Cicadas are large insects with bulging eyes. This one is whitish because it has a fungal disease.

Father’s Day marks the beginning of the cicada season here in the Sonoran Desert. The emergence of these noisy insects predicts the beginning of a change in the weather, with higher humidity and the onset of the violent rains called monsoons. Unlike the spectacular periodical cicadas, our cicadas emerge every year. They sing on and off for a month or so.

Ever wondered how the cicadas produce their loud buzz? On the sides of the male cicadas (although some females have them, too) are two thin areas called tymbals. When muscles inside pull on the tymbals, they collapse causing a click. When the muscles release, the tymbal clicks again as it snaps back.

The video of the tymbal moving in slow motion at Discovery Channel’s Time Warp: Cicada Sounds is very cool.  The tymbal is the white area that is moving in and out. Too bad there isn’t any sound to go with it.  Note: the short advertisement at the beginning of this video may not be appropriate for young children.

According to the schedule, the entire Time Warp episode with the cicada footage (it is called Stuntmen) is being aired on the Discovery Channel on Monday June 21 at 9:00 am. It is rated TV-PG. It might be a fun way to start summer.

I have to admit I wasn’t that impressed the first time I saw this show. The simple round figures seemed a bit ridiculous. But it has really grown on me after watching a few episodes, and my tween son is definitely hooked. The characters are surprising complex for being circles with stick legs. From what I’ve seen, the television show seems to attract viewers on both sides of its target audience, both younger and older.

I am not a big fan of young children spending a large part of their day sitting around and watching television. There are times, however, when a little educational television comes in handy, like when your child is under the weather, or when you can’t get outside. You may want to use it as a jumping off point to inspire new discoveries, or kick start explorations.

The creators of this series have a great attitude about how to introduce kids to science. When asked, “What is the best way to introduce science to young children?” Peep Science Adviser, Karen Worth, responded “For young children, science is about active, focused exploration of objects, materials, and events around them. We introduce them to science by offering an environment where there are interesting materials to explore.” Read more here at the “About Peep” section of the “Peep in the Big Wide World” website.

Even if you aren’t interested in the television program, you might find the “recommended books” section useful. For each episode, they have picked two wonderful science-related books for further exploration of that topic. You may also follow the resources link from the website.

If you want to take a look at an example cartoon episode, here is a clip from YouTube.

Overall, I would say that “Peep in the Big Wide World” is one of those rare television shows for children that is able to teach science in a humorous and entertaining way.

More Resources:

“Peep in the Big Wide World” is available on DVD.

You might want to pick up some of the books for preschoolers based on the series. These books are not word-for-word rehashes to the television programs, but stand on their own. Two-year-old children seem to find them particularly fascinating.

PEEP Who’s Hiding? By Laura Gates Galvin.

Quack’s Masterpiece by Laura Gates Galvin.

Discovery Travel Pack by Laura Gates Galvin.

What’s That Sound? By Laura Gates Galvin.

A Very Good Smell By Laura Gates Galvin.

Animals and Nature Activity Book By Laura Gates Galvin.

Chirp’s Colors By Laura Gates Galvin. This one comes with a magnetic Chirp character to move around.

Please let me know if you find this information useful.

This week let’s start with mice. Be sure to leave a comment and tell me what pets you’d like to see next week. I’d like to hear about your favorite pet.

Have you ever had a mouse, gerbil or rat for a pet? They are lively and interested in everything that is going on. Here are some science activities to help you explore mice. Many of them do not even require that you actually own any mice.

Identification/Classification of Rodents
Learning to identify or classify animals is an important scientific skill. What kind of animals are mice? They are a type of mammal known as rodents. If you are unfamiliar with this term, you might want to visit to the “What is a Rodent?” Activity Page to learn more.

While you are at it, think about how to identify rats, hamsters, gerbils and mice. What are the similarities, and what are the differences between them? If you are interested in getting a pet rodent, you might want to research what each type needs in the way of housing and care, and make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of ownership. For example, hamsters are likely to sleep all day, whereas mice are have active periods during the day making it easier to interact with them. Mice produce more urine and feces, however, so need to be cleaned more often than gerbils. Decide what factors are more important to you.

Did you know there are many types of wild mice? You might want to find out about some really wild mice like jumping mice, cactus mice and grasshopper mice. Spiny mice are an interesting species kept in zoos and used for research. Gerbils and kangaroo rats have special characteristics for living in the desert. Here is a link that discusses rodents and other animals that live in the desert.

Food/Nutrition
What do mice eat? Did you say cheese? You hear about mice and cheese everywhere, but in truth it isn’t a good idea to feed cheese to mice, it can make them sick. Can you believe it?

