Classic Articles in Context (CAC) is a new feature on the NSDL Wiki that integrates seminal works of scientific inquiry into a dynamic learning space for teachers and learners. In the first CAC feature, science historian James Fleming introduces 21 papers on climate change and anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse warming, from an 1824 essay by Fourier to a 1995 paper in the journal Climate Dynamics. Fleming’s essay and links to the complete text of the papers gives teachers resources they can use to portray science as a process that builds on discovery.

Callendar, G., “The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature” (1938)

Each CAC feature will provide an accessible overview of a topic, showing how the selected papers influenced subsequent work and built toward scientists’ current shared understanding of the topic. The feature will include links to related NSDL teaching resources, as well as bibliographies of contemporary articles that cite the classic papers. “The idea here is to work with academic publishers to create a free showcase for what they publish,” says Michael Luby of NSDL Core Integration, who is building the site. He is working on other CAC features in the subjects of chemistry (the development and discovery of plastics) and physics (giant magnetoresistance). Luby is also developing “Timely Teaching,” a feature that will give publishers a place to share full-text contemporary journal articles on hot scientific topics for free use in classrooms.

The overall project, which goes by the name Primary Article Learning Environment (PALE), springs from a body of research that shows many benefits to exposing students to primary sources in scientific journal articles in addition to textbooks. Luby believes that the site will be particularly useful to instructors at community colleges and smaller regional institutions that are primarily focused on teaching, and where libraries may not have the budgets to support journal subscriptions. The interactive aspects of the wiki mean that the project might evolve in many different directions. Luby hopes that once the site gets going, users will add value to the resource as they build knowledge through contribution.

NSDL now provides access to audio, video, and other multimedia resources for science and math education through Apple’s iTunes Store. The Beyond Campus section of iTunes U provides free access to material from museums, public radio and television stations, and other non-profit educational providers. NSDL’s first offerings include content from several Pathways partners as well as the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). New material will be added regularly, so NSDL projects and others that want to participate are encouraged to contact NSDL. There is no cost to use or download materials from NSDL on iTunes U. Read on to get instructions on how to download iTunes and get started.

NSDL projects and other providers who have multimedia materials that may be appropriate for inclusion in the site are encouraged to contact Susan Van Gundy.

NSDL on iTunes U allows users to:

* download videos, podcasts, educators’ guides, and other resources for teaching and learning;

* play audio and video on your iPod, Mac, or PC; and,

* burn a CD.

If you already have iTunes installed on your computer, click here to go directly to NSDL on iTunes U. You can also open the iTunes Store and navigate to iTunes U, then Beyond Campus, then NSDL on iTunes U. If you need to download iTunes first, go to download iTunes for Mac or Windows machines and follow the instructions provided. After installation you may need to restart your computer before you can connect to the iTunes Store. Once iTunes is running on your computer, open the iTunes Store and navigate to iTunes U, then Beyond Campus, then NSDL on iTunes U.

Thomas Midgley, Jr.’s greatest gift to the world might be his own life story. Midgley is the chemist responsible for the widespread use of tetraethyl lead and chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) in the 20th century. Teaching his life story is a great way to frame discussions about the benefits of these chemicals, the pollution caused by their use, and also what happens when lab discoveries become big business. During his life, Midgley was honored for the benefits his work brought to humanity. He never imagined that he would also be identified as the person who caused more damage to the global environment than anyone else in history ever did. Teaching resources on Midgley, lead, and CFCs are the subjects of the latest Short List in the new NSDL Wiki. You are invited to contribute to the wiki and add your thoughts.

Thomas Midgley, Jr.

The NSDL Wiki was set up recently to provide a collaborative online environment where users can organize, create, and annotate resources. Vetted articles and referenced resources can then be added to the library for search and discovery on nsdl.org . After registering, you or your group can use the NSDL wiki to develop specific topic areas for use in classrooms or research. You can also use the wiki’s extensions in your own MediaWiki project.

