March 2011 Archives

What's your Periodic Table style?

Do you like things:

• light (He)?


• with a bit of patina (Cu)?


• on the salty side (Na)?


• noxious (N)?


• fire-retardant (Br)?


• metallic (In)?


• radioactive (Pu)?

With 118 elements on the Periodic Table, there is something for everyone and plenty of chemical reactions to go around. If you have something to say about one of the six elements listed above, you should put your thoughts on paper and enter Nature Chemistry's essay competition, part of the International Year of Chemistry.

Each issue of Nature Chemistry includes a back-page essay called "In Your Element." Students (and recent graduates) are invited to enter the essay competition by writing a 700-800 word essay, in the style of an "In Your Element" article, on one of these elements: helium, nitrogen, sodium, copper, bromine, indium or plutonium.
Even student scientists can wax poetic (AKA "write with feeling"), especially when it comes to the properties of a favorite, or critical, or pervasive, or transparent, or explosive, or notorious element. What do you have to say? To get a feel for the tone and style of "In Your Element" articles, check out Ken Wade's "Bonding with boron." The "In Your Element" on the back page of the current issue of Nature Chemistry is titled: "W for tungsten and wolfram."

The deadline for entries is August 1, 2011. For complete rules and submission information, visit: http://www.nature.com/nchem/iyeessay/index.html

McCray, a 2nd grader at Piney Grove Elementary in North Carolina, won 2nd place with his "which fertilizer works best" science project!

Doing a project that ties in with something you love (or something you wonder about or are curious about) can be a win-win. That's why I got excited when I heard McCray McGee's story. As a 2nd grader, McCray did an award-winning science project putting something he heard about Squanto to the test. He wondered: was Squanto right that fish make the best fertilizer for corn?

The project that grew out of his curiosity made use of the family farm, involved cats trying to get to the buried fish, required home-made compost, utilized a pet pig, and ended with some family taste-testing of McCray's fresh-from-the-farm corn to go along with the data analysis he performed after monitoring the crops for 13 weeks. During the project, McCray's mom visited Ask an Expert to get suggestions about how to help guide McCray's project so that it was manageable for his age and grade.

It's a great story! Check it out to see how McCray and his family bridged the gap between American History and Science.

At-Home Plant Science
Interested in plant biology or agriculture? You can conduct a science experiment similar to McCray's even if you don't have a farm!

• With a group of small pots, you can test the effect of nitrogen-based fertilizers in the Growing, Growing, Gone! project.
• Using the Growing, Growing, Gone! project as a model, you can create your own project to test other variables or other types of fertilizer. Our Measuring Plant Growth guide offers suggestions and tips for monitoring your plants.
  

To read other inspiring stories about students, teachers, and families who have used Science Buddies resources, visit our Science Buddies in Action page.

Cedar Waxwing. Source: Wikipedia.

Field Scientists Putting Today's Science in the Hands of Students

Recent additions to the Science Buddies library of Project Ideas utilize animal movement data from Movebank.org. Among the field scientists who worked on developing these student-accessible explorations with Science Buddies:

• Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the New York State Museum. You can follow Roland's current research and tracking of "fishers"—6-13 pound weasels— on his New York Times Science blog.

• Martin Wikelski, a zoologist and physiological ecologist at Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. Martin was named one of 2010's Adventurers of the Year by National Geographic.
  

A few years ago, I did an informal, daily study of the birds in my area. For an entire year, I watched the birds. Every day, I recorded my observations, writing down what birds I saw in my neighborhood and in my daily travels, even if those travels often only involved a one- to two-mile circuit. There were many birds to observe, discover, and watch.

The robins quickly became a familiar sight that year, having arrived in the Bay Area shortly after I started actively "watching." I saw them first singly and in pairs or small clusters in other trees in my area. On the day I saw them sitting in the tree in the backyard, they were joined by cedar waxwings, a bird I'd never seen before but found amazing with its golden brown, grey, and soft yellow coloring, dark masked face, and crested head. On that day, the tree was covered with birds. It is an unusual tree on the windswept, ocean-facing hill behind my house. The branches stretch horizontally, tapering in length as they near the top. With chubby robins and sleek cedar waxwings perched on every lateral branch, the tree took on the appearance of a row boat. It was a wonderful moment in bird watching. The tree is not berry-laden, and so the waxwings that day were only passing through. They don't hang out in our backyard, but when I saw the robins there again on that "row boat" of a tree, I marveled at the consistency of migration patterns.

