Posts Tagged craft

STEM Tuesday — Pets — Writing Tips & Resources

By 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.

Everything Dogs Dog Science Unleashed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

  1. 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?
  2. 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.
  3. 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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STEM Tuesday– Pets — In the Classroom

By on August 13, 2019   /   Common Core & NGSS, Pets, STEM Tuesday  

We all love our pets, from the biggest dogs to the tiniest hamsters. They inspire and amaze us with their crazy antics and incredible abilities. In the classroom, students can delve into their interest in pets and other animals with high-interest activities that explore the science of how and why our pets behave the way they do. In this activity, students will conduct an experiment to see if dogs can tell the difference between colors.

Can Dogs See Color?
To start, learn as a class about how dogs see by reading through Inside of a Dog, Young Readers Edition: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz and Dog Science Unleashed by Jodi Wheeler-Toppen.

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgInside of a Dog, Young Readers Edition: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz, illustrated by Sean Vidal Edgerton
This young readers’ edition of the popular adult nonfiction book gives children a glimpse into understanding a dog’s behavior. A great book for budding animal cognition scientists and dog trainers.

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.orgDog Science Unleashed by Jodi Wheeler-Toppen
This title offers readers fun science-based activities and experiments to do with their pets based on how the animals think, move, drink, and more.

 

 

To introduce this activity, explain to students how in animals, including humans, the eye and brain work together to translate light into color. Light receptors in the eye send messages to the brain. The brain processes this information and tells us the color we see. In the human eye, there are three types of color receptors called cone cells. Cone cells detect red, blue, and greenish yellow. Together, these cone cells allow us to see the full spectrum of colors.

What about dogs? What colors, if any, can they see? Unlike humans, dogs have only two types of cone cells which detect greenish blue and yellow. Explain to students that they will perform an experiment to test a dog’s ability to see color.

Materials
• Construction paper in different colors – red, green, and blue
• Two glass jars or cups of the same size
• Tape
• Dog treats

Procedure
Because most schools do not allow pets in class, explain to students that they will be conducting fieldwork at home and then analyzing their results as a class. You may assign students to small groups so that every group has a dog for fieldwork. Explain to students the procedures that they will follow at home to conduct their fieldwork.

Fieldwork Steps
1. To begin, students will cover each jar with one color of construction paper.

2. With the dog out of the room, place the blue and red jars on the floor. Bring the dog into the room and tell him to come. When the dog comes to the blue jar, give him a treat. If he goes to the red jar, do not give him a treat. Repeat the process several times and switch the position of the jars. Continue to give the dog a treat every time he chooses the blue jar over the red jar.

3. Take the dog out of the room. Add the green jar to the red and blue jars. Call the dog into the room and tell him to come. Which jar did the dog choose? Continue to give him treats for choosing the blue jar. Repeat 10 times, moving the positions of the jars each time. How many times did the dog choose the blue jar? Record the results.

Back in the Classroom
Have students organize the results of their fieldwork. They can create graphs, charts, or other visual displays of their data. Have each group present their data and discuss their results.

To encourage classroom discussion, have students discuss the following questions:
1. Based on the data, do you think dogs can see color? Which color(s)? How do your results support your answer?
2. Did the breed of dog affect the results? Why or why not?
3. Did any other factors affect your fieldwork and results? How?
4. What other experiment could you design to test if dogs can see color?

Need more ideas for teaching middle-school students about pets and other animals? Check out these resources:

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Carla Mooney loves to explore the world around us and discover the details about how it works. An award-winning author of numerous nonfiction science books for kids and teens, she hopes to spark a healthy curiosity and love of science in today’s young people. Find her at http://www.carlamooney.com

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STEM Tuesday– Tiny Worlds (Microscopic/Nanotech)- Writing Tips & Resources

By on July 23, 2019   /   Common Core & NGSS, STEM Tuesday, Tiny Worlds/Microscopic/Nanotech  

 

 

Figuring on Figurative language

 

“What is it?” A small hand lifts a treasure toward my face. It is brown and round and was found along our rocky trail.

“What does it look like?” I ask as I lower his hand back down to my student’s eye level.

“No, I mean, what is it called?” His earnest eyes plead with me to identify it.

“I suppose it has a name, but I’d rather take a closer look.”

He looks at me like I’m being difficult, which I guess I kind of am. I often sidestep the step of labeling the treasures my students find as we explore outdoors. Instead, I pull out two jeweler’s loupes and hand him one. Holding the magnifier to my eye, I squat and lean over his hand. “Wow! It looks like the surface of the moon!” I lean back to give him a turn. “What does it remind you of?”

Five minutes later, my young friend has a list of 15 analogies (a farmer’s field, skin with pimples, crumpled paper bag, a lonely egg, …) and is drafting a poem based on this natural artifact.

No longer stubbornly stuck on “What is it?” his brain was free to observe and associate, think and create, synthesize and evaluate analogies. Deep thinking, all thanks to looking closely and a few careful probes.

Changing Scale

That trick of changing scale and asking questions works wonders for both scientific and writing work. Something about diving into microscopic worlds allows our mind to operate at a different cognitive level. We are no longer harnessed to the prescribed method of investigation, the expected question, the quantitative answer.

Take a look at some of this month’s highlighted books and you’ll see how “looking little” results in impressive investigations and fantastic language. Stephen Kamer’s Hidden Worlds: Looking Through a Scientist’s Microscope provides a great example. You’ll see stalks of mold described as “a bouquet of exotic flower,” saltwater diatoms which will remind you of a kitchen sponge, a butterfly mouth that looks like a spring.

When I am trying to strengthen figurative language in my writing, I look little and practice by looking at the world through my jeweler’s loupes. It’s not microscopic, but it does the trick. I learned this technique from The Private Eye Project, a program that provides professional development for educators on thinking by analogy. http://www.the-private-eye.com/index.html Once I started seeing analogies in the micro world, I couldn’t stop seeing them in the macro world. Train your brain (and your students’) and whole new worlds will be opened to you.

 

Try it Yourself

Let’s practice together with this image.

What does it look like?

Maybe:

Hair released from a braid

Waves

Rain drops sliding down windshield – stormy nights

Earthworm trails

The color of mountains, dried cactus, shredded wheat cereal

Chocolate milk

Now you add on to the list.

Keep going! There are no wrong answers here.

Notice how some of my items reminded me of additional, tangential items? That’s great. That means the mind is reaching further.

Be sure to write all of your items down. There are NO WRONG ANSWERS!

 

Let’s do another:

What does it look like?

Teeth – dentist

Cogs on a machine

Tiny fingers

Bristly like my doormat

Hands – hands coming together in huddle for sports team, the cheer from friends and family

Rows in a farmer’s field

Color of straw

Paint brush tips

Toothpicks – corn on the cob, summers at the lake, Grandpa

Add on to the list. Keep going! There are no wrong answers here.

 

 

Now, do this one on your own:

What does it look like?

Keep going! There are no wrong answers here.

Take it Further

  • Get a magnifier. Any magnifier will work but I prefer Private Eye’s loupes because they fit to my eye, blocking out all other distractions.
  • Select an object from nature. The more mysterious the object, the better, but it can be something simple like a leaf.
  • Ask yourself what it looks like. Write at least 10 things. For additional prompts, compare it to objects in the kitchen, your bedroom, sports equipment. Concentrate on the texture, the color, or one section of the object.

Wondering why I avoid identifying these nature treasures? When I label items that closes one door of possibilities to your mind. For developing figurative language, we want our minds as wide open as possible.

 

Heather L. Montgomery loves to look little. Thinking by analogy helped her write books such as Bugs Don’t Hug: Six-Legged Parents and Their Kids (Charlesbridge), Little Monsters of the Ocean: Metamorphosis Under the Waves (Millbrook Press), Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill (Bloomsbury). For more about Heather, her work and her educational programs, visit www.HeatherLMontgomery.com.

 

 

THE O.O.L.F. FILES

This month, the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files provide links to amazing images to spark even more analogies. Dive in and enjoy!

 

Extraordinary Microworld of Dennis Kunkel

https://www.sciencephoto.com/dennis-kunkel-microscopy-collection

Science as Art

https://www.nature.com/news/science-as-art-wellcome-image-awards-2015-1.17118

Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Contest Winners (From 1944 – present)

https://www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/photomicrography-competition

Scanning Electron Microscope Photography of David Scharf

http://www.scharfphoto.com/images

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