Banned Books Week, Sept 24-Oct 1

Banned Books Week has officially begun! Always held the last week in September, Banned Books Week gives us an opportunity to celebrate the freedom of access to information- as well as bringing awareness to the harms of censorship.

During this week, libraries, schools, and booksellers often feature books that have been been banned in libraries or schools in the United States. However, the American Libraries Association states that, "Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections." Help spread the word about Banned Books Week, and celebrate the freedom to read!

Interested in learning more? Check out these great links:

• Map showing locations across the United States where books have been banned
• Challenged book list, 2010-2011
• Top 100 Banned/Challenged books, 2000-2009
  

Care to guess at some banned book titles? Visit the Water Library Facebook page throughout the week to take our Banned Books polls!

Wisconsin Science Festival- This Weekend!

This weekend, September 22-25, is a great time to come to campus and learn about science! The Wisconsin Science Festival is taking place primarily at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery's Town Center, as well as a variety of other locations.

Events include glass blowing, soldering and electronics kit building, a food science demonstration, and more! While you're on campus, don't forget to visit the Geology Museum or go star gazing at Washburn Observatory. Events are numerous, with programs for children as well as adults. Click here to view a full program. The Water Library's own Anne Moser will be staffing an "Ask a Science Librarian" table, so don't hesitate to come ready with questions!

The festival is presented by UW Madison, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and is free and open to the public.

Beach Cleanups on the Great Lakes

The most common pieces of trash found on Great Lakes beaches are cigarette butts- 129,697 in 2011 alone, to be exact. Just ask the Alliance for the Great Lakes, a Chicago-based nonprofit that plays a big role in keeping Great Lakes beaches swimmer friendly. AGL works with individuals, families, and businesses to help sponsor beach cleanups in all six Great Lakes states- Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and New York. While volunteers are organized year round, this is the biggest month for the organization, with thousands of volunteers joining together for the September Adopt-A-Beach day, this year on September 17th.

According to their website, 70,000 volunteers have picked up 164 tons of debris from Great Lakes beaches since 1991- in the month of September alone. Volunteers keep track of their finds, counting and weighing everything. AGL keeps careful statistics of this information- recent data is available in an online searchable directory. Cleanups also include water testing for bacteria to determine if water is safe for swimming.

Volunteers weigh their trash bags at Montrose Beach, Chicago, IL.

Interested in adopting a beach or helping with a future cleanup? Click here to find out about opportunities to partner with the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Photo courtesy of Lloyd DeGrane

Paddle-to-the-Sea

August 2nd marks the 111th birthday of one of America's beloved authors and illustrators, Holling Clancy Holling. In 1941, Mr. Holling published his classic nonfiction book, Paddle-t0-the-Sea. The story follows a little boat christened "Paddle-to-the-Sea" by a young Native American boy who launches it from the Nipigon country in the Canadian wilderness. He carves a small boy in the 12-inch wooden canoe and sends the boat on a journey through the Great Lakes, along the St. Lawrence Seaway, finally reaching the Atlantic Ocean.

The beauty of this books lies in the author's artistry with both words and illustrations. He offers a meaningful way to learn about the Great Lakes and its ecosystems.

For a more modern touch, David Hart from Wisconsin Sea Grant and his son Noah created a Google Lit Trip based on this book - follow it here: Google Lit trip of Paddle-to-the-sea.

Interested in traveling around the Great Lakes yourself? Don't miss the Great Lakes Circle Tour.

The Big Two-Hearted River

Wisconsin Sea Grant's David Hart, along with his daughter, Madeleine, have just launched a new Google Lit Trip based on the classic short story by Ernest Hemingway, titled THE BIG TWO-HEARTED RIVER.

Google Lit Trips are simply a collection of "Placemarks" and online resources saved in Google Earth, related to a piece of literature. Once you've put a placemark at each location you can then begin embedding photos, videos, weblinks, and more in the "Properties" window of each location. There a Google Lit Trips for Kindergarteners through 5th grade, grades 6th through 8th and for high schoolers.

David and Maddie have created a lit trip based on Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Big Two-Hearted River" written in 1925. This story recounts a trout fishing trip near Seney in the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It speculates on the location of Hemingway's 1919 trip to the Seney area by comparing text in the short story to analysis by Prof. Jack Jobst and weaves details about a family camping/canoeing trip on the Fox River in August 2010 with information about the science of stream ecology, entomology, and water resource management.

To learn more about Google Lit Trips, visit their website.

To explore the Harts' lit trip, start here.

Climate Change Potpourri

Several items and resources of note have come across the Water Library's desk in recent days, all related in one way or another, to climate change.

Climate Hot Map - Global Warming Effects Around the World. From the Union of Concerned Scientists ("the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world") a visually pleasing website that allows the user to explore a variety of signs of global warming. The signs include heat waves, sea-level rise, flooding, melting glaciers, earlier spring arrival, coral reef bleaching, and the spread of disease. It's important to note that there is a larger number of notations on the US and Europe and this is due to a large amount of climate change research being conducted. As research goes on in the developing world, it will be added to the map. It's a well documented website, including endnotes of references of the scientific studies.

Climate Change Beliefs study - Very interesting snapshot from Yale University and George Mason University showing American's attitudes and beliefs regarding climate change, as of May 2011. The public is skeptical today and it is less likely to believe in human impacts of climate change than it was five years ago. Big question for scientists - why is that? The report does not answer that question, it only shows the survey results over time.

What are greenhouse gases? - From the US Energy Information Administration, a detailed, science-based description of what exactly is a greenhouse gas and how much is emitted in the US. the EIA is a goverment agency whose mission is to "collect, analyze, and disseminate independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment." In short, the EIA communications information we can count on.

Gardening with kids

It is summer vacation in our neck of the woods and that's got this librarian thinking about what children are up to during the lazy months of sunshine and heat. Many people are heading out their back (or front) doors to work in their gardens. And there is a movement afoot for those gardeners to bring along their children to garden. Children naturally gravitate, even at a young age, to dirt. What a better way to cultivate love of our world that to show them how to sow seeds.

If you are thinking of bringing some kids along to the garden, here a couple of websites that might be useful:

Got Dirt? (UW Extension, Brown County)

National Junior Horticultural Association

U of Illinois Extension - My First Garden

Gardening with Kids

another Gardening with Kids

Kids Gardening

Wisconsin Master Gardener program works with youth

And don't forget the importance of being kind to the earth and integrating green gardening techniques. This recommended reading list has lots of suggestions to get you started. The library just ordered a few "gardening with children" books that we'll add to the list.

Happy digging!

photo above courtesy of UW Extension.