Posts Tagged writing

STEM Tuesday — Birds — Writing Tips & Resources

By on April 19, 2022   /   Birds, STEM Tuesday  

Feather Fun

If you’re interested in writing and publishing children’s nonfiction, you’re probably researching the market. Ever notice that publishers can’t seem to get enough of certain subjects? Like, BIRDS!

For several reasons this subject is perennial: no matter where they live, kids can experience birds; birds are a great topic for teaching science curriculum standards; and, many book buyers (frequently grandparents and librarians) love sharing their passion for birdwatching with children.

According to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife survey, approximately 45 million people in the US enjoy birdwatching. Every year, binoculars come out and bird books get bought.

If you want to get published, write a bird book, right? If you’ve tried that, you might have received rejection letters with phrases like “too similar to books already on our list.” Submissions piles are full of competition. So, how do writers do it? How do they write on a common topic in a flooded market and still manage to get published?

Taking Action

Take a tip (or two) from this month’s STEM Tuesday book list:

 

Fun it up! You can’t read Superpower Field Guides – Ostriches by Rachel Poliquin and illustrated by Nicholas John Frith without enjoying the humor. I challenge you to find a single spread that doesn’t make you smile or chuckle.

Follow an Individual: In Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95, Phillip Hoose gives readers a case study. Sure he presents technical information on data collection, life history, and conservation, but he does so through the lens of an observer (himself) spying on the life of one bird (B95). This does double duty, sucking readers in and letting them migrate with the birds, further supporting the scientific concepts.

Make it high concept: If listeners “get” your project with a single sentence pitch, it is high concept. Rebecca Hirsch’s Where Have All The Birds Gone? Nature in Crisis presents a problem that readers care about. Couple that with a sensory-filled opening scene, shocking examples, plus tips to empower young readers, and you may just get that acceptance letter.

Tell a Tale to Build to a Big Idea: In The Triumphant Tale of The House Sparrow, Jan Thornhill starts with a shocker: “Behold the most despised bird in human history.” Throughout the book, she uses storytelling devises like a trail of doors open just a crack to lure readers deeper and deeper into complexity: “At first, American was house sparrow heaven. At least for a while.” She builds tension: “A battle cry arose. The house sparrow had to be stopped.” She tells a tale that leads to an idea which will stick with readers: The power of resilience.

Get Personal: Sy Montgomery takes a personal approach when writing Birdology: Adventures with a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur. This unique approach appeals to readers who might not appreciate the same information presented in a more traditional expository fashion. Great writers experiment with different approaches to reach more readers.

Get Graphic: Sure Kyla Vanderklugt’s Crows: Genius Birds takes advantage of kids’ love of visual storytelling for the narrative, but it maximizes on that approach by using it to present expository information such as a family tree of corvids. When an author or illustrator can use one device to serve two purposes, that’s gold!

 

Challenge:

Pick another common topic: metamorphosis, or dinosaurs, or one of your choosing and brainstorm options for each of the above tips. It might surprise you just how much fun you can have when a flooded market forces you to get creative!

 

Heather L. Montgomery writes for kids who are wild about animals (including birds!). An award-winning author and educator, Heather uses yuck appeal to engage young minds. Her books include: Something Rotten: A Fresh Look at Roadkill, Who Gives a Poop? Surprising Science from One End to the Other, and What’s in Your Pocket? Collecting Nature’s Treasures. Learn more at www.HeatherLMontgomery.com

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STEM Tuesday — Birds — In the Classroom

By on April 12, 2022   /   Birds, STEM Tuesday  

 

 

This month’s STEM Tuesday theme is all about birds. One way to get kids interested is to take them outside to see the birds they can find or do some research to learn more about the incredible adaptations of birds. Here are a few activities to try.

 

Be an Urban Birder

Urban birding is a fun and easy way to learn more about the birds that live in the city. First read through the following books from this month’s list about different birds dwelling in cities.

Falcons in the City: The Story of a Peregrine Family by Chris Earley, photographs by Luke Massey

Cities are full of wildlife. Explore these urban residents.

 

 

 

 

 

Crows: Genius Birds by Kyla Vanderklugt

This is a perfect companion title to Crow Smarts. Readers will love the comic format.

 

 

 

 

Crow Smarts: Inside the Brain of the World’s Brightest Bird by Pamela S. Turner, photographs by Andy Comins, illustrations by Guido de FeLippo

Let’s talk about bird brains. Turner’s book focuses on the best and the brightest – crows. This is also a Scientists in the Field title that will introduce readers to the scientists at the heart of this brainy bird science.

