Seymour Simon's Blog, page 31

Thanks, PrettyBoy Elementary Kids!

I Skyped with fourth and fifth graders in Maryland this afternoon. I love meeting classes this way! These students were well-prepared with good questions about my books and about writing. We had a great time!At the end of the Skype, I picked up my webcam and showed them the scene outside the window where I write. I love to get outdoors and photograph, or just watch the animals, sky, trees, insects and flowers all around me. I asked the kids to go out with a camera, take a photograph of a nature scene that they love, write 100 words about it and send it to me here. Would you like to do that, too? I would love to see photos and writing from any of my readers who love the outdoors like I do!

Hooray for Author Studies: FAQs!

Seymour Simon receives many letters from students (and sometimes teachers) asking questions about his books, his life, and his experiences with animals, space, photography, etc. In fact, he gets so many letters that there is not enough time for him to answer them (this is a man who has written 250 books, and is working on five new ones as we speak!). So, today we have introduced a new section on his website called FAQ. This is a common Internet term that stands for Frequently Asked Questions. So now, when you are writing a book report or doing an author study about Seymour Simon, make your first stop the FAQ page on his website. You will find it underneath the "About Seymour Simon" label at the top of every page on his website. I guarantee you that you will learn things about Seymour that you have never known before!

Writing Wednesday: Bees and Buds

Welcome to Writing Wednesday! Every week there is a new opportunity to publish your own creative writing on the Seymour Science blog. This week, we are asking you to do your own research, and explain what is happening in the photograph below. The Facts:It is spring, and all over the world, bees like this one are drinking nectar from apple blossoms and other spring flowers. When a bee travels from flower to flower, it is moving pollen from one flower to another. Your Assignment: Working with a partner or several of your classmates, find out about bees, how they help to pollinate flowers, and why that is important for us who eventually eat the fruits and vegetables that come from these flowers. You can use books in your library or sources on the Internet to do your research. Then, write a paragraph explaining pollination and post it here by clicking on the yellow "Comments" button below. Happy writing! Educators: Today’s Writing Wednesday is designed to use in support of CCSS Anchor Standard W.3.7. Conduct short research projects that build knowledge about a topic.

Save the Animals: A Video

Many of our readers feel strongly about protecting endangered animals. You write about it often, and many of you expressed your desire to save endangered species like the sea turtles in your recent Earth Day Promises. I would like you to meet a 7-year-old British girl named Olivia Binfield. Like you, Olivia feels strongly about protecting endangered animals. And she found a very unusual way to express it, on the television show Britain’s Got Talent. Click on the "Play" button below to see her amazing performance!

Coral Reef Life by Miss Kyle’s Class

Occasionally we receive such a strong piece of Writing Wednesday work that we publish it for everyone to read. This excellent piece of research and writing was done by Miss Kyle’s 4th Grade Class at Shoemaker Elementary school in Macungie, PA. Terrific work, everybody! All of the creatures in this picture are alive and exist in a symbiotic relationship. Being close to the same color helps the coral and the goby fish to work together. The coral reproduces among itself and is always creating a new habitat, as well as food, for the sea creatures, The coral becomes shelter for the fish and at the same time provides protection from predators. These predators might include; dolphins, whales, sharks, larger fish, jelly fish and crabs. The sea anemone hiding inside the coral is poisonous to other fish and makes predators stay away from the goby’s hiding place. In summary, these creatures all depend on one another to be able to survive in the ocean.

Fishermen and Dolphins Work Together

Brazilian scientists have been studying a small fishing community in Laguna, Brazil, where fishermen work together with dolphins to catch their fish. This friendly pod of dolphins works together, herding groups of mullet (a local fish) toward the fisherman who are waiting in boats or standing in the water. Then the dolphins slap their heads or tails on the water to show the fishermen where to throw their nets. Both groups, the fishermen and the dolphins, catch all the fish they need by working together in this way. What is most surprising is that It is one special group of about twenty dolphins that work with the fishermen, and they have been doing it for more than fifteen years. The men recognize them by their markings, and have even given some of them names like "Scooby" and "Caroba." There are plenty of other dolphins in the waters around Laguna. The others do not cooperate with humans, going off to fish on their own. The cooperation behavior is probably passed down from mother dolphin to her calves, and that is how it is learned by the humans, as well. Elders in the community teach the younger fishermen how to work with the dolphins. Photo: Fábio Daura-Jorge