From Backyard to Science Project

Bird watching is a pastime for all ages, and "birders" often have a story of a friend or family member who got them interested in bird watching. Whether you live in an exotic location, or a temperate clime, or somewhere with hard seasons and long winters, one thing is certain... there are birds that probably call your area home at certain times of the year. Students interested in learning more about the science of bird migration can develop a range of observational and analysis-based science projects. Students using the Science Buddies website also have the opportunity to use Movebank.org data to allow them to study movement patterns of a range of animals and birds.

Students interested in birds, zoology, or even conservation and environmental engineering, can explore relevant issues in the following projects:

• Do Migratory Birds Like It Hot?: use Movebank.org data to explore the relationship between air temperature and where and when birds migrate. (zoology)




• Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Saving Migratory Animals: use Movebank.org data to study the migratory path for a bird species and then devise conservation planning strategies to ensure habitats are maintained. (environmental science)




• With a Little Bread as Bait, Can You Make a Bird Migrate?: observe the impact of food shortage on migration. (zoology)




• Are We There Yet? Test How Migratory Birds Navigate: use Google Earth and data on white-crowned sparrows to track their 2,000+ mile migration. (zoology)




• Where, Oh Where, Do the Wild Wolves Wander?: analyze the gray wolf pack's territory and seasonal movement. (zoology)




• Using Animal Tracking Data from Movebank for Science Projects: with access to animal movement data, students can devise an independent project analyzing an aspect of movement or migration studies. Several volunteers in the Science Buddies Ask an Expert forums specialize in movement and migration studies, so students working on projects in this area of science may find assistance with planning and shaping a long-term independent project.
  

Students who completed one of the projects below could win one of ten $50 iTunes gift cards! To enter our random drawing, students need to complete the following steps by March 21: 

1. Make sure you have a free Science Buddies account. (To register for a free Science Buddies account, sign up here.) 


2. Click the link below for the project you did.


3. Sign in to your Science Buddies account. 


4. Complete the "I Did this Project" form. (Note: to be entered in the giveaway, you must upload a photo when completing the form. Your photo can be of your project display board or a photo from the experiment itself. Stock photos will not be considered.)


5. Look for the list of winners in our April newsletter!  

• Are We There Yet? Test How Migratory Birds Navigate   


• BLAST into the Past to Identify T. Rex's Closest Living Relative 


• Blasting Flu Viruses 


• Computational Exploration of Protein Function 


• Correlation of Coronal Mass Ejections with the Solar Sunspot Cycle 


• Do Migratory Birds Like It Hot? 


• Finding the Center of the Milky Way Galaxy Using Globular Star Clusters    


• Harbor Porpoise Movement     


• Harmful Algal Blooms in the Chesapeake Bay 


• Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Saving Migratory Birds    


• Hurricanes and Climate 


• Investigate Native Plant Evolution with Chloroplast Sequencing 


• The Milky Way and Beyond: Globular Clusters 


• Using the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory Satellite (SOHO) to Measure the Motion of a Coronal Mass Ejection 


• Using the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory Satellite (SOHO) to Determine the Rotation of the Sun 


• Neanderthals, Orangutans, Lemurs, & You-It's a Primate Family Reunion! 


• Swimming in Acid: Understanding Ocean Acidification 


• The Cancer Genome Anatomy Project 


• The Tree of Life - I 


• The Tree of Life - II  


• Use DNA Sequencing to Trace the Blue Whale's Evolutionary Tree 


• Watch Out! That Wild Animal Might Be Rabid!  


• Water to Fuel to Water: The Fuel Cycle of the Future  


• What is the Woolly Mammoth's Closest Living Relative? 


• With A Little Bread as Bait Can You Make a Bird Migrate?  

(Note: Contest open to U.S., K-12 students. Entries will be verified and follow-up questions regarding the project may be asked. Authentic photo from student's project is required. Entries accepted until March 21, 2011.)

With over 40,000 versions, MIT Media Lab's new logo is computer-driven design. You can see some of the permutations of the algorithmic logo in this video.

