Wordless Wednesday

Archimedes Notebook is off for a few weeks of field exploration: in the back yard, in the garden, in the woods...  Wordless Wednesday will still be here, and look for Friday posts to resume in late summer.

Wordless Wednesday

Archimedes Notebook is off for a few weeks of field exploration: in the back yard, in the garden, in the woods...  Wordless Wednesday will still be here, and look for Friday posts to resume in late summer.

Science on the Go

 Summer is a time for exploration, whether you're heading to the beach or going camping or exploring the local park. Here's a trio of books from National Geographic Kids that are sized just right for taking along.

Quiz Whiz 5: 1,000 super fun mind-bending totally awesome trivia questions
by National Geographic Kids
176 pages; ages 8-12 (or older)

Tired of playing "I-Spy", the roadside Alphabet Game, twenty questions? Then you need to tuck this into your travel bag for the next road trip. It's got more than 1,000 brain-tickling questions, jokes, and trivia that relate to just about any topic.

Going to the beach? Challenge kids with questions about sharks and shells and ships. There's sports trivia, movies and lots of animal questions. And there are answers at the back... so everyone can learn something new.

 Myths Busted! 3
by Emily Krieger; illus. by Tom N. Cocotos
208 pages; ages 9-12

We all know that pterodactyls are dinosaurs... right? After all, they look like dinos, and they lived at the same time. But - this may come as a shock - pterodactyls aren't dinosaurs at all.

Each page - or spread - quotes some common knowledge which, it turns out, is a myth. Stuff like the fact that Twinkies can sit on a shelf for ages and never go bad, or storing batteries in the freezer makes them last longer. Turn the page and ... BUSTED! There, in black and white (or brilliant color) the myth is dispelled and you get the story behind the story. Speaking of stories - these would be great to share around the campfire.

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016
by National Geographic Kids
352 pages; ages 8-12

I know the page my kids would flip to first would be titled "That's Gross!" - unless they came across the otters. Or lynx. Or the turtles or the penguins or the robot playing a xylophone.

There is so much cool stuff crammed into the pages of this almanac: timelines, quizzes, freaky facts. You can't get bored no matter how many states you drive through. For kids with mobile access, there are free digital extras: videos, photo galleries, and games. Which makes this an ideal take-along for trips to the laundromat, sibling sports practices, or one of those "I'm bored, nothing to do" days.

Speaking of "on the go" ~  Archimedes Notebook is taking a break from blogging for a few weeks. You'll still find  Wordless Wednesday photos posted each week, and  Friday posts will resume in late August.

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copies from the publisher.

Wordless Wednesday

Call of the Osprey

The Call of the Osprey
by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent; photos by William Munoz
80 pages; ages 10 & up
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015

This is another in the brilliant "Scientist in the Field" series. Patent and Munoz focus their sights on University of Montana scientists studying a pair of Osprey they have named Iris and Stanley. The book opens with the team fixing a bird camera prior to breeding season.

Bird cams are wonderful inventions - you can check some out here. Every spring we watch a pair of red-tailed hawks that nest up at Cornell University. The cameras, located close to the nest, allow us to watch the eggs hatch, the parents feed nestlings, and first flights. But I never thought about the work that goes into placing and maintaining the cameras.

Like "our" red-tailed hawks, the U of M osprey nest high in the tops of dead trees. Or on light posts - wherever they can find a platform to build their nests.

Each fall, the osprey head south, and each spring they return from their winter home in Belize. The osprey nest along rivers, as they are fishing birds. They are well-adapted to that life, with rough spines on their feet that allow them to hold onto their slippery, flopping prey as they fly back to the nest. Osprey don't have many enemies - except for nest predators - and they're pretty tolerant of human activity. The biggest danger they face comes from loss of habitat and environmental contaminants.

Whatever chemicals - insecticides, herbicides, petroleum products - end up in the environment eventually get washed into the river. Whatever gets into the river gets into the fish. And whatever gets into the fish ends up in the osprey, whether it's DDT or heavy metals. So, as the scientists band the osprey, they collect samples of blood and feathers. They also spend a lot of time removing plastic baling twine from the nests. Unlike jute baling twine, the plastic doesn't degrade, and chicks can get tangled up in it, strangled, and die. There's a sobering photograph of twine they removed from a single osprey nest - stretched out it measures a quarter of a mile! 

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copy from the publisher.

Wordless Wednesday

Fourth of July Science

About a thousand years ago a Chinese monk stuffed gunpowder into a piece of bamboo and tossed it into the fire. He wanted to make a noise loud enough to scare away ghosts.

If you head out to a fireworks display tonight, you'll get more than a big bang. The designs and colors we see in the sky are a result of chemistry. Inside the fireworks are pellets of the sparkly stuff that burns in the sky. The pattern you see in the sky results from how those pellets are placed inside the firework. They may explode outward in shapes that look like fronds of a palm tree or a brittle star. Or they might snake across the sky. You can read more about patterns here.

The colors come from burning different metal salts: barium chloride for green, lithium carbonate for red, copper compounds for blue, and sodium - like the salt you shake onto your potatoes - for yellow. Here's a handy color chart.

Have fun on the fourth, and remember: it may look like a fireworks show but it's Science in the Sky!

Wordless Wednesday

refueling before take-off