Help Kids Explore the Kingdoms of Life

April 25th, 2009

Information is accumulating at an astounding rate. Children who are in school now must not only learn facts, but they must learn how to learn. Above all, they should be taught in a way that inspires them to want to continue learning for the rest of their lives.

Knowledge of biology and the complexities of life is expanding as fast as any other field of human inquiry. What today’s adults learned about biology is already out of date and even quaint in comparison to what our children should learn and understand.

Today’s teachers can face the challenge of teaching biology for elementary and middle school kids in the 21st century with new tools and guidance from experts who know the details of biology and also the techniques that make teaching effective. An important new book from Priscilla Spears, Kingdoms of Life Connected, lives up fully to its subtitle, A Teacher’s Guide to the Tree of Life.

Kingdoms of Life Connected helps teachers to help their students. The book was written with a Montessori approach to learning in mind, so this is an excellent hands-on resource both for Montessori teachers and classrooms and for homeschool science materials. This refreshing and detailed new book introduces students to the diversity and connections of life, and provides inspiration for further study and exploration. This book gives teachers valuable background information to use as they lead their students in productive exploration of the newest thoughts in biology.

Biological classification has undergone many changes in the recent past, and more changes are coming rapidly. This book anticipates changes yet to come by giving students a new view of the biological kingdoms using a phylogenetic or family tree approach.

In addition to its information rich text and easy-to-read style, this book also provides extensive listings of additional books and internet resources in each chapter to help both teachers and students with further exploration of the important biological world. Whether you are an experienced biology teacher or someone new to this exciting topic, you will find Kingdoms of Life Connected to be a valuable resource and an inspiration.

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Ionic Air Purifiers - Safety Tops All Criteria

April 25th, 2009

Safety assumes top priority in the selection of an ionic air purifier for use in the home, office, factory or school.

Existing ionic air purifier technology, regardless of whether they originate in North America, Europe, Japan or China produce a primary beneficial reactive agent.These reactive agents are known variously by names like negative ions, bipolar ions, plasmacluster ions and so on. Their prime objective is to eliminate contaminants in the air we breathe. There is much research on the efficacy of these reactive agents in destroying contaminants. What takes effort to unearth is whether these powerful reactive agents also act against the delicate human tissues that lead from the trachea to the bronchi of the lungs.

Whether by design or otherwise, there is also an information void about whether there are other by-products and if these are harmful to fragile human tissues as well. However, in the industry, it is well established that current ionic air purifier technology inadvertently results in the production of by-products that may, in sufficient concentrations, prove harmful to human tissue. Ozone is one of the potentially toxic by-products. In high concentrations, ozone has been proven to damage human tissues.

Accordingly, for the ionic air purifier user, the issue of safety has to be addressed from these two perspectives:

(1) Potential harm from the beneficial reactive agents, and

(2) Potential harm from the unintended by-products.

Though not exhaustive, our intensive research on these two perspectives have been condensed into two detailed write-ups that have been featured on Ezinearticles.com.

Don’t miss these 2 in-depth Ezine articles. To read, click on the Ezine Author Badge on The Ionic Air Purifier Blog.

Subject to their terms and conditions, Ezinearticles.com allows publishers to freely reproduce these two articles. So help yourself, publish the two articles on your websites as a complete set, via these links:

(1) Beneficial reactive agents

(2) Unintended by-products

In addition, keep updated with our progress as we research other aspects of the very broad and constantly changing field of ionic air purifier technologies.

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Your Science Fair Project - Picking the Right Kind of Experiment

April 25th, 2009

Science fair projects can be the most memorable part of your science class, giving you an opportunity to show your abilities and creativity. Getting started is often one of the most difficult parts of the project. Before you can plan your project, and even before you pick a topic, you must first understand the different types of science fair projects. It’s very important to choose the right type of project, or all of your effort could be wasted.

There are three basic types of science fair projects: models, demonstrations, or investigations. When choosing, there are two considerations. First, you need to choose the type required by the science fair rules, so make sure you check with your teacher. Sometimes you get to choose the type of project. If so, pick one that lets you do what you are best at doing.

The Model Building Method

The model building method is the kind of project which, as the name implies, enables you to construct a model, to scale whenever possible, to illustrate a specific scientific principle. This could be as simple as a model of the solar system, or a real working machine. Many of us have seen the model of an erupting volcano in which the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar causes realistic looking ‘lava’ flows down the sides of a ‘mountain’. These models can be fun to build and quite spectacular - but they are often more suited to elementary school science fairs because of the relative lack of real ’science’ or creativity in most of them. Having said that, though, there can be some spectacular models produced by higher grade level students; especially if the model is actually demonstrating something new.

The Demonstration

The demonstration or descriptive method of research is again fairly self-explanatory. You could display your collection of rocks or other items related to a particular topic (like geology), and describe how they are related in your report, speech or on a display board. As an alternative, you could use a visual project display board to describe the research you performed. When you do this kind of project, you are not doing anything new, but only explaining or illustrating known scientific principles.

The Scientific Experiment (Investigation)

It is with the third of the possible methods that you can provide what most science fairs for older students are looking for - proper scientific experiments using scientific methods to construct and test a hypothesis and draw conclusions from it. If you are interested in a science career, or would like to move on the regional or national science fair, then you should be looking into this area.

The choice of science fair project topics is limitless. Decide where your major interest lies - it might be biology, chemistry or physics but it could also be earth science, environmental science, sports science, meteorology or computer science - and then try to develop your own hypothesis and method of testing it. If you have trouble thinking of an interesting topic, books and web sites can offer helpful ideas. Just make sure it is unique is some way if you want a chance of winning.
Finally, to assure your success, always remain in contact with your teacher about what you are doing, and confirm that you fully understand the science fair rules and guidelines. Then, whichever type of project you decide to undertake, you can enjoy it with confidence!

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