I've taken turns with my kids playing countless games we've installed, and even as I join the quest to best the top score, when it's not my turn, I marvel at these apps, knowing that the footprint (the size of each app) is small, and yet the functionality and visual display is compelling (and, okay, addictive... have you played Fruit Ninja?). I think about the explosion of the app market, especially given the relatively standard low per-app price point. I wonder... how hard is it? I wonder... can I get my students (who unwaveringly want to be video game designers) started designing and coding by lifting the hood on a gadget they already love?

(Reality: we've got a few years before they're ready for Objective-C.) Still, with so many cool platforms available, it's an exciting time for students just beginning to explore programming, and for many of these platforms, visual design and the sophistication of the graphics is given top billing.

A Logo with 40,000 Versions

As much as I love the nuts and bolts (or bits and bytes) that bring about savvy programming that we front-end users can enjoy, I love good design even more, whether it's classic, cutting-edge, postmodern or just knock-your-socks-off innovative.

When I saw mention of MIT Media Lab's new logo, I found an innovative blending of design and technology. Logos are typically finite marks. They are created to be "the" visual mark for a company or brand and are intended to be produced in certain colors at certain sizes. Branding is important, and businesses can get pretty stuffy about rules regarding the use of their logo. That MIT Media Lab's new mark may appear in any of 40,000 permutations, which involves twelve color combinations, is mind-boggling—and way cool.

The new logo has a few basic parameters: each iteration uses three colors and three spotlights. The size, color, and orientation of those spotlights, however, vary for each unique version of the logo. Everyone at MIT Media Lab will have his or her "own" version of the logo. And no two people will have exactly the same version. The logo is as edgy and geeky as the group it represents because the permutations of the brand are based on an algorithm which can spit out the multitude of versions.

A Programmatic Approach to Design

The creation of the MIT Media Lab logo uses an open source programming language called Process. While Process is unique in its focus on visual and graphical manipulations, students can begin creating and exploring their own image-oriented applications--and algorithms--using MIT's Scratch programming environment.

The Science Buddies Scratch User Guide walks you through the installation and can help you get started with your first program.

If you think the story behind the new MIT Media Lab logo is cool, you might explore the visual side of Scratch by putting the math in place and investigating fractals in the Scratch environment. (There are plenty of examples in the Scratch gallery). You can find out more about fractals in the Exploring Fractals project idea.

We'd love to see what you create!

(Science Buddies projects in the area of computer science are sponsored by Symantec. Projects in the area of video and computer games are sponsored by AMD.)

Courtney Corda, AKA "Science Mom," appeared in a video segment (Episode 6) of Mom's Homeroom this week with a roundup of great tips for parents whose students are doing science projects or preparing for the school science fair.

Walking a group of students through the Give It a Lift with a Lever physics project, Courtney explains that there are six kinds of "simple machines," the lever being one of them. The project, geared for grades 3-6, guides students through the building of a tabletop lever constructed from familiar household objects: a ruler, a ballpoint pen, and a bar of soap.

With the device hooked to the edge of a counter, Courtney explains concepts like "load end," "effort end," and "fulcrum" as the students test the lever by "lifting" objects like pennies or marbles. With the "simple machine" in place, students can explore what happens when changes are made to the design. What happens to the amount of effort required to "lift" something when the length of the effort arm is changed?

Empowering Your Students

For parents, Courtney offers the following advice:

• Let students choose their own topics. Our Topic Selection Wizard can help students locate exciting projects that they might enjoy doing. Forcing a topic can be a big mistake!

• Let them do the work. Rather than making suggestions that tell them "what" to do next, ask open-ended questions that encourage your students to problem solve and to apply what they're learning and observing to the task at hand.

• Help them stay on track. Science projects often involve many steps, and the classroom assignment may have multiple components, including background research, a report, the experiment itself, a conclusion, and the sharing of results and data. Parents can help students by setting up milestones that will keep them focused and help them sequentially work through all steps of the science project experience.
  

Keeping Perspective

In the end, reminds Courtney, a science experience should be fun, positive, educational, and empowering. It doesn't matter if the original hypothesis is proven true or not. What matters is the time spent actively exploring the science at hand—and the ability to communicate what was learned from the experiment or project.