The website for Sesame Street now offers hundreds of video clips from the show’s early years. Grownups all over the world are getting back in touch with their inner six-year-olds by watching Bert rave about his bottle cap collection or Cookie Monster go on a rampage. But the main goal of the project is to improve the way Sesame Street’s educational messages are delivered to actual six-year-olds and their teachers. “The show started 40 years ago because they knew kids were using television and they wanted to give them something worthwhile to watch,” says Miles Ludwig, a VP and digital producer at Sesame Workshop. “Now we have the same feeling about the internet.”

Guy Smiley

Sesame Street characters have been mainstays of K-5 classrooms for decades because they have the power to make little kids sit still and pay attention. Sesame Workshop is a not-for-profit group that encourages teachers to use its characters freely, but quality control issues have arisen in the last few years. “About 18,000 Sesame Street clips are posted on YouTube,” says Ludwig. “Some of them are of really poor quality, and some of them manipulate the characters in ways that young children should not see. We wanted to make a free service so people can use Sesame Street the way it should be used.”

The current video section of the site is a beta version. When the full version launches this summer, Ludwig says that teachers will be able to search Sesame Street clips by character, topic, or curricular goals. He also anticipates an area where registered users will be able to save clips and remember their favorites. “I was born in 1968, and Grover can still make me laugh or cry. It’s powerful stuff,” he says. “Now people who grew up with the show will be able to introduce it to their children.”

Columbus, Ohio-March 3, 2008 Blockbuster movies and even soft drink commercials have made our planet’s polar regions and their inhabitants popular culture superstars. At the same time many people have either been confronted with what they believe to be climate change weather events, or find themselves wondering about how melting polar ice sheets and rising ocean temperatures might affect their lives in the future. Despite this onslaught of data, scientific discovery, drama and speculation, misconceptions about the polar regions and their importance abound.

As attention continues to turn to polar environments a coalition of specialists from science, literacy and educational organizations nationwide is pleased to announce the launch of Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, an online professional development magazine for elementary teachers. This issue features content-rich web sites, interactive videos, animations, articles written specifically for K-2 and 3-5 students that are available in text-only versions as well as in printable, foldable book versions, photographs that highlight polar beauty and mystery, and even a poetry lesson plan that features work contributed by elementary school students in Anchorage, Alaska. The magazine focuses on developing teacher content knowledge about the Arctic and Antarctica and enabling teaching of polar science concepts in already-crowded curricula. By integrating inquiry-based science with literacy teaching, developers aim to increase students’ science knowledge, academic language, reading comprehension, and written and oral discourse abilities.

Jessica Fries-Gaither, elementary resource specialist and project director for Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears notes, “As a former elementary teacher in Alaska, I understand the difficulty of finding time for quality science instruction. Yet in the face of issues such as global climate change and dramatically changing polar regions, it is essential that science, specifically polar science, is included. We are particularly pleased to offer this new online magazine that transfers current polar research and best practices in science and literacy instruction to classrooms nationwide.”

Science instruction in the elementary years has historically been limited or even omitted entirely. However, No Child Left Behind-mandated testing in science increases pressure on schools and teachers to devote time to quality science instruction. The intersection of mandated science testing, International Polar Year research and outreach initiatives, and a growing awareness of worldwide climate change make Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears a timely and relevant undertaking.

Twenty thematic issues of the online magazine will include standards-based science and content-rich literacy learning across five departments (In the Field: Scientists at Work, Professional Learning, Science and Literacy, Across the Curriculum, and Polar News and Notes). Engaging science activities, compelling images, rich text, and multimedia resources such as podcasts and videos and even a browseable Virtual Bookshelf that includes quality children’s literature for classroom use are designed to capture the interest of both teachers and students. Strategies for integrating technology, addressing misconceptions, and ensuring equity in the classroom are topics of emphasis.