Writing Wednesday: Life in Coral Reefs

Welcome to Writing Wednesday! Every week there is a new opportunity to publish your own creative writing on the Seymour Science blog. This week, we are asking you to describe the scene in this photograph, using what you know or what you can learn about life on Coral Reefs. The Facts: The fish in this photograph are Yellownose gobies, and one is peeking out from its hiding spot inside the folds of a brain coral. Your assignment: Write a paragraph explaining the relationship between the animals. Which one needs the other to provide camouflage? What predators is it being protected from?How to make your writing powerful: Coral reefs are like underwater cities, teeming with life. Use descriptive details to make this ocean world 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. Photo: Todd Minthz

Cool Photo: An Exploding Meteor

NASA has released this photograph of a flaming meteor that unleashed a powerful sonic boom last week, rattling houses in California and Nevada. The meteor broke up as it traveled through our atmosphere, releasing the same amount of energy as if there had been a 5-kiloton explosion! A sonic boom is an explosive sound caused by the shock wave of an object traveling faster than the speed of sound. The explosion was big enough to rattle windows, causes many Californians to think they had had an earthquake. "An event of this size might happen about once a year," said Don Yeomans from NASA. "But most of them occur over the ocean or an uninhabited area, so getting to see one is something special." Who can tell me why most of these meteor explosions happen over the ocean, rather than over land where we can see them? Hint: Think about the big, blue ball that is our Earth…... Answer: Brian B., one of our readers, was onto the right idea. Most meteors explode over the ocean because oceans make up 71% of Earth’s surface. That means that most atmospheric events are likely to happen over the ocean, simply because there is so much of it. Photo: Lisa Warren / NASA-JPL via AP

The Scientist is YOU!

Will you, your family, or your class be in the Washington, DC area this weekend? If so, please come to the USA Science and Engineering Festival at the Walter E. Washington Conference Center. It is a huge, free event with so many exciting things happen. You can see presentations from the MythBusters (Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman) and Bill Nye the Science Guy, meet astronauts and explore the inside of a rocket…..step inside an electronic cloud chamber, or watch a robot basketball competition! I was very proud to be chosen as one of their featured authors this year, and I will be speaking at 10am on Saturday (Room 145AB) and signing books afterward.If you are not lucky enough to be in Washington this weekend, you can still watch this video, which was created by the organizers of the Festival. I think it is absolutely thrilling, and they are talking to YOU, the readers of the Seymour Science blog! Check it out and let me know what you think.

The Science Behind the Soccer Ball

Many of my readers were interested in yesterday’s "Writing Wednesday" story about the soccer ball belonging to a Japanese student that washed up on an Alaskan island more than a year after the big tsunami.This is a photograph of Misaki Murakami, the teenager whose ball traveled nearly 3,500 miles (5,600 km) across the Pacific Ocean, from Rikuzentakata, Japan to Middleton Island, in Alaska. In fact, it is not surprising that the ball showed up on the U.S. coastline - scientists expect that we will see even more debris in the coming weeks and months. The reason is that when water rises or falls very quickly, it often creates a whirlpool. Think about what happens in the bathtub when you pull the plug and water starts emptying quickly out of the tub - you see a spinning whirlpool above the drain. This is what happens, on a much bigger scale, when a huge tsunami wave rushes in, and then pulls back from the shoreline. This is a photograph, taken from a helicopter, of one of the massive whirlpools that appeared off the Japanese coast in March, 2011 after the 6.9 earthquake and tsunami. The water was rotating clockwise, which means it was pushing debris away from the coastline, into the Pacific Ocean, and toward the U.S. coast. And that explains why Misaki’s soccer ball washed up on a beach in Alaska. Seymour Simon’s new book, EXTREME EARTH RECORDS, is full of information and photographs about the biggest tsunamis, earthquakes, and many more Earth record breakers. It will be available in September, 2012.