Seymour Simon's Blog, page 54

Boy, 12, Saves Injured Manatee

Joey LaMountain, a middle school student in Cape Coral, Florida, was in his kayak in the Orange River when he saw something unusual - a manatee with a crab trap attached to its right flipper. "Whenever it'd show up for air, we saw the buoy come up too," he said. The quick thinking 12-year-old, whose mom is a volunteer at Manatee Park, grabbed his cell phone called Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission's emergency hotline. Then he waited for divers and directed them to her exact location. This week the manatee, now nicknamed Tang-Lee was set free - fully recovered. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission said that the middle schooler's quick thinking was particularly important because the state has had a record 218 manatee deaths statewide after last January's cold snap. "It feels really, really good," Joey said. Photo courtesy WBIR.com

How Do You Comment on this Blog, Anyway?

I received a letter today from a student who wants to enter our BABY ANIMALS contestand has some questions about how to use Comments. I have asked Liz Nealon, who works with me on the blog, to help you all with the answers. Happy writing! - SeymourDear Seymour Simon: I am not sure how to comment. I went to the blog, do you just scroll down and click 'Comment'? Sincerely, Anonymous I am so glad to have a chance to help everybody learn how to comment, because we love to read your writing! So, let's get started. At the bottom of each story on the blog, there is a link called "Comment." Move your mouse down, click on that link, and you will get a page that looks like this. Here is what to do: 1. Type your first name and last initial (no last name) in the first box. 2. No email in the second box - that's for grownups, unless you are entering a contest. If it is a contest, type in your email so that we can write to you if you are the winner. Once the contest is over, we will no longer save your email. 3. The third box wants to know your location. Just put your state or your country, not the name of your town. We think it is fun for you to see that your fellow Seymour Science readers and writers are from all over the United States, Canada and beyond! 4. The fourth box, called URL, is for adults only. If you enter anything there, we will delete it. 5. Next, click in the big white box and type away - that is where you put your comment! Once you have written your comment, please take a minute and read it over, to be sure that you have said what you mean to. Below the big white box there is just one more thing to do before you are finished. Type the two squiggly words that you see next to where the arrow is pointing, underneath. That is how you prove that you are a real person, and not an annoying SPAM robot. Click "Submit" and you are done! Have you ever noticed that when you add a comment to the blog it doesn't show up right away? That is because an adult checks every comment before it is posted, to be sure that you did not accidentally give too much information (like your whole name), and also to be sure that what you wrote is something you want the whole world to read (no bullying, making fun of other kids, or saying things that might embarrass you). That is all there is to it. Readers like "Anonymous" might want to show this blog to their parents and get permission before they try Comments. Once you do, we hope that your parents and teachers will feel good about it, and that you will have fun being part of the kids who talk about cool science with us on the Seymour Science blog.So go ahead, give it a try! Click on "COMMENTS" at the bottom of this post, and let me know that you're an expert now! Families & Educators: Please feel free to write to me any time if you have questions, concerns or suggestions about our privacy policy. Our goal is to increase Internet fluency, build research skills, and empower students with knowledge of the world around them, as well as a love of science. Many children will need your help as they try these things for the first time, and we thank you for your support.

Using this Blog and Staying Safe

I received a letter today from a student who wants to enter our BABY ANIMALS contest, and has some questions about how to do it. "Anonymous" is asking very good questions, so I thought I would share both the question and my answer here, for all kids to see. "Dear Seymour Simon: I am not sure how to comment. I want to blog, do you just scroll down and click 'Comment'? It is hard for me to do a lot on websites with blogging because my parents don't like me giving my email out. Sincerely, Anonymous (I don't know if I should give my name away on the Internet)" First let's talk about Internet safety for my readers, because most of you are under 13 years old. Your parents are right in warning you to be very careful about giving out your whole name or your email address on the Internet. In order to stay safe, you should use only your first name (or first name/last initial, for example, I would be "Seymour S."). Sometimes, if you are on a website that you know and your parents trust, you may want to give your email address for a very specific reason. For example, if you want to ask me a question by using the ASK SEYMOUR SIMON button, you need to give your email address so that I can respond to you. Or, when you want to enter a contest like this one, you need to give us an email address so that we can reach you if you are the winner. It is ok if you give us your parents' or your teacher's email address for this purpose. And, we only use the email address for that one specific reason, and then we delete it from our records. Your parents or teachers can read more about this in our Privacy Policy. We respect your safety, and we take it very seriously. One more thing. You should never give your full name, your telephone number or your home address to anyone whom you meet on the Internet. If anyone is asking, you should tell your family, your teacher, or another adult whom you trust. No one, neither a grownup nor another kid, should be asking you for that kind of information on the Internet. Thanks, "Anonymous," for asking these very important questions - it gives me a chance to remind you all about what I call the Internet Rules of the Road, so that everyone stays safe. Next blog post, I will talk about how to comment on the Seymour Science blog. It's not hard, you don't have to give your full name or your email address, and we love to hear from you! - Seymour

Video of the Week: Panda!

What do you find every Thursday on the Seymour Science blog? Our favorite video of the week, of course! Did you ever get to the middle of the afternoon and feel very, very sleepy? Like you might just want to roll over and take a quick nap? We think that this panda might have been feeling exactly this way!

