Posts Tagged diversity

STEM Tuesday – Diseases and Pandemics — Writing Tips & Resources

By on November 17, 2020   /   Diseases and Pandemics, STEM Tuesday  

Reading Science History Through Photographs

From YouTube videos to memes, from graphs to diagrams, a lot of the information we take in every day comes from pictures. The process of reading images is called visual literacy. Academics define visual literacy as “set of abilities that enables an individual to effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media.” (Lundy and Stephens, 2014). Reading images is a critical skill not just for life, but also for researching and writing captivating nonfiction.

Every book I’ve written has required analyzing and interpreting photos or videos. That’s where I glean juicy details, especially about characters and settings. Writing a scene is certainly easier if I can picture it in my mind.

Today, I want to focus on reading just one type of primary source — the photograph. Many of the books on this month’s book list are illustrated using archival photographs. For example, Susan Campbell Bartoletti’s TERRIBLE TYPHOID MARY: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America has an entire photo album in the back matter.

Likewise, THE 1918 FLU PANDEMIC: Core Events of a Worldwide Outbreak by John Mickols, Jr. features many historic images from the 1918 flu pandemic, including those sourced from the Library of Congress (LOC) or the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). 

And here’s the good news: many of those LOC and NARA images can be found online. If you go to LOC.gov and search for 1918 and influenza, you’ll find dozens of historic images you can review with your students. Or click here to access my search.  At the NARA, find 1918 influenza images here.

Activity – Reading Historic Photographs

This activity will help your students learn to read historic photographs, glean useful details, and interpret them.

First, select a historic photo, perhaps from one of the collections mentioned above.

Next, review the Library of Congress’s Teachers Guide for analyzing historic photographs. You’ll find that here.  The LOC encourages students to work through a three-step process. Those steps are:

  • Observing – noting details from the photo
  • Reflecting – generating and testing hypotheses about the image
  • Questioning – asking questions that lead to more observations and reflections.

Download the blank student Primary Source Analysis Tool here.

Students could work on this activity individually, in small groups, or as a whole class.

Once you’ve analyzed your photo, consider how you could use the information you discovered in a piece of nonfiction writing.

O.O.L.F

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Diversity in MG Lit #22 A Progress Report

By on November 16, 2020   /   Articles  
We’ve hit the award season for books. In the next weeks there will be plenty of best-of-the-year lists going around. I wanted to focus on something slightly different. In years past  the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) has analyzed the years books and put together a graphic representation of diversity in children’s books. In a nutshell, in 2018, 23% of children’s books depicted POC characters. 27% depicted non-human characters. 50% depicted white characters. This is an improvement over statistics gathered in 2015 but clearly there is plenty of work to do.
I have been keeping track of which books are getting the big promotional push in both public media and in professional conferences. I’m going to highlight three events of the last six months. And I’m going to do so with a big caveat. I am not a social scientist. I have made my conclusions on the race or ethnicity of the author based on readily available information from the publisher. Not every author states their race explicitly. It would be unethical for publishers and booksellers to ask an author to identify themselves by race. I know that people do not always belong to the race or ethnicity they most resemble. So please take my observations as just that—the candid observations of one person working as an author and bookseller.
First up—The Childrens Institute—a conference hosted by the American Booksellers Association where many publishers send their authors to promote forthcoming books to independent bookstores. This year it was online. I went to the pitch sessions where publishers had about 20 minutes each to introduce us to about a dozen titles each. The diversity of offerings varied a lot from one publisher to another. A few had as many as 90 or even 100% books by diverse authors featuring diverse characters. A few publishers had no diverse books at all. But overall when I totaled up the more than 200 book pitches I heard,  it was very close to 50-50 authors or illustrators and diverse authors or illustrators. (In my calculations I included white characters as diverse if they were disabled or LGBTQ though those were both small categories.) When challenged about lack of diversity the publishers with none or very few diverse books all pointed to past lists that had more diverse books or future ones. Many books got delayed this year or were moved to a later season. Notably every single  publisher who was asked was aware of the need for diverse books and trying to fill the need, though with varying degrees of success.
The New York Times just came out with their holiday guide to children’s books. It interested me because their content (unlike the Children’s Institute) is beyond the control of the publishers, yet it can have a powerful impact on sales. Again I took a look at not the characters of the stories but the authors and illustrators and reviewers.
16 reviewers contributed: 8 POC reviewers (3 men and 5 women) and 8 white reviewers (5 men and 3 women). So far a 50-50 split.
These reviewers presented books by 73 authors and illustrators. 26 of the creators were POC (10 men and 16 women). 47 of the creators were white (21 men and 26 women.) So 36% POC creators and 64% white creators.
Two things caught my eye. First, the gender divide was slightly more favorable to POC women.  I was also surprised to see that of the white authors & illustrators 17 or 23% of the total were not Americans but only one of those foreign book creators was a POC. So you could also represent the book creators as 1% foreign POC, 23% foreign white, 36% POC and 41% white.  Still room for improvement but clearly an effort at inclusion is being made.
Finally, it was my great pleasure to go to the virtual SCBWI Non-fiction conference. It was hosted by the Smithsonian in partnership with the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. There were 32 men and women on the faculty, 47% POC and 53% white. That is very close to parity even though the organization as a whole has a predominantly white membership. The faculty was 25% men and 75% women—not equal but reflective of the gender composition of the SCBWI as a whole.
Overall, I am encouraged. There are areas in need of improvement, but I have been glad to see acknowledgement of the problem across the board. Everyone I’ve talked to agree that the needed changes are coming slower than they’d like. Unfortunately publishing is not a speedy industry. I think the unsung heroes in all this are independent bookstore owners—most of whom are white women—who have pressured publishers for years to provide books that better represent the neighborhoods they serve.
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STEM Tuesday – Diseases and Pandemics — In the Classroom