In a time of observable and measurable climate change, it is vitally important to understand the science of the polar regions. Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears helps teachers go beyond a superficial understanding and foster deep, meaningful scientific understanding at a critical time-both in their students’ development and for the planet’s well being.

Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears is funded by the National Science Foundation Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL). Kimberly Lightle, Principal Investigator for the NSDL Middle School Portal developed by The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology and also Principal Investigator for the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears magazine coordinates a team of collaborators including an interdisciplinary team from Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology; the Ohio Resource Center for Mathematics, Science, and Reading; the Byrd Polar Research Center; The Columbus Center for Science and Industry; the Upper Arlington Public Library; and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). Content and education specialists are creating content as well as adapting and contextualizing existing content from NSDL. NSDL is also adapting Fedora-based tools to facilitate editorial workflow, dissemination, and promotion of the magazine. The Evaluation and Assessment Center at Miami University in Oxford, OH is conducting ongoing project evaluation including teacher focus groups and usability testing that will inform iterative design going forward.

For more information please visit Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears or contact Dr. Kimberly Lightle (lightle.16@osu.edu), 614-688-3485.

Two exciting new projects seek students and other volunteers to help build science’s understanding of climate change and light pollution. The projects’ web sites teach participants about these subjects while they collect vital data. Project BudBurst, which began on February 15, asks volunteers in the U.S. to track climate change by observing the time at which plant buds have opened and leaves are visible. GLOBE at Night, running from February 25 to 8 March 8, asks observers in 110 countries to record visible stars as a way of measuring light pollution.

Sycamore At Budburst

One of the ways scientists measure climate change is by charting changes in the timing of the life cycles of plants. These plant “phenophases” are directly affected by temperature, rainfall and day length. Monitoring changes in phenological events such as first bud, budburst, and flowering is a way to show the effect climate change is having on nature. Participants in Project Budburst will investigate whether or not growing seasons are starting earlier in northern latitudes, and whether they are continuing over a longer period of time.

Each Budburst participant will check one or more plants beginning at least a week prior to the average date of budburst for their location. After budburst, participants will continue to observe the tree or flower for later events, such as the first leaf, first flower, and seed dispersal. When participants submit their records online, they can view maps of these phenological events across the United States. Project BudBurst collaborators include UCAR and its Windows to the Universe Web site, the Chicago Botanic Garden, and the University of Montana.

GLOBE at Night asks volunteers to find the constellation Orion (which is visible nearly everywhere on Earth this time of year) and report their observations online. With the results, students and scientists will collaborate to assess how the quality of the night sky varies around the world. Participation is free and open to anyone who lives or works in a country where GLOBE is active. The project is part of The GLOBE Program , a worldwide science education program that connects primary and secondary schools with scientists to collaborate on inquiry-based investigations of the environment and the Earth system. Sponsors include NASA, UCAR, and NSF.

Student engineers in high schools are preparing for annual mileage competitions where passenger vehicles approach 1,700 miles per gallon. The Indiana Mathematics, Science, Technology and Education Alliance (IMSTEA) will host the annual Super Mileage Challenge on April 28 at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. Last year, five of the 22 Indiana high school teams competing there exceeded 1,000 MPG, and 16 of them exceeded 200 MPG. The IMSTEA seeks inquiries from teachers in other states who would like to participate.

Mater Dei HS 2005 Supermileage Team

Last year’s Indiana’s Supermileage winner, Mater Dei High School from Evansville, also won the high school division of a competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers . Mater Dei reached 1,345 MPG in Indiana and then, after a bit of tweaking, went to the Eaton Proving Grounds in Marshall, Michigan and hit 1,693 MPG. Similar high school Supermileage competitions are also held in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin (where 56 schools are participating this year). A coordinating group called Supermileage USA is in the early stages of organizing a national competition.

