Category: Learning Outdoors (Page 5 of 63)

#KidlitSTEM Marjory Saves the Everglades Giveaway

We haven’t offered a giveaway in some time, so in honor of STEM Friday one lucky winner will receive a copy of the new picture book biography Marjory Saves the Everglades: The Story of Marjory Stoneman Douglas by Sandra Neil Wallace and illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon courtesy of Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books (U.S. addresses only, please. See Rafflecopter for entry below).

About Marjory Stoneman Douglas

Marjory Stoneman Douglas grew up in Taunton, Massachusetts with her mother, but a one-time visit to her father in Miami sparked her lifelong interest in Florida.

In fact, she moved there after college to become a reporter for her father’s newspaper.

After serving in the Red Cross in Europe during World War I, she returned to Florida where she found, much to her dismay, acres of wild land had been drained and burned to build tracts of homes and businesses. She saw how all the unique plants like ghost orchids and Florida Scrub Ziziphus, plus animals like roseate spoonbills, storks and even manatees were disappearing as the Everglades were being destroyed.

Roseate Spoonbills (Public Domain Image)

Marjory realized how important wetlands like the Everglades were both for wildlife and also for replenishing fresh water supplies. She knew she had to act to save this precious resource. Would she be able to make a difference?

About The Book

You can see how powerful and inspiring her story is in this book trailer:

Sandra Neil Wallace has distilled 108 year’s of Marjory’s life into 56 pages of essential reading. The back matter is so full that it has spilled into the end papers. There’s an author’s note with more facts, resource lists, source lists, and an extensive timeline. Plan to linger there.

Rebecca Gibbon’s illustrations capture the lush green vegetation of Florida as well as Marjory’s lively disposition. Young readers will delight in finding all the hidden animals and plants in her illustrations of the Everglades.

Marjory Saves the Everglades shows how one person really can make a difference. It will delight both young historians, ecologists, and conservationists alike. Wade into a copy today!

The STEM Connection:  Ecology

How does the biography of a reporter from Miami fit with STEM? Actually, much of the book is about the Everglades, which are a special kind of wetlands ecosystem. As Marjory wrote, “There are no other Everglades in the world.” Let’s learn more about it.

Ecology Vocabulary

Ecosystem – A community of living things and their distinctive environment

Wetland – Ecosystem covered at least parts of the year with either freshwater, brackish water (partly salty) or salt water. Types of wetlands include:

  • Swamps –wet areas with trees
  • Marshes – Low-lying wet areas dominated by grasses and some bushes rather than trees. Can be found at the edges of lakes or streams. Salt marshes occur along oceans.

River – A large volume of water that runs downhill.

Rather than a swamp or a marsh, the Everglades is a meandering river that is roughly one hundred miles long and fifty miles wide.  Marjory described it as a “river of grass.”

Many one-of-a-kind animals and plants live in the Everglades, which can vary between wet and dry from season to season and place to place. Some of the animals found there are land creatures, like the marsh rabbit. Some animals are equally at ease both in the water and on land, like otters. Other animals found in the Everglades are water creatures, such as manatees.

Make a list of some of the animals mentioned in the book or the Everglades park website. Decide whether they are land animals (terrestrial), live both on land and in water (semi-aquatic), or only live in the water (aquatic).

Then make a picture or diorama featuring the animals in their preferred habitats.

White peacock butterflies live in the Everglades.

 

Related:

 

 

Grade Level : Preschool – 3
Publisher : Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books (September 22, 2020)
ISBN-10 : 1534431543
ISBN-13 : 978-1534431546


Giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Disclosure: This book was provided by Blue Slip Media for review. Also, I am an affiliate with Amazon so I can provide you with cover images and links to more information about books and products. If you click through the highlighted title link and purchase a product, I will receive a very small commission, at no extra cost to you. Any proceeds help defray the costs of hosting and maintaining this website.

Come visit the STEM Friday blog each week to find more great Science, Technology, Engineering and Math books.

STEM Friday #Kidlit Can You Hear The Trees Talking?

Although even though they may have lost their leaves where you live, now is a great time to learn about trees. You can get started with the exciting new middle grade title Can You Hear the Trees Talking?: Discovering the Hidden Life of the Forest by Peter Wohlleben.

