SCIENCE

Before reading:

1. List a few electronic devices that people use to keep track of their health.

During reading:

1. Describe the size of the electronic device developed by Rogers and his collaborators that sticks on skin.
2. Name three things about the wearer that the devices can record.
3. Where can the information recorded by the devices be sent?
4. Name two places other than skin where the devices can be stuck and what they record there.
5. Describe an EEG and what it does.
6. Explain two problems with EEGs.
7. What is silicon used for?
8. What challenge did scientists face when trying to use silicon for electronic devices that stick on skin and other body parts? Describe how the scientists solved this problem.

After reading:

1. Why is it important for scientists to develop medical tracking devices that are small and wireless?
2. Would you wear one of the sticky electronic devices on your skin or another body part? Explain why or why not.

SOCIAL STUDIES

1. Can you think of any problems that may result from an increasing number of people wearing wireless electronic devices that track body and brain activity?

Before reading:

1. What is algae?
2. How could algae be an invader?
3. What does it mean to “classify” an organism?

During reading:

1. Why have algae “pestered” scientists for a long time?
2. What is one way plants are different from animals?
3. What did researchers find out when they looked at the genes of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii?
4. What are cyanobacteria and what do they have to do with algae?
5. In what way are algae “invading” other organisms now?

After Reading

1. What does the “problem with algae” imply about the way scientists currently classify organisms?
2. In what way are all algae alike? Why area algae also so different from each other?

SOCIAL STUDIES

1. When did philosophers begin classifying living organisms? Why?
2. What is molecular phylogenetics? Why might it be a cool career field?

Before reading:

1. How would you describe the perfect French fry?
2. How do you think French fries are made?
3. Do you like fried foods?

During reading:

1. How much money do people spend on French fries each year?
2. What is the process used by McDonald’s to make French fries?
3. List one advantage and one disadvantage of the following methods:
   A. Frying in oil.
   B. Using fast-moving air.
   C. Using low-fat oil.
4. List two reasons why researchers are studying French fries.
5. Use the text to define “heat transfer” and “infrared energy” and give examples.

After reading:

1. Having read the article, what would make the ideal French fry for American society?
2. What don’t you know about how McDonald’s makes their French fries?
3. Who would you agree with in the McDonald’s lawsuit, the teenagers or McDonald’s?
4. Do you think it is possible to make a yummy French fry that is good for you? Why or why not?
5. After reading this article, has your opinion about fried foods changed? How?
6. Fit the information in the article into the “well-designed investigation” format (below)? What information is missing from the article?

Question:

Hypothesis:

Materials:

Variables:

Independent:

Dependent:

Controlled:

Procedure:

Data:

Conclusion:

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. What is the main idea of this article?
2. What is your purpose for reading?
3. Did the author’s opening sentence grab your attention? Why or why not?
4. Write to persuade your school cafeteria that they should or shouldn’t serve French fries?
5. If French fries are your favorite vegetable, what kind and why? If French fries are not your favorite vegetable, what is and why?
6. Research the origin of French fries.

MATHEMATICS

1. Create a table(s) that contains the following information…
   • What vegetables did people in your group eat last week?
   • What vegetables did you eat this week?
   • How many servings of potatoes did you eat?
   • How many servings of other vegetables did you eat?
   • What fraction of the servings of veggies that you ate were the potatoes?
2. How did the vegetable consumption of your class/group compare to the national average?

Before reading:

1. If you had the opportunity, what would you change about your bicycle?
2. How could you prove that your bicycle is better than your friend’s?
3. What do you think happens at an international science fair?

During reading:

1. How does Renato convert mechanical energy into electrical energy?
2. Why did Ronak and Anish start trying to build a chainless bicycle?
3. How did Ronak and Anish show that their bicycle was better than its conventional counterpart?
4. Why did Mackenzie measure both her maximum speed and the average speed for every set of wheels she tested?

After reading:

1. Renato says that, with improvements, his Multibike could help bring electricity to remote regions of the rainforest. What other kinds of activities could you imagine his bike being used for?
2. Design your own bike experiment. What materials do you need? How will you record your data? Try to predict the results.
3. What were the different motivations and perspectives that led Renato, Ronak, Anish, and Mackenzie to their specific bicycle experiments?
4. Why is it important to bring people together from many countries to discuss their scientific experiments?

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. Imagine you were a judge at the science fair. Compare the three experiments that were discussed in the article, and write an assessment of who deserves a prize and why.
2. What will bicycles look like in the future? Draw your own futuristic bicycle. Be sure to label and explain all of your innovations.

MATHEMATICS

1. How far in miles is Anish’s bike ride to school?
2. How fast in miles per hour did Mackenzie’s bicycle go when she used the specialty wheels?
3. What sort of data and calculations did Ronak and Anish use to figure out how much time they’d save by not using a chain?