Thirty-five college teams will compete at the SAE’s 2008 Supermileage competition in Marshall on June 5-6, an increase from 19 last year. Five teams from India have registered, along with teams from Qatar, The United Arab Emirates, and Italy. Four or five high school teams will also compete in a separate division that is sponsored by the Eaton Corporation. “The engineering challenge is to eke as much efficiency as you can out of the engine,” says Steven Daum of the SAE. “The education challenge is managing a complex engineering project, and that is probably more important to the sponsors. It’s hard to teach project management, but to succeed in this you need to do it well. Employers want to know that you can bring a complex project in on time and within a budget.”

The Shell Corporation claims that it began mileage competitions in 1939 with a wager between two of its engineers. Shell began a European mileage competition for college teams in 1985 and started Eco-marathon Americas in 2007. California Polytechnic came in first last year in a field of 20 teams by attaining 1,902 miles per gallon, says Mark Singer, global project manager for the Eco-marathon. This year, he expects to see teams from Mexico, Canada, and possibly Brazil and Venezuela compete against U.S. teams at the California Speedway in Fontana on April 10-14.

The primary difference between the Shell and SAE meets is the engine. Shell does not restrict its teams to internal combustion, and this year it expects to see two cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells and solar energy. “It might seem strange for us to promote the idea of using less fuel, but we know that global demand is growing,” says Singer. “In addition to challenging the students, we are trying to generate a conversation between all stakeholders about sustainable energy.” Watch for an Asian Eco-marathon in the near future.

A total lunar eclipse will be visible in North America on February 20th beginning at 8:43 pm Eastern and 5:43 pm Pacific time. This prime-time celestial show should be an excellent teaching opportunity for young astronomers, and several good web resources are available. NASA’s Eclipse Home Page is the most extensive, with downloads that include diagrams for each time zone, a full discussion of conditions and special circumstances for this event, and a good set of links. The SETI Institute site has a good one-page Frequent Questions sheet. And Sky & Telescope magazine has a guide to all four visible eclipses that will happen in 2008, including a total solar eclipse on August 1 that will run in a narrow swath from the Canadian Arctic to Mongolia. If that isn’t your ideal vacation, just wait — the next total solar eclipse visible in North America is scheduled for August 21, 2017.

The new Polar Sciences Collection from Teachers’ Domain includes 20 new resources, lesson plans, and student activities funded by NSF as an education activity of the International Polar Year. Teachers’ Domain has also catalogued other resources already on the site that complement the Polar Collection. Nearly all the new resources are available in the Open Educational Resources section, which means they are available for public download and reuse. The student activity “Observations of Climate Change” is a new feature on Teachers’ Domain that gives students a chance to engage with qualitative and quantitative data as they examine issues affecting the Arctic and the rest of the world.

“We hope that these materials will help bring polar sciences into classrooms across the country and help to focus attention on the importance of the work taking place during International Polar Year,” says Ted Sicker, PI of Teachers’ Domain, an NSDL Pathways project. “We plan to expand the special collection later this year with the 40 new resources we’ll be developing as part of another NSF-funded project called Engaging Alaska Natives in the Geosciences.”

The Shodor Education Foundation and the Computational Science Education Reference Desk (CSERD) have released a new set of tools to help teachers and students use a more dynamic approach to assess student achievement in math skills. The Interactivate Assessment Toolkit includes more than 50 Explorers, Games, and Quizzes that allow students to tailor their assessment activity by selecting a problem type, level of difficulty, and allowed time for solution. These assessment tools also keep score, so students will be able to track their progress as they improve their computation skills and basic understanding of math concepts.

The Assessment Toolkit takes popular Interactivate activities and adds features that let the user keep track of correct responses. Some of the activities also allow users to select difficulty levels, choose specific problem types, and set a time limit. This allows users to tailor the assessment to their abilities. The Connect Four type games are designed for two players; other activities are designed for individual work. For example, the activity “Shape Builder” (shown here) encourages users to explore relationships between area and perimeter.