By on November 10, 2020   /   Diseases and Pandemics, STEM Tuesday  

Throughout history, infectious diseases have impacted humans around the world. Whenever a strange new disease emerges, scientists called epidemiologists study it to learn how it spreads, its effects on humans, and how to stop it.

The books we’re highlighting this month focus on some of the most infamous and deadly infectious diseases in history and the scientific work to study and contain them. They are a great starting point for different sciences activities and discussions in the classroom. Here are a few to try:

Outbreak! Plagues That Changed History by Bryn Barnard

Here’s an extensive evaluation of the causes and human reactions and interactions (from the 1300s to the present) to bubonic plague, smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, tuberculosis, and the 1918 influenza pandemic. This book examines how these diseases changed societies and what it will ultimately take to eliminate cholera worldwide. It also looks at how wealth, bias, and prejudice continue to affect governmental reactions to microbial evolution.

Classroom activity: Divide the class into small groups and assign each an infectious disease to study. Have them answer the following questions: What type of disease is this – virus or bacteria? How does it enter the human body? How does it spread? What effect did this disease have on people around the world? Have scientists been able to stop the spread of this disease? If so, how? If not, why not? Have each group present what they have learned to the class.

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy

This book dramatically examines another “invisible stalker.” Using both first-hand witness and medical accounts, newspaper clippings, and contemporary images, it follows yellow fever’s arrival and spread throughout Philadelphia. Detailing the social, political, and medical conditions and struggles to combat this disease, this book examines the changes that the plague brought to modern medicine and the fear that it could reappear.

Classroom activity: Compare the historical yellow fever epidemic to the current Covid-19 pandemic. How would you document today’s pandemic for future generations? Have students create their own modern-day pandemic documentation – using first-hand witness accounts, newspaper articles, photographs, and other primary sources. What do they hope future generations will learn from their work?

Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary, by Gail Jarrow

When typhoid fever breaks out in New York, medical detective George Soper traces the outbreak to Mary Mallon. His job: to prevent her from infecting others. But Mary refuses to comply with quarantine and other medical directives. After all, she isn’t sick. So she continues cooking and passing on the disease. Personal freedom versus public health questions are once again relevant as we deliberate quarantines, lockdowns, and contact tracing.

Classroom activity: When an infectious disease is spreading through a community, should public health take priority over personal rights and freedoms? What are the pros and cons of each point of view? Divide students into two groups – one that prioritizes public health and one that prioritizes individual rights. Have each group prepare arguments that support their assigned point of view and debate the issue.

Fever Year- The Killer Flu of 1918: A Tragedy in Three Acts by Don Brown

Presented in a graphic novel format, this book tracks the course of the 1918 flu from Camp Funston, Kansas around the world. Many images look eerily familiar – empty streets and masks. A very accessible examination of the politics and science involved in battling the spread and ultimate containment of this flu. Additionally, it comments on current scientist’s desire to discover why this flu was so deadly by recreating it.

Classroom activity: The lessons we can learn from history are invaluable. After reading about the 1918 flu pandemic, ask students what they have learned about the spread of the flu virus and the effectiveness of different prevention methods taken in 1918. How have people applied these lessons learned from history to today’s Covid-19 pandemic? In what ways could we do better? What have you learned that you can use to help stop the spread of infectious disease?

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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. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, three kids, and her dog. When not writing, she can often be spotted at a hockey rink for one of her kids’ games. Find her at http://www.carlamooney.com, on Facebook @carlamooneyauthor, or on Twitter @carlawrites.

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