Seymour Simon's Blog, page 28

Writing Wednesday: Saturn

Welcome to Writing Wednesday, where every week we give you a chance to post your writing here on the Seymour Science blog. Today we thought we’d have some fun, and let you do a piece of creative writing about space. It’s "Science Fiction" Writing Wednesday! The Topic: Saturn and its rings. Saturn is one of the "gas giant" planets in our solar system. Often, when I try to describe the size of objects in the solar system, I find that I need to use comparisons. The numbers are just so huge that no one can imagine what they mean. For example, I can tell you that Saturn’s circumference (which you would measure by wrapping a giant tape measure around its equator) is 235,298 miles or 378,675 kilometers. But who can really imagine how large 235, 298 miles is? I can’t. A better way to think about this is to use a comparison. To give you an idea of how big Saturn is, we can compare it to Earth. Saturn’s circumference is 9.4 times larger than Earth’s circumference. We can all understand that that is BIG.Now, for the science fiction part. I found a great image this week (thanks to the USA Science and Engineering Festival for sharing!). This picture is also designed to help us understand how huge Saturn is, by imagining how long it would take to drive all the way around one of the rings. Of course, no one could never ever really do that. But doesn’t knowing that it would take 258 full days if you were driving 75 miles per hour the whole time help you to understand just how huge Saturn is?Your assignment: Imagine that you are in a that spaceship/ truck, driving on Saturn’s rings at 75 mph. Write a paragraph or two describing what that journey would be like. What are Saturn’s rings really like? Are they solid? What are conditions in space? Tell about the food and water you would need. Would you be lonely? Use what you know about Saturn and about space to imagine what you would encounter. Use lots of descriptive details to make you imaginary journey come alive for your reader. When you are finished writing, click on the yellow "Comments" at the bottom of this post to enter your writing. Photos: NASA, Earth Sky PhotosNote to Eucators: Today’s Writing Wednesday excercize is designed to support CSSS Writing Standard #3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

Cool Photo: Mars

You may have already seen this magnificent photograph of Mars, taken by the mast camera on the Curiosity rover. Everyone has marveled at how much it looks like Earth, with its gravely surface and sandy dunes. Here is a cool fact that you may not have heard about this photograph. If you were standing on Mars, these are not the colors that you would see in front of you. The dust in the planet’s atmosphere makes everything look very red, including this sandy dune. The reason this photograph isn’t red is that NASA’s engineers are doing something called "white balancing" - adjusting the colors to make the scene look the way it would with the kind of light we have here on Earth. They do this to help out a particular bunch of Earthlings - the geologists who are studying the images with eyes that are trained to recognize rocks, minerals and other substances in more familiar light.

5 Top Internet Safety Rules for Kids

We are so pleased to welcome lots of new users to the Seymour Science blog this week. It is exciting to know that kids, parents, and educators are using this resource, because we create it for YOU! Take a look at the list called "Labels" on the left hand side of the blog page. These are links to lots of stories that we have posted here in the past. Take a look around - I’m sure you will find topics that you are interested. Just click on the label name, and all the stories with that label will pop right up for you to read. For example, if you click on the label called Space, you will find all kinds of interesting stories and photographs from space. Dog lovers should try the label Dogs - I think you will like what you see! Interacting with Seymour on his blog is also a great way to practice Internet safety. Did you notice today that it takes a few hours before your comment shows up after you post it? That is because we check every single comment on the website to be sure that you are all using the Internet safely before we make the comment live on the website for everyone to see. We noticed recently that some kids are leaving comments with both their first and last name - not a good idea if you are under 13 years old (don’t worry, we changed them for you before we made them live). So, we thought we would take a moment this morning this morning to remind students about five important "Internet Rules of the Road." You should follow these rules if you are writing a comment, uploading a photo, or uploading a video anywhere on the Internet, not just on this website. 1. Never give your full name. Use just your first name, or your first name and last initial (I would be "Seymour S"). 2. Never give your exact address. If you want to say where you are from, keep the answer general. For example, "Alicia N. from Texas." Or "Jeremy S., from Southern California." 3. I bet you have already figured out that you should never give your email address or telephone number to anyone you meet on the Internet. That is a BIG no no! 4. DO practice kindness when you interact with other kids on the Internet. Treat people you meet with respect, just as you would want to be treated. If something is too mean to say directly to someone’s face, then it is too mean to write on the Internet. 5. Your parents and teachers can and should be able to see what you are doing on the Internet. Share your activities with them when they ask, and let them help you with learning the Internet Rules of the Road. Teachers and librarians, this is also a chance to remind you to get parental permission before you send us any photographs of your students. We are always glad to hear from you here at SeymourSimon.com, and we want to keep everybody safe. Keep on writing! I love to hear from you!

