Science and the newspaper

Grades 6-12:

1.On a map of Ohio, paste pictures, articles and items of conservation activities that are happening in your area.

2. On a calendar, paste symbols to denote the weather– sunny, rainy – that is forecast for each day of the week ahead. Circle the days when the weather prediction turns out to be right.

3. Study the paper’s daily weather map and list activities connected with ways of predicting weather.

4.Consult the daily weather map in the paper and make graphs or charts.

A. Explain cause and effects from high and low pressure areas.

B. Discuss moon phases, sunsets, sunrises and tides.

C. List words used by meteorologists, such as humidity, condensation, cyclonic, atmosphere, wind belts, tornado path.

5. Write and illustrate “a great moment in science.” Make and arrange your illustrations in film sequence and show your great moment by making a primitive movie. Cut one end from a paper shoe box and replace it with a piece of colored cellophane. Smoothly pull the pictures through the box while recounting the illustrated scene.

6. Make a bulletin board using charts, news articles and ads about devices that will improve efficiency and safety in the home, in cars, in air and water travel and in industry.

7. Divide the class into teams and have each team prepare a report relating to forces that change the earth’s surfaces once each month. If you have access to the Internet, suggest that they look at “Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet” at www.slip.net/earthenv or “Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment” at www.globe.gov.

8. Collect pictures of various scientific phenomena. Cut and label a lake, an ocean, a canyon, a volcano, a mountain, a river delta, a flood plain and a plateau.

9. Have a science scavenger hunt in the newspaper. The list could include kinds of machines, animals, food groups, sounds, types of communication, vocabulary words, etc.

10. Locate and count the different electrical appliances advertised in the paper. Find and cut out a picture for each one. Make a list of the electrical appliances you have in your home. What percentage do you use personally? What percentage is used for home maintenance? What is the average number of appliances per home in your class?

11. Collect slogans or claims of health-aid products and patent medicines. Rewrite the slogans, omitting the colorful, emotion-laden words.

12. Discuss the demands put on natural resources and their diminishing supply. What solutions does the class have to offer?

13. On the business pages and in advertisements, collect pictures and articles about different kinds of machines. Explain or write a description of the machine, what it does and how it is operated. In what field of technology does it work?

14. Using photographs found in the paper, describe different native habitats or environments found in your area. How do they differ from the Cape Hatteras Coast of North Carolina? What about the Orlando, Florida area?

15. Using the comic pages, find five scientific impossibilities pictured. (e.g. Animals talking, birds wearing clothes, pictures of Vikings, Beetle Bailey being beaten to a pulp and still alive.)

16. Clip and collect articles relating to health problems in the community – e.g. head lice outbreaks at school, vaccinations of all students, drug abuse and smoking, sports injuries, driving without seatbelts, etc.