 

 

Activity

Provide students with a bird identification guide, or make sure they have access to Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology online bird guide. Map out a route for the group to follow and tell students to look for birds and signs of birds. These signs can include bird nests, feathers, and hearing bird songs or calls. Also, before you head out, create a list of common birds in the area and review them with students. Make sure students have sketchbooks and pencils to draw what they see and note any identifying characteristics of the birds they see. Now it’s time to head out. Have students watch for birds, draw what they see, and make a list of the birds they identify. What is the most common bird found?

 

Finding Bird Superpowers

Birds can do amazing feats due to their unusual adaptations—like flying incredibly long distances while barely using any energy at all or running more than 40 miles per hour! Try this research project with students to learn about some of the shocking superpowers of birds. First read through these books from our list.

Superpower Field Guides – Ostriches by Rachel Poliquin, illustrated by Nicholas John Frith

This installment of the fun, graphic series focuses on fascinating ostriches that can outrun most horses

 

 

 

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 by Phillip Hoose

Can a bird fly the distance of the moon? It sure can. This is the story of a red knot that had an outstanding flying career.

 

 

 

 

Activity

Have students pick a bird they would like to research for their superpowers. They can pick one of the birds from the books just read or they can choose another to research, such as: great horned owls, hummingbirds, gannets, and harpy eagles, to name just a few. See what superpowers students can find about their birds and have them create superhero movie posters about them. They can think of a superhero name, draw a picture of the bird on the poster, and provide copy advertising the bird’s amazing abilities. Share these fun posters as a class!

 

Other Resources

Here are a few other resources to try and read in the classroom:

 

Karen Latchana Kenney loves to write books about animals, and looks for them wherever she goes—from leafcutter ants trailing through the Amazon rain forest in Guyana, where she was born, to puffins in cliff-side burrows on the Irish island of Skellig Michael. She especially enjoys creating books about nature, biodiversity, conservation, and groundbreaking scientific discoveries—but also writes about civil rights, astronomy, historical moments, and many other topics. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and son, and bikes, hikes, and gazes at the night sky in northern Minnesota any moment she can. Visit her at https://latchanakenney.wordpress.com
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STEM Tuesday — Diversity in STEM– Writing Tips & Resources

By on March 15, 2022   /   Diversity in STEM, STEM Tuesday  

 

Diversity.

It’s needed everywhere and, in particular, it’s needed across the board in the STEM fields.

This month’s STEM Tuesday Writing Tips & Resource post is short and sweet. 

We need diverse talents and viewpoints to solve our problems. We need the collective brainpower. A toolbox limited to a single hammer can pound away but limits what can be accomplished. A variety of tools can handle so much more. It has unlimited potential.

 

2011 Presidential Award for Excellence in STEM Mentoring honorees. National Science Foundation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Diversity has always played a role in STEM. We’ve been ingrained by media, myth, and selective memory to think of STEM as white and male by default. That is an error. A mistake of perception that we must fight through in order to discover the truth is much richer than the default myth. 

Throughout history, there are examples of how important diverse thought has been in the STEM fields. Just use this month’s STEM Tuesday — Diversity in STEM — Book List as a great jumping-off point. Pick a book. Any book. Dive in.

(Me? I’m going to start with, What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Kareem was one of my sports idols when I was a kid and his “second” career as an author takes his idol status to astronomical levels.) 

Creativity, innovation, and problem-solving are not unique to gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

Anyone can have ideas.

Anyone can come up with solutions.

Anyone can contribute their uniqueness in their unique way.

They just need a place at the table. Or lab bench. Or board room. Or design meeting. Or…

 

1947 Nobel Prize winners Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori and Carl Ferdinand Cori. Smithsonian Institution from United States, Public Domain, 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 Twitter-sphere under the guise of @coachhays64 and Instagram at @mikehays64.

 

The O.O.L.F Files

This month’s version of the O.O.L.F.(Out of Left Field) Files highlights resources toward training a diverse workforce for the STEM fields. 

Higher Education

The college I work at is doing good work when it comes to developing a more diverse STEM field. Here are a couple of the programs at Kansas State University.

PEW Research Report 2021

The State of STEM Education

An interesting 2020 paper from the International Journal of STEM Education

EiE’s list of organizations working to promote Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) excellence in STEM

An analysis of current STEM workforce and education data from Thomas Insights

Why STEM Diversity Matters from Wired

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for one of the most powerful molecular discoveries ever, Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR for short. CRISPR vaulted gene-editing technologies into high gear.

 

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