SILLY DINOSAUR RIDDLES

Did you know that Seymour Simon's new eBook, SILLY DINOSAUR RIDDLES, is now available as a single app that you can buy for your iPhone, iPad, iTouch, or Android phone? And it has "Read to Me," too! Better yet, it is on sale, this week only, for just $1.99. Here's a sample. Can you guess the answer to this riddle? Click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this story to tell us what you think the answer is.

Photographing Clouds

I received a photograph this morning from a student name Ryan S. He wrote: "This is not very science related, I just knew Seymour does photography and decided to upload something. I took this one while on vacation in Florida."Ryan, thanks for writing and for sharing your excellent photograph. What a magnificent sky! There are three different types of clouds in your photograph. The long, straight thin ones that are closest to the horizon are called stratus clouds. The ones just above them, still long, thin and low in the sky, but a little bit puffy, are strato-cumulous clouds. And the big ones that look like cotton balls high in the sky are cumulus clouds. I found a good chart, from Web Weather for Kids, that you can use to identify all the different clouds you see. Or you could always read my book WEATHER, which includes many of my own photos of clouds. Thanks for uploading your photo. And you thought it didn't have anything to do with science!I love it when students upload photos and videos that we can use on the blog. Do you know how to send me a photograph or a video? It's easy. When you are on the homepage of the website, look at yellow bar at the very top of the page. Click on the little picture of a TV screen, to the right of where it says "Send us Photos/Video". That will take you to a page that reminds you how to stay safe when you upload photos or videos to the Internet, and then a very simple page that will help you upload your photo, or even record a video on your webcam!

BABY ANIMALS CONTEST :: ENTER TODAY!

Seymour Simon is in Howard County, Maryland schools all this week. And, whenever Seymour is out in schools, we know that everybody starts using the website like crazy! So, we've decided to run a one-week contest. Have you seen the stories we have been writing about the Hawk Camwhere you can watch video of three red-tailed hawk eggs about to hatch in a nest atop a skyscraper in New York City? Click here to see the video, and then click on the "Comments" link at the bottom of this story. Write and tell us why you are excited about seeing the baby hawks, and anything else you would like to say about what you have seen. You could tell us what you think they should be named. Or, whether you think they will be boys or girls. Do you ever see hawks around where you live? Have you ever watched baby birds in a nest before? Tell us anything you want to say about hawks, bird nests and baby animals by clicking on "comments" at the bottom of this story. One lucky winner (chosen randomly from everyone who writes) will win a personally autographed copy of Seymour Simon's book, BABY ANIMALS. The contest ends at midnight, Sunday, May 8th, so write to us soon. And, don't forget to include an email address (it is ok to use your parent's or teacher's email), so that we can get in touch with you if you are our winner. This contest is open to Seymour Science readers all over the world, but it's a special treat for Columbia, Maryland students, so get writing!! Good luck, and happy Hawk Cam watching!

A watched nest…..

Do you know the expression: a watched pot doesn't boil? It means that when you are impatiently waiting for something natural to happen, you should chill out, relax and let nature take its course. Have you been watching the Hawk Cam that we blogged about last week? We have, and it has been feeling kind of like waiting for that pot to boil. It is hard to be patient, because we are so eager to see these babies!I checked in today just as Violet rose to take a break, and was able to snap this very cool photo of the hawk eggs. I guess that confirms that they still have not hatched. The babies are expected to be born in the next few days. If you want to watch and wait along with us, click on this video any time. It is not every day that you can observe something like this up close.

Teacher Appreciation Day

I've been both a teacher and a student (both in New York City public schools) so Teacher Appreciation Day is also Student Appreciation Day for me. As a student, I remember best my 7th grade science teacher, Mr. D., exhausting the air in a tin can and my gasping as I watched the tin can crumple inward under the pressure of the atmosphere. I also vividly remember hearing my 7th grade English teacher, Ms. K., reading aloud a sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I fell in love with poetry that day, an affair that still lasts.As a teacher, my favorite memory is of once teaching a science lesson and the bell ringing to signal the end of the period in the middle of the lesson. The students spontaneously groaned at the interruption, then burst out laughing at themselves, grabbed their books and raced out of the room. But for that brief moment, they paid me the highest compliment one can ever give to a teacher: their complete interest in my lesson.

Cool Photo : Galactic Fender Bender!

Today's Cool Photo of the Week, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is of two spiral galaxies bumping up against each other. The bigger galaxy (NGC 2207, on the left) has such a strong gravitational pull that it is pulling the smaller galaxy (IC 2163, on the right) in toward it. Look at the long, white streak that looks like streamers, or a tail, on the right-hand side of the photograph. These are stars and gases, being pulled so strongly that they seem to stretch out across the light years. NASA astronomers have calculated that the last time the two galaxies came this close was about 40 million years ago. However, IC 2163 does not have enough energy to escape the bigger galaxy's gravitational pull, so they will continue to elbow each other as they travel through space, and billions of years from now they will probably merge into one big galaxy. It is believed that our own Milky Way galaxy was formed in just this way. Don't you love these Hubble photographs? The opportunity to see not only out into the universe but also back in time is still amazing to me. I never tire of looking at these magnificent images. Photo: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI)