Posts Tagged cross-curricular

STEM Tuesday — Animal Perceptions– Book List

By on March 5, 2024   /   Animal Perceptions, STEM Tuesday  

Animals see the world differently from humans. Check out this list of middle grade books that explore various ways in which animals perceive, sense, and communicate.

Detector Dogs, Dynamite Dolphins, and Other Animals with Super Sensory Powers Detector Dogs, Dynamite Dolphins, and More Animals with Super Sensory Powers: Giaimo, Cara, Couch, Christina, Duncan, Daniel: 9781536229530: Books - Amazon.ca
by Cara Giaimo, Christina Couch, and Daniel Duncan

 

This book features an array of different animals that use their “super” senses,from echolocation to electroreception to help humans tackle real-world problems like pollution and global warming. Examples include Cynthia, a pipe-fixing ferret, and Rosita, a goat who helps prevent wildfires. Each chapter features a different animal and also provides guided experiments for young, curious minds.

 

 

How to Talk to a Tiger…and Other Animals: How Critters Communicate in the Wild
by Jason Bittel and Kelsey Buzzell

 

What do skunks, blue-ringed octopuses, and ladybugs have in common? They all use aposematic coloration, or warning colors, to communicate with other animals! Every page of this colorful book is packed with fun facts about how animals talk to each other using sights, sounds, smells, tastes, electrosenses, and touch. This browseable book groups animals by their special communication styles, including dancing, singing, playing dead, and even urinating.

 

Cat Eyes & Dog Whistles: The Seven Senses of Humans and Other Animals
by Cathy Evans and Becky Thorns

 

This book takes a look at human perception and shows how we don’t have five senses, we have seven. We’re constantly trying to interpret the world around us as highly sensitive receptor cells in our eyes, ears, noses, tongues and skin relay messages to the brain. This book compares our senses with various animals and examines how they differ. Fascinating facts are paired with animated illustrations to engage children.

 

 

Sensational Senses: Amazing Ways Animals Perceive the World
by Rebecca E. Hirsch

 

From star-nosed moles to Japanese sea catfish, each of the eight chapters in this book dives deep into the amazing sensory abilities of a different animal. Hirsch’s clear text combines with eye-popping photographs to show readers how these extraordinary animals can sense things in the world that are hidden to humans.

 

When Elephants Listen with their Feet: Discover Extraordinary Animal Senses
by Emmanuelle Grundmann and Clemence Dupont

 

Accessible and often humorous text is paired with informational sidebars and inviting art to encourage budding biologists. This book offers a comprehensive study of the senses, and how animals use them to communicate, feel, and interact with the world around them. Examples include birds that can feel the Earth’s magnetic field and fish that use electricity.

 

Sound: Shh…Bang…POP…BOOM!
by  Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv

 

This beautifully unique picture book explores the history, science, and culture of sound, from the oldest sound in the Universe (the Big Bang) to the loudest animals on Earth (a toss-up between the giant sperm whale and the tiny tiger pistol shrimp). Along the way, readers will learn key physics concepts and meet animals that hear the world differently from humans. Don’t miss the companion book, Sight: Glimmer, Glow, Spark, Flash! 

 

Beastly Brains: How Animals Think, Talk, and Feel
by Nancy Castaldo

 

Castaldo delves into the minds of animals like dolphins, dogs, and elephants to explore animal empathy, communication, tool use, and lifestyle through interviews and historical anecdotes. The book also mentions research from some great minds, such as Charles Darwin and Jane Goodall, regarding the behavior of animals and revolutionizes old theories through the lens of modern science.

 

 

How to Speak Animal: A Guide to Learning How Animals Communicate
by Aubre Andrus and Gabby Wild

 

This opening of this book contains a fact-filled introduction to animal senses, followed by more than 60 different profiles of creatures from around the world. Using photographs, icons, and pop-outs (plus a fun, interactive quiz!), it showcases the many wild ways animals communicate with each other. Other books in this National Geographic series include How to Speak Dog and How to Speak Cat. 

 

Beyond Words series
by Carl Safina

 

This series is a young reader’s adaptation of The New York Times bestseller. It follows researcher Carl Safina as he journeys across the world to track and monitor various animals. This excellent, documentary-style account will encourage children to think more about their own feelings and the feelings of others while reading about the natural world and its remarkable wonders.

 

 

 

Making Sense of Dog Senses: How our Furry Friends Experience the World
by Stephanie Gibeault and Raz Latif (releases April 2024)

 

This book dives deep into anatomy to explore the “why” behind strange (and gross) dog habits, like drinking from the toilet, sniffing fire hydrants, and eating poop. Each chapter is packed with interesting facts and explanations, colorful illustrations and diagrams, and activities to test out your own senses. Readers will finish this book with a greater understanding and appreciation for our canine friends.