A Site for Moms

In its 3rd year of production, Mom's Homeroom, sponsored by MSN and Frosted Mini-Wheats®, is a comprehensive online destination for moms looking for information to help them support their children's academic success and achievement. Led by a diverse group of moms—Victoria, Michelle, Jillian, and Alba—the Mom's Homeroom site contains video "episodes," articles and usable resources (like quizzes and printables), and blogs all designed to make it easier for moms to connect with "actionable, thought-provoking and entertaining insights on a broad range of top-of-mind educational topics."

To learn more about Courtney and to watch other video segments from our Science Mom, visit the Science Mom section of the Science Buddies website.

Roller coasters? Pinball machine design? Model planes? Stop motion animation? Renewable energy? "Myth-busting" (putting those science stories to the test)? Video game programming? Kite flying? Greenhouse gardening? Cooking? Photography? Medicine? Animal care? Biochemistry? Architecture? Earthquake detection? Wind power? Geo-sciences? Aqueduct and river ways engineering? Robotics? Invisible ink and spies-like-us skills?

When it comes to summer science, that's just the tip of the school's-out-let-the-hands-on-learning-begin iceberg!

Whatever field you can think of... whatever your areas of interest... there's probably a summer science camp or program that can let you really immerse yourself—and learn important science at the same time! You'll have fun with hands-on activities, exploration, and creative building or experimentation. But you'll also be learning, which is good for you and may be the icing on the cake when it comes to parents choosing enriching summer programs.

The Parent Perspective

When students come home from camp bubbling with facts about Newton's laws, gravity, kinetic and potential energy, lift and drag, torque, pulleys, and the pH scale... you know they're soaking up facts about the way the world works. But you also know they probably haven't been sitting at a desk, heads bent over a textbook. They're excited! They're brimming! And they might have tangible creations in tow that demonstrate what they've learned.

It's true. Summer camps provide a unique opportunity to teach a specialized curriculum in completely out-of-the-box ways. Summer science can and should be fun, and most summer programs work hard to create captivating and innovative science experiences that let students learn by doing. No testing required!

Programs vary, and themes often change week to week or year to year, so you'll want to spend some time exploring camps in your area. Our Summer Science Camp Resource is designed to help you learn more about what science programs offer—and to help you find great summer science opportunities where you live.

Take a look!

The Science Buddies Summer Science Camp resource is sponsored by a generous grant from the Motorola Foundation.

[Note: The following list of projects appeared in the May 2010 Science Buddies Newsletter. To view the full newsletter, which was all about the science of music, click here. Parents, you'll find great at-home music science projects in that issue as well!]

Sometimes, rolling up your sleeves and recreating the wheel really is the best way to understand from the inside out what is happening, how something works, and what the science at hand really means. Patience, ingenuity, and a DIY attitude make these homemade (or "tweaked") instruments a fun and functional way to explore sound and music.

Check out the following science project ideas:

• Build Your Own Xylophone Out of Copper Pipe: Math and music combine to turn ordinary copper piping into a familiar instrument. (Difficulty: 5)

• Make Your Own Piezoelectric Pickup for Acoustic Guitar: Soup up your acoustic guitar for use with an amplifier by making a "pickup" out of a simple electronic buzzer. (Difficulty: 7-9)

• Make Your Own Electric Guitar Pickup: Induction, magnets, and thousands of wire wraps give your electric guitar the rock-and-roll sound you love. Wind your own pickup with a set of popsicle sticks to see how even small changes in the pickup can alter the sound. (Difficulty: 7-9)

• Building Banjos: Explore the function of a banjo's "resonator." (Difficulty: 8)

• Pluck Out & Pick New String Materials for Your Guitar: Guitar strings can be made out of a range of materials and come with varying degrees of "tension." Which works best with your soundboard? (Difficulty: 8-10)
  

[Editorial Note: Amy, whose blog entry appears below, is one of several "Science Moms" at Science Buddies!]

Image source: screenshot from video trailer of The Case of the Terrible T. rex.