Before reading:

1. This article is titled “Baby Swaps, Crime Scenes, and DNA Testing.” What do you think it will be about?
2. What do you think happens in a veterinary genetics lab?
3. What is DNA? Why is it important?
4. What are some ways that scientists can help endangered species?

During reading:

1. If you had the job of a geneticist, what kinds of things would you do?
2. If DNA is “the instruction manual of life,” what do we learn by reading it?
3. What kinds of animals do VGL scientists concentrate on? Why?
4. What is the problem when two endangered animals accidentally exchange their babies? If we ignored this, what could be the consequences?
5. Why would anyone want to know an animal’s lineage?

After reading:

1. What are some of the differences and similarities between fingerprints found at the scene of a crime and DNA evidence?
2. How could you tell that you are biologically related to your so-called parents?
3. Imagine that you are a professor of forensics, and wanted to teach your students the basics of testing animal DNA. Make a list of steps students need to know to begin studying DNA.

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. After reading this article about animals and DNA, can you come up with alternative titles for it? What information seems most important to be in the title? Why?
2. Why do scientists call certain stretches of DNA “markers”?
3. VGL scientists are only one group from a larger community of conservationists. Name five other jobs you could have that help conserve Earth’s plants and animals.

MATHEMATICS

If you had three bear mothers, each with one cub, and the babies got mixed up, how many different mother-cub combinations could there be? What if each mother had two cubs? Three cubs?

Before reading:

1. Dust makes you cough and sneeze, so why might scientists think it’s worth sticking their noses into that topic?
2. Where might dust come from in the first place?

During reading:

1. What three different methods do researchers use to collect dust?
2. What tools are useful for examining dust?
3. What kinds of information might skillful detectives find in the dust that’s circulating thousands of miles above Earth?
4. How might dust collected in space be different from the dust found in a barn or on a windowsill in a big city?

After reading:

1. What new sources of dust did you learn about by reading this article?
2. What advantages do we, as students here on Earth, have over even the most complex instruments used by astronauts in space programs? What can these instruments explore that we never could study by ourselves?
3. If you wanted to collect dust samples, what tools might you use? Design a simple system. Try it out! Look at the website http://www.skydust.org .
4. Do you recommend spending school time on a project collecting and analyzing
   dust? Why or why not?

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. Look at the article’s first paragraph. What kinds of words and ideas does it use to get you involved in the story? Can you think of another way of writing the introduction to make readers interested in dust?
2. Pretend that you have a chance to interview Dan Murray, the scientist from the University of Rhode Island. What might you ask if you wanted to make the article longer?
3. If you were asked to name a second spacecraft (the one after “Stardust”) that is designed to collect and analyze space dust, what might you call it? Why?

Before reading:

1. What is the first image that comes to mind when you think of Yellowstone National Park?
2. What are some causes of forest fires? What other things, besides trees, are harmed when wildfires break out?
3. Why might the park service station a ranger to look out from a mountaintop? What are some of the things that such a firewatcher might see?

During reading:

1. What does George Henley do for a living?
2. What is the most significant activity that rangers like George do?
3. Can you name three reasons that Yellowstone National Park is a popular tourist spot?
4. Why were there so many fires in Yellowstone in the summer of 1988? What are some of the major causes of forest fires?
5. When scientist talk about succession, what are they referring to? How do big fires contribute to succession?
6. What reasons do rangers give for letting some fires burn in Yellowstone?

After reading:

1. Roy Renkin, the vegetation management specialist, has determined through research that old trees burn faster than young ones. Can you think of any reasons why this is true?
2. How can sticks help measure humidity? Would a lighter or heavier stick indicate a higher level of humidity?
3. Why does George Henley have to keep records of the wind and temperature in the park? What conditions would cause the strongest wildfires?

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. People disagree on how to handle wildfires. Write a short commentary in which you state what the opposing views are. Then, give your opinion on what should be done when the next fire starts in Yellowstone and what evidence supports your view.
2. The rangers in Yellowstone National Park have contacted you to write an advertisement to promote the park and bring more tourists to visit. Come up with three slogans that will persuade tourists to visit and let people know what can be seen at Yellowstone.
3. George Henley keeps a journal in which he writes about his experiences as a ranger. Imagine that you are a ranger. Compose a typical journal entry for one day’s work in Yellowstone. Describe the sights and sounds.

MATHEMATICS

In 1988, 34,000 acres of Yellowstone’s forests where burnt by fires. The entire park is 2,221,773 acres. What percentage of the park was destroyed?

Before reading:

1. What do you think a marine reserve is?
2. What are some things we can do to protect sea creatures from becoming endangered?
3. Is it always dangerous to swim with sharks?