 

This month’s STEM Tuesday book list was prepared by:

Author Lydia Lukidis

 

Lydia Lukidis is the author of 50+ trade and educational books for children. Her titles include DANCING THROUGH SPACE: Dr. Mae Jemison Soars to New Heights (Albert Whitman, 2024), DEEP, DEEP, DOWN: The Secret Underwater Poetry of the Mariana Trench (Capstone, 2023) and THE BROKEN BEES’ NEST (Kane Press, 2019) which was nominated for a Cybils Award. A science enthusiast from a young age, she now incorporates her studies in science and her everlasting curiosity into her books. Another passion of hers is fostering a love for children’s literacy through the writing workshops she regularly offers in elementary schools across Quebec with the Culture in the Schools program. For more information, please visit www.lydialukidis.com.

 

author Callie Dean

 

Callie Dean is a researcher, writer, and musician living in Shreveport, LA. She writes stories that spark curiosity and encourage kids to explore their world. For more information, please visit https://calliebdean.com.

 

 

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STEM Tuesday — Brain/Psychology — Author Interview

By on February 27, 2024   /   Brain/Psychology, STEM Tuesday  

We are delighted to welcome Tanya Lloyd Kyi to the blog today.

Tanya Lloyd Ki

Tanya Kyi is the author of more than 30 books for children and young adults. She writes about science, pop-culture, and places where the two overlap. Tanya has worked in the past as a graphic designer, an editor, and a dishwasher. (She considers herself entirely qualified for that last one.) Her favourite color is blue, her favourite food is cheese, and her favorite book is A Wrinkle in Time.

Her book:

This is your brain on Stereotypes

Discusses the brain science behind stereotypes. It’s very intriguing!

Blurb: An essential overview of the science behind stereotypes: from why our brains form them to how recognizing them can help us be less biased.

From the time we’re babies, our brains constantly sort and label the world around us — a skill that’s crucial for our survival. But, as adolescents are all too aware, there’s a tremendous downside: when we do this to groups of people it can cause great harm. Here’s a comprehensive introduction to the science behind stereotypes that will help young people make sense of why we classify people, and how we can change our thinking. It covers the history of identifying stereotypes, secret biases in our brains, and how stereotypes affect our sense of self. Most importantly, it covers current research into how science can help us overcome our biases, offering hope for a future where stereotypes are less prevalent and the world is more fair for everyone.

 

Received a starred review from Kirkus as well as other praise:

A must-read primer for change.―Kirkus Reviews, starred review

… fascinating …―Booklist

A worthwhile purchase … that will help readers recognize, understand, and eradicate stereotypes.―School Library Journal

Alongside Drew Shannon’s colourful illustrations [Lloyd Kyi] encapsulates key sociological and scientific research on racism and stereotyping.―New York Times

 

Thanks for joining us today, Tanya! This is such an intriguing topic, how did you come up with it? 

One afternoon, I listened to a Hidden Brain podcast about implicit bias. That evening, my husband called from Edmonton, where he was giving the keynote speech at a conference. My husband is Asian Canadian and when he’d arrived at the conference venue, he’d been mistaken for the custodian. I thought… aha! That was implicit bias at work. I did some sleuthing to see if there was enough research about the topic to fill a children’s book, and there was so much fascinating material! I could have written three books on the subject.
 

Can you give us a short explanation of how science and stereotypes are related?

 

What do you see when you picture a senior citizen? What about a ballet dancer? Or an environmentalist? You probably picture an old grey-haired lady, maybe doing some knitting. You might imagine a girl in a tutu and a bearded guy in sandals. But those are generalizations. There are plenty of tennis-playing seniors, male ballet dancers, and suit-wearing environmentalists. Stereotypes live in the same place in our brain where we store implicit memory — things we know without necessarily remembering how we know them. You understand how to use scissors, you know the grass is green, and you believe ballet dancers wear tutus. Relying on our implicit memory for scissor use is fine, but when we allow our brains to supply us with snap-judgement images about people, we can be led astray by our own assumptions.
We don’t always realize we have biases (or maybe we hide them!), so scientists have to be tricky in order to study them. Sometimes they pretend to be studying something else, while actually watching what choices we make. Or they might ask us to make choices quickly, so we don’t have time to hide the stereotypes we hold. One of the most famous tests of bias is one developed by Harvard, and you can take it yourself, online. It’s called the Implicit Association Test.

 

Can you give us a sneak peek of one or two of the activities that you have in your book to help people understand their own ways of thinking?  

 

There’s so much we can do to combat the stereotypes in our own brains. That’s one of the reasons I was so excited to write this book. If kids notice gender bias in toys, they can email the toy companies. If they want to make their school a more accepting place, they can volunteer to create a display of diverse books in the library. But one of the most researched things in all of stereotype science is called the contact hypothesis. A psychologist named Gordon Allport came up with the idea in the mid 1900s, and studies have been done in hundreds of countries since then. The contact hypothesis says that if you hang out with people who are different than you, you will hold fewer stereotypes. So the very best way to combat stereotypes? Make all sorts of friends!
 