We love our math and our science and our computers in our house, and when we see a description of a coin launcher made from a toilet paper roll and a piece of leftover balloon, it sticks in our heads until we try it. (Of course, concerned about the relative weight of a coin flying through the air at slingshot speed, I did advocate the launcher be tried with small LEGO bricks instead to minimize breakage and injury!) Risk of projectile damage aside, we enjoy our gadgets and a healthy number of "let's-see-how-or-if-it-works" moments, but we also love to read. Books, books, and more books line our shelves, spill out over the sides of buckets and baskets, peek out from under the seats in the car, and weigh down our bags when we travel.

My boys are three years apart, and so we've cycled through a few series entirely, twice. Some of those are elementary cult classics in their own rite. The A to Z Mysteries and The Magic Tree House series are two series that we read, start to finish, and then again. Other series have had transient roles in our out-loud reading. Geronimo Stilton, Cam Jansen, Horrible Harry, Jigsaw Jones.... We've read them.

If you're noticing a trend toward mysteries, you're right. Statistically, it's been the most popular read-aloud genre in our house this year. That doesn't mean we haven't read scads of other things. We have. But a great mystery series... can be golden, and I've spent a lot of library trips scouring the shelves looking for another series that will catch first-grade attention, inspire, excite, and tide us through another set of weeks of bedtime reading.

A Lucky Find!

When I stumbled over a Doyle and Fossey, Science Detectives book by Michelle Torrey, I was thrilled to find another "mystery"-styled series that, like Jigsaw Jones and Cam Jansen, features two students (one male and one female) who have hung up their shingle as detectives. As soon as I started, I realized there is something special about these—especially from the science angle and for a Science Mom!

I've read a number of the Doyle and Fossey Science Detectives lineup since, and I love that the stories themselves are full of science and serious kids who do their best thinking in their lab, apply science to every problem, and take their decaf coffee black (no hot chocolate, thanks). Doyle's got wild, stand-up hair that is the color of cinnamon toast, and he's often found monitoring his own experiments and recording his observations in his lab notebook. Nell Fossey, on the other hand, is a naturalist, with a jungle-esque bedroom full of aquariums, terrariums, and cages. To add to their innate interest in scientific investigation, the duo is lucky to have parents with skills and jobs that fit perfectly into supporting and encouraging their young detectives, and they have an amazing reference book that always has the perfect chapter to help guide their scientific problem-solving when they are faced with a new case.

In the Name of Hands-On Exploration

In the back of each book, there are tips and brief hands-on experiments that give students and families a bit more information about the science that played a part in the cases—and a way to test the concepts in an age-appropriate way. Each "Activities and Experiments for Super-Scientists" back-section is in the neighborhood of 20 pages, and some of the basic info appears in each volume. In addition to fun activities, these pages cover things like the importance of a lab notebook (and how to use one), the scientific method, and hypotheses. All of these science "staples" are things you see Doyle and Fossey use and do—and they are cool doing it! The projects themselves (which tie in with the stories in each book) offer an easy starting point for families to begin talking with elementary students about principles of science. For example, one volume contains a mystery that centers upon static electricity (and a poor, hungry cat). In the back of the book, there is a related "shocking" activity.

I like the short projects lend themselves nicely to deeper exploration through the Project Ideas at Science Buddies. Parents interested in doing hands-on science projects with their students will find a handy list of projects that use readily-available materials in the Parents section of the Science Buddies website.

(Note: The Doyle and Fossey books are marketed for grades 3-5.)

The President's comments aside, if the big screen is more your game than the Super Bowl, and if you go starry-eyed over the red-carpet, then you might have been watching last week as Natalie Portman (making style lists for her purple dress, as well) took home the golden statue for her lead role in Black Swan, a thriller with an obsessed ballerina, and a production of the classic Swan Lake, at its dark heart.

You may not have seen Black Swan (rated R), but you probably know Portman's name... or maybe you know her better as Queen Amidala from the new Star Wars trilogy. Amazingly, she was still a high school student when she took on the role of Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I, which hit the screen in 1997. Star Wars, however, was not her first big screen role. Moving from stage to film, she made her movies debut at age 13, and by the age of 14 was working on a string of movies: Heat, Beautiful Girls, Everyone Says I Love You, and Mars Attacks! Since then, her list of credits includes at least a movie a year over the last ten years.

