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Hi Susan!

If you'll indulge me a minute to riff on your question, another way  
to approach this is to look at what you might call "little s" science  
moments.  The stuff that happens everyday in your community, but  
still gets captured in the evening news with regularity at the  
appropriate time of year.  The kinds of things that you can count on  
happening every year at some point or time.

Hearkening back from my Midwest roots, things I'd explore in my  
community:
- Leaves turning color in the fall
- Pot holes, pot holes, pot holes: why do we get so many of 'em?
- weather phenomena (for us: tornadoes...snow storms/lake effect...)
- What's up in the evening sky (taking time to just LOOK UP!)
- Birds & Butterflies in migration
- Lake freezing over
- Power outages (where does my power come from?  Now, and perhaps in  
the future)
- Fluffy cloud watching
- Mayfly hatching (AKA "when NOT to ride your bike by the lake and  
smile")

Although the big S announcements are great to dig into thinking about  
cutting edge science, I also think that it's the little s moments  
that form a web of curiosity about the world that scaffold everyday  
question-asking and experimentation.  Are directly investigable,  
perhaps, which leads to great open-ended investigation.  And can be  
tuned to be directly relevant to your immediate community.  Many of  
'em turn out to be great bridges to the local media, as well, as  
these are the things that they report on every year (Why are there so  
many potholes?  What about the big tornado that just came through?),  
offering great cross-promotional opportunities and facetime/printspace.

Sorry if I'm going too far astray!

Best from the 'Splo-

Samdango


--------------
Sam Dean
Director - ExNet
e x p l O r a t o r i u m
3601 Lyon St.
San Francisco, CA 94123
e: [log in to unmask]
ph: 415.353.0442
c: 415.509.4303




On Oct 1, 2008, at 1:03 PM, Susan Timberlake wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
> institutions.
> ********************************************************************** 
> *******
>
> Hello,
>
> I'm working on series of science enrichment publications for
> elementary school teachers on the theme "Headline Science:
> Science, Math, and Literacy Behind the Headlines."
>
> My first task is to come up with a theme for each issue that is both
> conducive to developing inquiry-based activities and connected to
> science that kids are likely to see in the news in the coming year.
> So, for example, while the Large Hadron Collider might well be in the
> news this coming year, I think I'd be hard-pressed to come up with
> related inquiry-based activities for elementary school students; thus,
> quantum physics is probably not an appropriate theme for the year.
>
> I'd love input from the many creative and well-informed people on this
> list about what news-related science topics could connect to a wealth
> of inquiry-based activities. (Note that energy and climate change are
> probably the theme for future issues, so they're not on the menu for
> this year.) If you have a favorite activity to recommend, I'd love to
> hear about that too.
>
> Thanks,
> Susan
> _____________________________
> Susan Timberlake
> Writer, editor, and content developer
> www.susantimberlake.com
>
> ********************************************************************** 
> *
> For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers  
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