It might be a good year to see the Perseid meteor shower

Composite of 12 shots by Felix Zai in Toronto

Catching a productive meteor shower can be a stunning experience.  On the evenings and mornings of August 11th, 12th and 13th there could be a very good show.  A last quarter moon will leave the night sky growing darker each night. Depending on the cloudiness of the evening, conditions are expected to be excellent.  Let students read charts, analyze data, work with percent of moon visibility at each phase, and understand apparent magnitude in the night sky with this activity. They can stay up for the show or wake up early?  Motivate them!

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Largest s’more ever!

Monday, August 10, 2020 is National S'more Day.

Thanks to Maggie Hefferman, Newton, MA educator, for the idea of this post.

To help you celebrate this strange new holiday, we've asked students to do some figuring to help quantify what is reasonable.  How many marshmallows are in this recipe?  How many people could this cookie feed? How many marshmallows could you eat?

The activity: Smores2.pdf

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What does the data show?

Clicking on this image will show it larger in a new window.

When you look at the new case numbers of the Coronavirus in the U.S. and compare that with various world and national events and our present scientific understandings, what do you wonder?  What can you deduce?  What might the future be like?

The activity: Covid-Cases-Trends.pdf

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How much water should you be drinking?

As we are outdoors more and temperatures are rising, it might be a good time to look at hydration.

A healthy requirement for fluids can't really be the same for everyone.  Surely the amount of water that you need to drink has to do with the weather, your size, and how much you are exercising.

In this activity student develop formulas for calculating their water needs, learn about the effects of too little water, and calculate what they should be consuming.

The first 1:43 minutes of the following video could be a motivating beginning to this topic.

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How fast will my new puppy mature?

Dudley, born 11/10/2019

Dudley has just come to live with us. He is just a puppy and he is full of energy.  He's settling in well even though this is only day 3 of him living with us.

There is a new dog aging formula, that depends on methyl markers that adhere to the DNA molecules of living things.  Now we know that dogs don't age as we thought that they did.

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