Science News: Explaining Brain Freeze

It was a hot day on Saturday, and I decided to have some ice cream. After a couple of cold, delicious bites - OUCH! Brain Freeze!! Have you ever had this feeling when you eat or drink something cold? All of a sudden you get a sharp headache. It doesn’t last long, but for a few seconds, it’s pretty uncomfortable. It turns out that researchers have learned quite a bit about brain freeze by designing an experiment where they asked volunteers to sip a very cold drink, right up against the roof of their mouth. The volunteers were told to raise their hand as soon as they felt brain freeze starting, and raise their hand again when the headache stopped. While this was happening, scientists were looking at a scan of each volunteer’s brain. When the brain freeze headache started, a rush of blood suddenly flowed into the anterior cerebral artery, which is located in the middle of the brain, behind theeyes. This increased blood flow caused the artery to expand, pushing painfully against the tissue surrounding it. Then after a few seconds - and right when volunteers raised their hands a second time - the artery rapidly returned to normal size. The brain is one of the most important organs in our body - it needs to work well all the time. The brain is also quite sensitive to temperature, so researchers think that what is probably happening is that your body is rushing warm blood to the brain tissue to make sure your brain stays warm. Once the temperature in the brain rises back to normal, the extra blood isn’t needed, the artery goes back to normal size, and the pressure stops, which stops the pain. So next time you have brain freeze, you can be glad that your brain is taking care of itself. And relax, because it will be over soon!Learn more about your brain - the part of of your body that makes you, you!

Writing Wednesday: The Hottest Place

Good morning, and welcome to Writing Wednesday, where every week there is a new opportunity to publish your creative writing on the Seymour Science blog. This week, we are asking you to read an excerpt from Seymour’s newest book, SEYMOUR SIMON’S EXTREME EARTH RECORDS, and then help other readers of this blog learn more about the Hottest Place on Earth. Your assignment: Do research, using Seymour Simon’s Extreme Earth Records, other books in your library or the Internet, to find out why the hottest place on Earth is called "Death Valley." Write two or three paragraphs telling other readers of the Seymour Science blog how the hottest place on Earth, Death Valley, got its name. Use action verbs and strong adjectives to help your readers understand what it might feel like to be in the Hottest Place on Earth. When you are finished writing, click on the yellow "Comments" at the bottom of this post to enter your writing! Note to Educators: Today’s Writing Wednesday exercise is designed to use in support of CCSS Writing Anchor Standard #4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Welcome Back!

Good morning, and welcome back to a new school year on SeymourSimon.com! The Tuesday after Labor Day always feels like the beginning of the school year to me (reminding me of the many years that I was a teacher). So happy new term to all kids and teachers.I spent the last day of my summer vacation at the Columbia County (New York) Fair. Many of the kids who live on farms in the county belong to 4H, and we loved seeing them exhibiting their animals, as well as their artwork and other projects. How did you spend the last days of your summer vacation?Now that you are back in school, we look forward to hearing from our regular readers again, as well as getting to know new Seymour Science users this year. For those of you who are just joining us, here is what you can expect to find every week on SeymourSimon.com: Monday: Science News Tuesdays: Cool Photo of the Week Wednesdays: Writing Wednesday, where you have a chance to write and publish your work on my website. Thursdays: SeeMore Explorers. This is a new feature for this school year. There is nature all around us, and every Thursday we will track down a new discovery, record what we are looking at, and use what we know to try to identify what we are seeing. We started doing these SeeMore Explorations over the summer. Click here to see an example. Friday: A new Science Joke or Riddle And of course, there is also my online Science Dictionary, where you can browse for as long as you like, exploring cool science information. We also love to publish your photographs, videos and writing - so please click on "Send Us Photos/Video" in the yellow bar at the top of every page to share your great science stuff. Welcome back to an exciting new school year. I look forward to sharing it with you. - Seymour