During reading:

1. What are marine reserves created to protect?
2. How do animals in marine reserves contribute to populations elsewhere in the ocean?
3. When biologist Charles Acosta says that reserves “make sense economically,” what does he mean? How do the reserves also make sense environmentally?
4. Do marine reserves help or hurt fishermen? What points support each perspective?
5. Why are marine reserves especially controversial in the Florida Keys?
6. Why do some snorkelers find shark sightings at a marine reserve less exciting than at other places in the ocean?

After reading:

1. What are some other positive aspects of marine reserves besides supplying fish to the rest of the ocean?
2. What are the differences between a marine reserve and an aquarium?

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. People who work at marine reserves are very concerned about catching poachers. What does a poacher do? Where else are people worried about poaching?
2. Pretend you were a member of an advertising agency. What slogans can you come up with to educate fishermen about the importance of marine reserves?
3. List similarities between a marine reserve and a bank. Then list differences.
4. Imagine you are swimming with sharks. List at least 10 adjectives to describe how you might feel.

MATHEMATICS

Belize lies on the east coast of central America in the heart of the Caribbean basin, bordering on Mexico to the north and Guatemala to the west and south, and flanked by the Caribbean Sea to the east.

It takes 2 hours and 55 minutes to fly 1,094 miles from New York City to Miami, Fla., then, after changing planes, 2 hours and 15 minutes to fly 757 miles from Miami to Belize City. Given that New York City is 1,798 miles from Belize City, how long would it take you to fly directly from New York City to Belize City using the faster plane?

Before reading:

1. What qualities would you need to become an astronaut?
2. What are some of the potential dangers you might face when traveling into space?
3. Some people think it’s unnecessary for humans to travel into space. What might serve as alternatives for space exploration?

During reading:

1. What is another term for the weightlessness astronauts feel while in orbit?
2. What is the “Vomit Comet”? How did it get such a gross name?
3. When a space shuttle is in orbit, does it stay still or does it move?
4. How do astronauts train before going into space?
5. What are some of the challenges that astronauts face? Why do the astronauts believe it’s worthwhile to undertake serious risks?

After reading:

1. Have you ever felt weightless? Where did it happen? What might explain it?
2. After reading this article do you think astronauts should continue to travel into outer space? What information changed your opinion? If you opinion has not changed, what evidence do you have for your position?
3. The astronauts who spoke at the science fair encouraged people to pursue their dreams. What dreams are motivating you? What do you see as obstacles that you will have to overcome to achieve them?
4. Guion Bluford Jr.’s experience in space gave him a new perspective on life. What did he realize? Has there been an event in your life that has given you a new perspective? Describe it.

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. Why does Franklin Chang-Diaz call space “a frontier”? Think of three other nouns that could be used to describe outer space.
2. Imagine that you were going to interview an astronaut. What questions would you ask her or him? Carefully select five questions about space travel that you think many students would like to have answered.
3. Write a letter to NASA explaining your position on space travel. Give your best evidence on why they should or shouldn’t continue sending people into space.

MATHEMATICS

The speed of a space shuttle in low Earth orbit is about 17,500 miles per hour. Earth has a radius of about 4000 miles, and the shuttle orbits at a height of about 200 miles above sea level. If it follows a circular orbit above Earth, how far does the shuttle travel to go once around the planet. How long does the shuttle take to travel that distance?

Before reading:

1. Guess how many species of snakes there are in the world. What percentage do you think are poisonous?
2. Why do snakes have venom?
3. How would someone test how potent a snake’s venom is?

During reading:

1. Why has it been easier for scientists to learn about the chemistry of venom rather than how snakes use it?
2. List some ways that snakes use their venom.
3. What makes it difficult to figure out how much venom a snake uses when it strikes?
4. What might be the benefits to a snake of controlling how much venom it injects?
5. Why do other biologists disagree with Bill Hayes’ venom-control theory? What evidence contradicts Hayes’ view?

After reading:

1. Bill Hayes claims that snakes are “capable of making decisions.” Did the article convince you?
2. Can you think of an experiment to compare Bill Hayes’ and Bruce Young’s ideas on snake venom? What would convince you that one or the other was right?
3. What factors do you think it would be important to consider in judging how dangerous a snake might be?
4. After reading this article, are you more or less afraid of snakes? If your opinion changed, explain why.

LANGUAGE ARTS

1. Where did the serpent known as the bushmaster get its name?
2. Underline the facts and circle the opinions in this story. How did the author distinguish between facts and opinions? Did she do it clearly?
3. Certain scorpions, spiders, and snakes have venom. What other characteristics link these creatures?
4. You work for a magazine and your editor wants an article called “Snakes Making Decisions?” What’s your opening line (or lead)?

MATHEMATICS

Assuming there are 2,200 snake species in the world, calculate the maximum number of these species that are venomous.