Pairing Picture Books with Science Experiments

The 2014 theme for the Wisconsin Public Library summer reading program is "Fizz, Boom, Read." This theme has the potential to promote the power of observation and experimentation in everyday life.

The Water Library's outreach efforts to Head Start and 4K programs in Wisconsin includes pairing picture books with art projects and science experiments. The Water Library actively collects materials to encourage the integration of science into literature and art for children and has great resources available for developing "Fizz, Boom, Read" story times in your library.

Books to help you develop your own science "Picture-Perfect Pairings":

Picture Perfect Science is a series of great curriculum books designed to align story-time themes with science experiments and standards-based science lessons published by the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) Press.

The Picture Perfect books are divided into themes and provide descriptions of picture books, grade levels, activities and experiments for each theme. The books also provide topics for discussions and journal entries. The variety of activities helps children to discover science through multi-sensory engagement and reflect on their experiences.

The "Be a Friend to Trees" theme includes picture book pairings and more.

Journal entry and discussion topic prompts will help library patrons engage in the theme.

 The Water Library offers three of the books in the series, including:

Expanded 2nd Edition Picture-Perfect Science

More Picture-Perfect Science Lessons

Even-More Picture-Perfect Science Lessons

Open Access Science Resources

Open Access has made it possible gain access to high quality, peer-reviewed scientific research and information without the prohibitive cost associated with many subscription resources. 

Open Access Week was just observed October 22-28 and resulted in the sharing of many useful resources.   We came across Matthew Von Hendy's blog post "Open Access Science Resources" and wanted to highlight five of his suggestions.

1. Science Gov: www.science.gov  is a government website allowing users to search over 50 U.S. government science-related databases and websites.  Science.gov websites improvements were the subject of a recent AquaLog post, available here.
2. WorldWideScience.org: www.worldwidescience.org/about.html offers a federated search that covers national and international government science resources.
3. Public Library of Science : www.plos.org publishes seven high quality peer-reviewed open access journals.
4. Toxnet: www.toxnet.nlm.nih.gov  Offers access to the United States National Library of Medicine databases on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health and toxic releases.
5. DOE Information Systems: www.scienceaccelerator.gov offers a federated search covering Department of Energy related research, articles and conference proceedings.

For more Open Access suggestions, consult Matthew Von Hendy's complete blog post here 
Open Access Week information here

Banned Books Week - Science Edition

This year marks the 30th annual Banned Books Week and Wisconsin's Water Library has created a display of challenged and banned science books to mark the occasion. The American Library Association and others sponsor Banned Books Week to "highlight the value of free and open access to information."

For our display, we chose to highlight the importance of free scientific discourse while considering the potential harm caused by censorship.  Many libraries, schools and bookstores nationwide display books that have been challenged for the presumed dangers of their content and ideas being made available to the public. However, the Library Bill of Rights states in article III that: "Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment."  With this goal in mind, we encourage you to explore some of these important science texts that are part of the display and read why they have been challenged over the years:

BIOLOGY by Karen Arms and Pamela S. Camp
(1985) Bowing to pressure from opponents of the textbook planned for the use in a high school honors course, the Garland Independent School District’s (Texas) central textbook selection committee withdrew its recommendation because the text includes “overly explicit diagrams of sexual organs, intricate discussion of sexual stimulation, and the implication of abortion as a means of birth control.”

HEALTH by John LaPlace
(1984) Challenged at the Randolph High School (New Jersey) by a group of parents and clergy who say “the textbook is too liberal and should be replaced or supplemented by a more traditional book.”
 
HUMAN SEXUALITY by Elizabeth Winship, Frank Caparulo, and Vivian K. Harlin
(1994) Removed from use in health classes by the Belleville School District School Board (Missouri) after parents had complained that the book “didn’t stress abstinence from sex by high school students,” and because “it didn’t say whether sexual relations before marriage, homosexuality, masturbation, or abortion are right or wrong.”

IN THE BEGINNING: SCIENCE FACES GOD IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS by Isaac Asimov
(1981) Officials of the Christian Research Center requested San Diego (California) school administrators to keep this title out of all high school libraries because Asimov “subjects the Bible to merciless and unremitting destructive attack.”

MAKING LIFE CHOICES: HEALTH SKILLS AND CONCEPTS by Francis S. Sizer, et al.
(1997) The Franklin County school board (North Carolina) ordered three chapters cut out of the ninth-grade health textbooks.  Those chapters dealt with AIDS, HIV, and other sexually transmitted diseases; pairing, marriage, and parenting; and sexual behavior and contraception.

ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES by Charles B. Darwin
(1859)  Banned from Trinity College in Cambridge, England. 
(1925)  Tennessee passed a law prohibiting teachers from teaching the theory of evolution in state supported schools.  John T. Scopes, a science teacher in Dayton, volunteered to be the test case for Tennessee’s anti-evolution law.  The Scopes’s “monkey trial,” eventually was thrown out on a technicality.
(1935)  Banned in Yugoslavia.
(1937)  Banned in Greece.
(1925)  Tennessee passed a law prohibiting teachers from teaching the theory of evolution in state supported schools. 
(1980)  Arkansas and Louisiana state boards of education required teaching both creationism and evolution in public schools.  These laws were ruled unconstitutional in 1987 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard.

OUR FAMILY TREE: AN EVOLUTION STORY by Lisa W. Peters
(2006) Retained in the Seaman Unified School Disrtict 345 (Kansas) elementary school library.  Objections were raised because the book is about the scientific theory of evolution.

POPULATION, EVOLUTION AND BIRTH CONTROL by Garrett Hardin
(1977) The Brighton School Board (Michigan) voted to remove all sex education books from the high school library.
 
Source used: Doyle, Robert P. Banned Books : Challenging Our Freedom to Read. Chicago, Ill.: American Library Association, 2010.