Sunday, February 26, 2017

Science in the News for Classroom Discussions







Parents and Students, 
Almost everyday we see examples of science in the news.
Zika Virus: By David Goodwill - RCSB
Molecule of the Month 197,
June 2016, CC 

Whether its the Zika Virus outbreak, a new animal added to the endangered species list, a breakthrough in medicine or changes in our environment. 
I have found that relating news we see happening around us to units that we are studying help to drive home important concepts and help our students to see that what we learn in school does have impacts on our everyday lives. 


Endangered June Beetle:By Jon Avery / U.S. Fish and 
Wildlife Service Pacific Southwest Region - 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfws_
pacificsw/6153408817/, Public Domain
In the comment section below, please post any news story that you think might be interesting for our class to discuss and what aspect of science you think it would apply to (biology, ecology, microbiology, genetics, medicine, etc.). Thank you for your help!
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15 comments:

  1. UnknownFebruary 27, 2017 at 6:34 AM

    Thermokarst environments in Siberia would be a great way to drive home Climate Change. Vast areas of Siberia are thawing out and slumping, which is uncovering buried flora and fauna from ages past. Biologists, Geographers, Archaeologists, Botanists, Zoologists, Climatologists, and almost every type of Scientific Genre are being represented by on-going research at many sites.

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    1. UnknownFebruary 27, 2017 at 8:32 AM

      I agree that that would be a cool topic. I'm not sure if I have heard many news stories about it, but I'm sure we could find some. It would be a great way to tie several units together.

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  2. UnknownFebruary 27, 2017 at 7:43 AM

    Astronomers have just identified a nearby solar system hosting seven Earth-sized planets. Most intriguing: Three planets that orbit its central star — known as TRAPPIST-1 — may even be within a habitable zone. That means they fall within a region that could support life as we know it. As such, these newfound worlds are good sites to focus a search for alien life.

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    1. UnknownFebruary 27, 2017 at 8:35 AM

      Yes! And they say that within a decade they will be able to gather all of the information they need to determine if these planets could support life. This would be a great topic for earth sciences and a good topic to talk about our biosphere and what requirements these planets would have to have to make them habitable.

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  3. JSwagartFebruary 27, 2017 at 7:15 PM

    In doing a "science news" search, I stumbled upon a site I had never been to, Science News. On article that appears intriguing to me is title, "Black hole enjoys fantastically long stellar feast." The article discusses how a specific black hole 1.8 billion light years away has been taking into itself a star, perhaps ten times larger than the sun, for over ten years. According to the article, it usually takes a year to do this.

    https://www.sciencenews.org/article/black-hole-enjoys-fantastically-long-stellar-feast

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    1. UnknownFebruary 28, 2017 at 3:11 PM

      That is awesome! I thinks this would be a great topics for earth science, solar system studies or even a physics class to discuss how light travels in waves and can bend in response to the intense gravity.

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  4. UnknownFebruary 28, 2017 at 5:09 AM

    I heard on the news that there are 7 new earth sized planets in another solar system. This would be an interesting article to talk about during a lesson with Astronomy and learning about our own solar system.

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    1. UnknownFebruary 28, 2017 at 3:14 PM

      Yes, the Trappist system! We can discuss this when we study solar systems or when we study biosphere and talk about what makes our atmosphere habitable.

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    2. kbreitungFebruary 28, 2017 at 4:53 PM

      I agree that this would be a great topic! When looking at your post this is immediately what I thought of. I think this is a topic that the kids can relate to and would really enjoy. I also think this would be a great project topic for the kids.

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    3. UnknownFebruary 28, 2017 at 5:38 PM

      We could even tie this into a class project and have them research the individual planets (size, description, etc.) and have them make models.

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  5. UnknownFebruary 28, 2017 at 5:19 AM

    On Science daily I saw an article named "Why Nature Restoration Takes Time". This would apply to Ecology because it explains the importance of fungi in nature restoration, and it lists the different types of ecosystems. This article helps spreads the importance of keeping our forests safe.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170208094143.htm

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    1. UnknownFebruary 28, 2017 at 3:16 PM

      This is a great article, thanks for posting the link! And you're right, this would be a fun topic to discuss during ecology and when we talk about the importance of conservation.

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  6. UnknownFebruary 28, 2017 at 5:01 PM

    The New York Times actually does a segment on Environmental Science. I feel like this would be something really cool that students would find interesting to go over in the classroom. The link is below.https://www.nytimes.com/section/science/earth

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  7. UnknownFebruary 28, 2017 at 5:30 PM

    Thank you for the link! And this will give kids several choices of articles to look for. I love that the there are multiple articles and that there are new stories all the time. I will definitely add this site to my tool box.

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  8. UnknownMarch 4, 2017 at 7:42 AM

    Hi Aimee! I found an article about the current conditions of North America's forest trees and their death rates. I think that this will be great for your class. http://www.naturalnews.com/056181_tree_deaths_CO2_conversion_environmental_collapse.html

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