Now might be a great time to investigate what mice really do eat. One source of information, in addition to books and the Internet, might be the ingredients on the back of commercially available pet food. In a previous post, we introduced the idea of theme gardens. Once you have a good idea what mice eat, you can design a garden to grow some of their favorite foods, for example sunflowers and/or peanuts. If you don’t have mice, the birds and humans will still appreciate the results.

If you have some mice and you aren’t sure what they like to eat the best, you can do a food choice experiment. Gather a clean cardboard egg carton. Cut out a section of four egg carton cups. Place the items you want to test in the separate wells. You might want to mark them so that if all the food disappears, you’ll know which was which. Always provide your mice with something you know they like, so they won’t go hungry. Watch to see which food the mice eat first. Come back every hour and record which food is disappearing. To be very accurate, you can weigh each type of food beforehand on a kitchen scale and then at the end of the experiment. If the experiment doesn’t go as expected, think of ways to modify your methods and try again.

Making Houses and Toys
Another fun project might be design and build a house and/or nest box using wood or cardboard. The San Diego Zoo has a mouse house made out of bread! We saw one when we visited the zoo a few years ago. The idea seemed weird at first, but then we got to thinking it might be fun to live in a house that you can eat. Here is an off-site link to a picture of the bread mouse house with the recipe at The Fresh Loaf. (Because this is an off-site link, please check to make sure it is valid before showing your children – edit: sorry the link is apparently broken and I haven’t found a better one yet).

I cheated and used our bread maker to create the loaves. The mice seemed to enjoy being able to modify the structure and eat at the same time.

We found our mice always rush to investigate new objects. They also are very active, and love to run and climb. In addition to providing standard running wheels, you can design your own playthings like ladders or tubes to run through. Just make sure the toys are safe, that the mice can’t get tangled or fall. Adding toys and other fun items for the mice to examine helps with behavioral enrichment, so they don’t get bored.

Animal Behavior
Our mice are handled every day, so they are easy to pick up and hold. If you have new mice, you can tame them by gently picking them up and holding them. Once your mice are tame, you can train them to do tricks, such as sit on your shoulder. You can also make a maze, and see how fast the mice learn to go through it. We made a maze of lightweight CD cases, so there was no danger to the mice.

When you have mice, you will hear them make many different sounds and also behaviors. Investigate how mice communicate to one another. Recently scientists have found out that male mice sing a song when they meet females, but the sounds are ultrasonic, which means humans can’t hear them.

Mouse Development
Here is a link to an adorable story about a classroom mouse named Cheeser who gave birth. The website tells the story, complete with pictures of the growing young mice. If you don’t go to any other link, try this one.

Finally, be sure to write down your experiences, keep records, and share your stories. Who knows, you might come up with the next exciting scientific finding about mice.

Books:

There are literally 100’s of fiction books with mice as main characters. Now would be a great time to reread some of your favorites or try a new one.

“Could You be a Mouse?” is a nonfiction book that is a fun game. The reader actually makes choices about what a mouse should do and then flips the pages to find out the results. Caution: There is a drawing of a dead mouse which could be disturbing to young and/or sensitive children. Older children should find it fun and informative.

“Mice are Amazing” is part of the Nature Puzzles collection. There are games or seeking activities on most of the pages. If your child enjoys mice, then he or she will enjoy this book.

Alvin and Virginia Silverstein have written quite a number of nonfiction and science books. All that we have read have been full of well-researched and interesting information. “Mice, All About Them” is no exception.

Alert! If you are offended by salty language, give this show a miss.

In the first show I caught, the challenge was to blast up a rocket, have it land safely, deploy a robot vehicle, return the vehicle to the rocket and take off again. In the short time allowed, the teams were not able to design and build something that really worked. One did crash in a spectacular way, however.

Most of the blogs I checked pretty much panned the show. I have to say that I did enjoy the reality show flavor and the fact that it showcased people having fun with science. Although the science definitely took a back seat to entertainment in many cases, I can see some young viewers developing an interest in rockets and rocketry by watching. It looked the teams were having a blast (pun intended).

This show comes with a bold “Do not try this at home” message. The dangers of working with rockets are readily apparent as team members duck flying debris and the fire crews race to put out fires. These are real problems encountered when working with rockets. I know someone who started a vacant lot on fire with a small rocket when he was a kid. His parents had to call the fire department to come put it out. Under different conditions, he could have caused a lot of damage. Hopefully, the message will get through to potential rocketeers.

If you are looking for other inspiring tales of rockets, try the 1999 movie October Sky. This movie is rated PG and also has mild profanities and scenes of rockets blowing up. One the plus side, it does show how a childhood interest can literally lead someone to become a rocket scientist.