Grant imaging an infant velociraptor skeleton embedded in the rock, here is a tutorial video on how to use Argus Electronic’s PiCUS Sonic Tomograph to measure cavities or decay in a tree non-invasively.

And now for something completely different…

Archaeological Funnies (via Funny-Jokes.com)

Archaeologists are fickle. They’re always dating other people.

Most mothers tell their daughters to marry doctors…
I told mine to marry an archaeologist because the older she gets, the more interested he will be in her.

Two archaeologists were excavating a tomb in Egypt.
1st Archaeologist: I just found another tomb of a mummified pharaoh!
2nd Archaeologist: Are you serious?
1st Archaeologist: No bones about it!

Q: Why did the archaeologist go bankrupt?
A: Because his career was in ruins.

Q: What do you get in a 5-star pyramid?
A: A tomb with a view.

STEM Tuesday — Digging Up History/Archeology– In The Classroom

By STEM Tuesday on September 10, 2019 / Archeology/Paleontology, Common Core & NGSS, Nonfiction Titles, STEM Tuesday

I love both science and history, so I was really excited to read books on this month’s list. I confess to being a bit grossed out by some of the mummies, but these books didn’t disappoint. I saw many different aspects of the field of archaeology and learned a lot about the societies and people the archaeologists studied.

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Mummies Exposed! by Kerrie Logan Hollihan

This book covers many different types of mummies. While many were purposeful, some were accidental. Through the examples, we learn about the science behind the creation of mummies. Analysis of the Items buried with the mummies gave clues to the type of people they had been and how they spent their time when they were alive.

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The Whydah by Martin W. Sandler

The search for the pirate ship Whydah required the study of historical maps and records. These records, along with the artifacts discovered on the shipwreck paint a very different picture of pirates than we’ve come to expect.

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Forgotten Bones by Lois Miner Huey

This book looks at what archaeologists have learned about a segment of society whose history has gone largely unwritten. I was fascinated by how much information they were able to glean from the bodies. Customs that left permanent marks on the body helped identify those who grew up in Africa versus those that grew up in America. Scars from injuries helped indicate what types of jobs the people performed. Most amazing was the ability of an artist to create a possible representation of each of the skeletons found using DNA analysis and the structure of the skulls.

Suggested Activities

In true “me” fashion, my brain went into overdrive thinking of activities that would fit well with these books. Here are a few…

Become an Artifact Detective

Archaeologists have to be detectives. They need to use the clues they’ve unearthed to figure out who these people were, how they lived, and what caused them to die. Challenge your class to be detectives, too.

First, have each person represent themselves with things. Have them pick 5 to 10 items that are often found with them. They could be things they carry around with them or wear every day. They could be favorite items or games we might find in their room at home.

To include science in this exercise, have the students describe the items as a scientist would. What is the item made of? What color is it? What are its measurements? Include a sketch or photo of the item. You could even pretend that these things have been buried for centuries. What would degrade and what would stay whole? If it broke into pieces, what would a defining feature be that might give a clue to what the item is?

For the next part, make sure each list doesn’t identify who the items belong to. Instead, use a student number or a nickname like the archaeologists did in the books.

Provide the set of lists to the class. This could be done by posting them around the room or through a virtual message board. Challenge the students to identify which of their classmates belongs with each of the artifact lists.

Once everyone has attempted to identify their classmates based on their artifacts, have each person present their artifacts and explain why they picked the items they did. The students will not only practice deductive reasoning, they’ll also get to know each other better.

Do Some Research

The discoveries described in The Whydah and Forgotten Bones relied upon historical research to help identify what was discovered. In the case of The Whydah, historical records like maps and diaries helped provide the location where excavators should look for the lost ship.

Use these examples to look into where historical records can be found and what kinds of information different documents can provide. This could even include a field trip to a local historical library or National Archives location and a lesson on how to use microfiche.

So many people use these resources – authors, archaeologists, genealogists, historians, lawyers, and more. To make this exercise more relatable, perhaps tie it to research into a local historical figure or genealogical research.

Debate the Issue

In Mummies Exposed! and Forgotten Bones, archaeologists faced cultures that believed burial grounds should remain untouched. After reading one or more of these books, have your students join the debate. Does the knowledge gained from archaeological research outweigh the beliefs that burial grounds should not be disturbed? Is it enough to rebury the bodies once they’ve been studied?