Cool Photo: Rescued Wombat

This is Caddy, a baby wombat, who was rescued from her mother’s pouch after her mother was hit by a car. Wombats are marsupials, a group of mammals that are known for carrying and feeding their young in a pouch. Volunteers from a wildlife shelter in Melbourne, Australia took her in and made her a cloth pouch to live in. It is hung off the side of a crib, just above the ground, so that it feels to Caddy as though she is in her mother’s pouch. Caddy is sharing the nursery with several other rescued wombats that are her size and being fed a special milk mixture from a bottle. After she is old enough, she will be released back into the wild.Photo: Craig Borrow / Newspix via Rex USA

Publication Day: EXTREME EARTH RECORDS!

Imagine exploring the most extreme parts of our amazing planet - trekking through the driest desert, climbing the snowiest mountaintops, and diving to the deepest regions of the ocean floor. Published today by Chronicle Books, Seymour Simon’s newest book, EXTREME EARTH RECORDS, investigates Earth’s biggest, smallest, deepest, and coldest environments, animals, plants and most severe weather. These mind-bending facts and photographs invite readers on an exciting and sometimes unbelievable, scientific exploration of Earth’s most amazing records!Here’s an excerpt from a section in the book, about the Highest Place on Earth: Mt. Everest.More than 4,000 people have tried to climb the mountain but fewer than 700 have actually reached the summit. Mt. Everest is dangerous; approximately 150 people have died on the slopes of the mountain. Besides the lack of oxygen and the winds, Everest is also very cold. Temperatures often drop to -100 degrees F. Even on a nice summer day, temperatures are well below zero. The climb is also very difficult because men and women lose their footing on the unstable snow and ice. Climbers often use aluminum ladders to go up and down the icy sides. Look for Seymour Simon’s EXTREME EARTH RECORDS in bookstores, and on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, starting today!

Winking at the Moon

You may have heard that an astronaut named Neil Armstrong died today. He was a hero to me and to many others – the man who took a “giant leap for mankind” when he first walked on the moon on July 20, 1969.Neil Armstrong was a man of courage, and although he was a private person, he gracefully accepted his role for the rest of his life as the “face” of the space program and a symbol of man’s exploration of the solar system beyond our own planet. This is a photograph of a footprint on the moon, left by our astronauts back in 1969. It marked the first time that human beings walked on ground that was not Earth. That footprint may last for a million years or longer, because there is no air on the moon. Without air there is no wind to blow the dust around. The print of that first giant step for mankind will live forever on the moon, just as Neil Armstrong’s brave quest to explore and learn more will live forever in our memories.When asked how they would like Neil Armstrong to be remembered, his wife and family said: "For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."I think we can do that, don’t you?Read more about Neil Armstrong’s amazing journey and learn all about what it is like to be an astronaut in Seymour Simon’s SPACE TRAVELERS.

Farewell to a Courageous Explorer

You may have heard that an astronaut named Neil Armstrong died today. He was a hero to me and to many others – the man who took a “giant leap for mankind” when he first walked on the moon on July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong was a man of courage, and he gracefully accepted his role for the rest of his life as the “face” of the space program and a symbol of man’s exploration of the solar system beyond our own planet. This is a photograph of a footprint on the moon, left by our astronauts back in 1969. It marked the first time that human beings walked on ground that was not Earth. That footprint may last for a million years or longer, because there is no air on the moon. Without air there is no wind to blow the dust around. The print of that first giant step for mankind will live forever on the moon, just as Neil Armstrong’s brave quest to learn more about the moon will live forever in our memories.Read more about Neil Armstrong’s amazing journey and learn all about the life of an astronaut in Seymour Simon’s SPACE TRAVELERS.