Well-Rounded Success

While her Hollywood success is amazing (she's only 29), there's a lot more to Portman than a worth-the-price-of-popcorn-and-admission screen presence.

Following her Oscar win, an article appeared in New York Times Science spotlighting Portman's decidedly and impressively academic and science-minded side. As a straight-A high school student, she was a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search, a prestigious, and highly competitive, national science competition.

At the time, Portman was interested in alternative energy sources, specifically the process of transforming waste products into hydrogen or ethanol fuels. At the heart of her research were simple methods for demonstrating that the reactions being studied were producing hydrogen, which could be used as an alternative fuel source. In a paper she published on her work titled, "A Simple Method To Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar," she puts forth a familiar call to action: there is a need for "bioprocesses whereby biomass and the biodegradable content of municipal wastes can be converted to useful forms of energy" that can replace fossil fuels like oil. In the paper, she demonstrates that "common sugar glucose can be used to produce hydrogen using two enzymes, glucose dehydrogenase and hydrogenase." She also advocates that this kind of research can and should be explored in high school labs—that it is easy enough and uses readily accessible materials, making it a good way to emphasize environmental and biotechnology issues and areas of study, and helping give students a hands-on introduction to enzyme-catalyzed reactions.

A Lead Role

Students who are interested in environmental issues and the processes involved in producing biofuels might try and replicate Portman's study. Or, students can investigate alternative energy production in one of these Science Buddies projects:

• Turn Plants into Biofuel with the Power of Enzymes
• Water to Fuel to Water: The Fuel Cycle of the Future
• From Trash to Gas: Biomass Energy
• Biodiesels: Converting Oil into Clean Fuel
• Burning Biofuels: Comparing Nonrenewable and Renewable Fuels
• For students interested in designing their own independent study—or with sights set on entering a top competition like the Intel Science Talent Search—the Science Buddies Advanced Project Guide can help you get started.
  

A Big Screen Look at the Intel STS

The Whiz Kids documentary about the Intel STS will be shown on PBS in April!

(Science Buddies projects in the area of biotechnology are sponsored by Bio-Rad and its Biotechnology Explorer program.)

In the above image, the green color in a plant leaf has been separated into its various pigments using thin layer chromatography. You can see the bands of separate pigments, further distinguished by the change in color. Source: Wikipedia

On this day in 1910, Archer Martin was born. Martin was a biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1952 for his work, with R. L. M. Synge, on paper partition chromatography.

What is chromatography? It is simply a technique used to separate a mixture into its different component parts, based on the chemical properties of each component. Various types of chromatography are used in many areas of science. Police and forensics investigators, for example, might use chromatography to help evaluate stains, spots, or fluids found at the scene of a crime. Food companies, on the other hand, may use advanced chromatography to ensure food products being made contain the right balance of ingredients. But it is also simple enough to do at home.

Try It Out!

There are a number of chromatography projects on the Science Buddies website. You can get started exploring this important chemistry process by testing some common indoor and outdoor materials and supplies.

• Paper Chromatography: Basic Version

  Using paper chromatography, you can analyze the ink in permanent black markers, letting you see the differences in their composition. Not all inks are created the same! (Have you ever noticed in the school supplies section that inks come with a wide range of labeling. Some are waterproof, some are water-resistant, some are light-resistant, and some are touted as being fraud-proof. What's the difference?) (Difficulty: 4-5)

• Paper Chromatography: Advanced Version 1

  Again working with inks and markers, you can compare different chromatography substrates and solvents to see which ones are most effective in separating different kinds of inks. (Difficulty: 5-6)

• Paper Chromatography: Advanced Version 2

  Using paper or thin-layer chromatography, you can analyze the leaf pigments found in three different types of green plants. This experiment takes a new look at spinach! (Difficulty: 5-6)
  

• Candy Chromatography: What Makes Those Colors?

  Paper chromatography can help you determine what dyes were used in the coatings of popular brightly colored candies! You'll want to keep a few aside for snacking! (Difficulty: 5-6)
  

• Reveal the Red: Exploring the Chemistry of Red Flower Pigments

  In this project, paper chromatography is used to analyze the pigments in red flower petals, and to determine if different red flowers use the same or different pigments. (What about other red objects in nature?) (Difficulty: 6)