Other Ideas

Time Capsule

It occurred to me that each archaeological dig described in these books is like a time capsule. They capture what life was like for that person or people at the moment in time when they became buried or lost at sea. There are some good ideas here: http://www.timecapsule.com/time-capsule/how-to-make-a-school-time-capsule

Decoding the Past

The Smithsonian Learning Lab has a lesson about how archaeologists interpret artifacts called “Decoding the Past.” If you download the PDF, you will find an article on the subject and worksheets for some related activities. https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/decoding-the-past-the-work-of-archaeologists/AUq5scPw1RXKYyNy

Archaeology Activities

The Society for American Archaeology has a ton of activities for students, including a few about the Iceman (featured in Mummies Exposed!). https://www.saa.org/education-outreach/teaching-archaeology/k-12-activities-resources

I hope you and your students enjoy exploring these books and activities. If you have any suggestions for how you make archaeology and history come alive, please share in the comments below!

Janet pointing to Slingerland drum head of Chicago drummer Danny Seraphine Janet Slingerland loves learning about science, history, nature, and – well, everything – which she then turns into a book. She especially loves visiting living history museums, where the past really comes alive. To find out more about Janet and her books, check out her website: janetsbooks.com

You never know what you’ll find in a museum. Here’s a pic of Janet at the Musician’s Hall of Fame in Nashville, where she found a Slingerland drum head.

STEM Tuesday — Pets — Writing Tips & Resources

By STEM Tuesday on August 20, 2019 / Common Core & NGSS, Pets, STEM Tuesday

Using Super Senses

Most humans rely on their eyes to learn about the world; sight is our dominant sense. But as you learned last week, life is far different for our furry friends. They don’t see nearly as well as we do.

So how do dogs and cats make up for their less-than-stellar vision? They use other, supersensitive senses like smell. Did you know dogs have 40 times the number of scent cells humans do? And both dogs and cats use whiskers to make sense of their surroundings. I learned these fascinating facts from this month’s books about our beloved pets. And comparing and contrasting our senses led me to think about how authors use our senses — and sensory details — when writing.

Souping Up Sensory Detail

Writers have a superpower. They can magically teleport readers into a book. A good book sucks the reader into the action. It’s like being in a favorite movie or video game. How do writers perform that trick? Sensory details.

Since humans rely on vision, our natural inclination as writers is to provide lots of details related to what we see. For example, we might write, “A pink starfish clung to the gray rock.” Pink and gray are both visual details.

Yet to truly capture a setting, we must act more like dogs and cats and employ our other senses too. What does the starfish’s ocean home smell like? If you could touch the starfish, would its skin feel lumpy or smooth or rough? What does the sea smell or taste like? Is it salty?

To help you make the shift to your other four senses when writing, try this exercise.

Highlight sensory details in your work. First, pick a paragraph. Then grab a pack of highlighters or colored pens. Highlight any details you included about sights, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes. Use a different color for each sense. Do you notice a pattern? Is your writing packed with visual description? Are there senses you’ve left out entirely?
Close your eyes. Imagine yourself in your setting or sitting next to your character, and think about what you might hear, smell, taste, and feel. Real writer tip: If you’re writing about a place you’ve never visited, find a video online and listen. Or, take a trip to a local museum, zoo, or aquarium to suss out smells, sounds, and even textures if you can find touch tanks or petting programs.
Revise. Go back to your paragraph and add sensory details that help give your reader a fuller picture of the world you’re writing about.

This is a technique I use each and every time I revise. I hope it helps you too!

Kirsten W. Larson used to work with rocket scientists at NASA. Now she writes books for curious kids. She’s the author of WOOD, WIRE, WINGS: EMMA LILIAN TODD INVENTS AN AIRPLANE, illustrated by Tracy Subisak (Calkins Creek, February 2020), CECILIA PAYNE: MAKING OF A STAR (SCIENTIST), illustrated by Katherine Roy (Chronicle, Fall 2021), along with 25 other nonfiction books for kids. Find her at kirsten-w-larson.com or on Twitter/Instagram @KirstenWLarson.

THE O.O.L.F. FILES

This month, the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files provides links to learn more about pet senses and resources for fine-tuning your sense of smell and touch.

Learn more about dogs and their senses with the Dogs! A Science Tale app from the California Science Center.
Watch this video (and use the accompanying lesson) from Ted Ed to find out how dogs sniff and process smell.
Want to see what your dog sees? Check out this Dog Vision app.
Ready to work on your sense of smell? I can’t guarantee you’ll be able to pick out the individual scents in a pile of stinky trash (dogs can do this!), but you can train yourself to notice smells in your world. Try this Mystery Smells experiment from KidsHealth to help you tune in to smells all around.
What’s it feel like? Did you know your skin is the biggest sensory organ in your whole body? Learn to tune into your sense of touch with these fun activities from the University of Washington.

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