What do you want young readers to get out of your book? 

 

I’d love young readers to begin to recognize biases in the world around them, and to understand that they have the power to make change. You don’t have to get a university degree to combat stereotypes; you just have to pop by a GSA meeting at school, or redecorate your school computer lab in gender neutral themes, or pick up a book about characters who live in a different part of the world.
 

Do you have any tips for writers who want to break into nonfiction children’s books? 

 

Information books for children have changed dramatically in the last decade, so don’t rely on your memories of your own school library shelves. Head to a local bookstore and check out the ways writers, illustrators, and publishers are using new formats and forms to capture kids’ attention.
 

What are you working on now? 

 

I’ve just released a middle-grade novel called Emily Posts (published by Penguin Random House) and I have a picture book coming out called When You Meet a Dragon (illustrated by Udayana Lugo and published by Orca Books). While these aren’t information books, they were both inspired by research. Emily Posts is about a young influencer who encounters censorship while podcasting about the climate crisis, and When You Meet a Dragon is about the power of community to overcome existential, dragon-sized problems.

 

Thank you for having me, Jennifer! It’s an honor to be featured on your site.

 

You’re so welcome, Tanya. I loved learning more about how this book came to be, and I’m sure our readers did as well.

 

You can find out more about the book– and Tanya— HERE  –> https://www.tanyalloydkyi.com/
Jennifer Swanson author
Jennifer Swanson is an award-winning children’s author and podcaster. You can find her at her website https://jenniferswansonbooks.com/,
or her Solve It! for Kids podcast website www.solveitforkids.com   or on Pinterest, or X and IG @jenswanbooks.
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STEM Tuesday — Brain/Psychology — Writing Tips & Resources

By on February 20, 2024   /   Articles, Brain/Psychology, STEM Tuesday  

The STEM Tuesday Gods Smiled.

The STEM Tuesday gods must be smiling on me.

First, the monthly Writing Tips & Resources posting rotation bestowed upon me the good fortune of October’s “Spooky & Scary Science” and now January’s “Brain/Psychology” as my topics. How lucky is it that both topics land smack dab in the middle of my wheelhouse?

The second example is I’ve been borderline obsessed the past few years with studying and reading about brain science, especially how it relates to cognition and creativity. Brain/Psychology as my topic landed in fertile ground. 

Several of my recent posts have documented this journey. My brain became hooked on brain studies in 2021 when I read and posted about a fascinating book by neuroscientist-turned-English professor Angus Fletcher called Wonderworks. In late 2022, I posted a piece called Creative Braining inspired by a fascinating Scientific American collection, Secrets of the Mind. The collection covers some of the latest developments in brain science and how they relate to cognition, processing, and recall. 

 

The common thread of my brain journey has been studying how we interact with the world and constantly input/output information in such a way it gives each one of us a unique relationship to the environment. We call the expression of that unique relationship our personality. The magnet at the core of this is that, as creators, what is put into our brains gets processed differently in individual brains and results in unique output. This uniqueness of personality manifests in that often vague term “creative voice”. 

That brings us to this month’s short and sweet STEM Tuesday Writing Tips & Resources tips. The focus is on experiencing more and better inputs to get more and better outputs. Improving our creator voice by expanding our experiences.

  1. Discover – Get out in the world and look for new things. Nature, museums, libraries, people-watching, walking, etc. are all great avenues for discovery.   
  2. Adventure – Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Something new and possibly a little scary can lead to new brain-processing connections and result in new associations/ideas.
  3. Experience –  Jump into the discoveries and adventures to get the visceral feel of something. It’s one thing to read or watch a video about a rollercoaster.  Riding a rollercoaster, however, is on a whole other visceral level.

That’s it! Short and simple tips for maximizing your creator’s brain. Push information and experience into your brain and your brain will take care of the rest. The brain will take all those discoveries, all those adventures, and all those experiences, process the data, store it, and then form the neural connections to allow you to produce output unique to you.

Happy Braining!

Nikolakhs, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Mike Hays has worked hard from a young age to be a well-rounded individual. A well-rounded, equal-opportunity sports enthusiast, 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 Putting the Science in Fiction collection from Writer’s Digest Books. He can be found roaming around the X under the guise of @coachhays64 and on Instagram at @mikehays64.

 

The O.O.L.F Files

This month’s version of the O.O.L.F.(Out of Left Field) Files looks under the hood at the brain and psychology. 

The Creative Brain

Brain Central

Prehistoric Creative Braining for Survival – We’ve been creative braining since the dawn of man.

Psychology and Neuroscience

 

 

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