Peter Wohlleben is the well-known author of the bestselling popular science book for adults, The Hidden Life of Trees.  Now he’s applied his eye-opening approach to understanding trees in this book for young readers. He asks kid-friendly questions, such as “How do trees drink?” and answers them using current scientific knowledge and appropriate vocabulary. Even if you already know a lot about trees, be prepared to say, “Wow!”

Let’s look at one example. Wohlleben asks, “What do tree children learn at school?” Wait, trees go to school? What is that about? Turns out that in mature forests young saplings spend a lot of time being nourished and shaped by their mother tree and other mature trees nearby. Isn’t that a cool idea?

Each question is answered on a two-page spread with gorgeous color photographs. Many of the spreads have activity suggestions, labelled “Try This!” I counted 18 hands-on activities. There are also many sidebars with extra cool facts and some quick quizzes to reinforce learning. You could spend months going through this book.

Can You Hear the Trees Talking? is a must-have resource that is likely to awe and inspire readers, young and old. Seriously!

Suggested Activity:

Go outside and look at some trees. Examine them closely. Smell them. Feel them. Listen to them. Just experiencing a tree is sure to generate questions and inspire creativity.

More Tree Science Activity Suggestions (From This Blog):

    1. Tree Transpiration
    2. How far does the water have to travel from roots to top of the tree?

Want to find more great books like this one? Visit our giant, redwood-sized list of tree books for kids.

Age Range: 8 – 10 years
Publisher: Greystone Kids; Reprint edition (October 1, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1771644346
ISBN-13: 978-1771644341

Disclosure: This book was provided for review purposes. Also, I am an affiliate with Amazon so I can provide you with cover images and links to more information about books and products. As you probably are aware, if you click through the highlighted title link and purchase a product, I will receive a very small commission, at no extra cost to you. Any proceeds help defray the costs of hosting and maintaining this website.

Come visit the STEM Friday blog each week to find more great Science, Technology, Engineering and Math books. Note: this is a new link as of 10/2018.

The Acadia Files: Book Two, Autumn Science

As a follow up to The Acadia Files:  Book One, Summer Science, today we have The Acadia Files: Book Two, Autumn Science by Katie Coppens and illustrated by Holly Hatam.

The books in The Acadia Files series are hybrids between chapter books and laboratory notebooks. The chapters start off with a story, complete with characters and dialogue. The story reveals detailed scientific information.

For example when Acadia Greene, who is a curious ten-year-old girl, and her friend Joshua rake leaves, Acadia questions whether the season is called fall because of all the falling leaves. Joshua asks why the leaves fall and Acadia explains:

“Trees kind of take a little nap when it’s cold. Without leaves, it’s easier for them to survive the winter. Trees with broad leaves, like maple or oak, are called deciduous trees…”

After the story, each chapter has a few pages of illustrations and text formatted like a laboratory notebook. For the autumn leaf chapter, there’s a page of colorful leaves and drawings of Acadia’s favorite trees, a glossary page of the new science words she learned (with drawings), and the chapter ends with a question she still wonders about. The illustrations are delightful and really make the book. Educators will appreciate this section as a jumping off place for related activities.

Every chapter covers a different topic. When Acadia visits a frog pond, she notices litter in and around the water and decides to do something about it. Later on she investigates the water cycle, time zones, and the immune system. Most of the topics may loosely tie to the season, but could be relevant all year around.

The bottom line: The Acadia Files: Book Two, Autumn Science is an appealing way to introduce science to kids who might be put off by more traditional informational text. Why not give it a try?

Activity suggestions to accompany the book:

Grade Level: 4 – 7
Publisher: Tilbury House Publishers; 1 edition (September 18, 2018)
ISBN-10: 0884486044
ISBN-13: 978-0884486046

Disclosure: The book was provided for review purposes. Also, I am an affiliate with Amazon so I can provide you with cover images and links to more information about books and products. As you probably are aware, if you click through the highlighted title link and purchase a product, I will receive a very small commission, at no extra cost to you. Any proceeds help defray the costs of hosting and maintaining this website.

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