Education Newswatch February 2006

Saving American History
The History Channel® is offering a new free resource to teachers of American history called the Save Our History Educator's Manual. This guide contains lesson plans linked to state history standards and advice for teachers from sources including The Smithsonian, The National Archives, The National Parks Service and The National Trust for Historic Presentation. Using key topics from American history as a conduit for teaching local history, the lesson plans include activities that can be incorporated into classroom curricula for grades 2-12, enrich an after-school program or inspire student volunteer projects. To obtain the Save Our History Educator's Manual, go to www.saveourhistory.com and click on Educators.

Toolkit to go – The Inventive Thinking Toolkit is packaged in a sturdy cardboard case.

Junior Inventors
By Kids For Kids™, according to its mission statement, was founded "to inspire, stimulate and motivate children while they earn significant self-worth, personal recognition and financial gain, using their imagination and creative expression." Through this organization kids have had their creative ideas become consumer products, such as The Crayon Holder for broken crayons, invented by 11-year-old Cassidy. The company has now produced, with sponsorship from Xerox and production and distribution from Scholastic, an Inventive Thinking Toolkit program for K-12 educators. The program builds on the Project XL curriculum developed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and explores various ways to stimulate an idea and transform that idea into an invention. It is aligned with national educational standards and uses collaborative and problem-based learning to integrate and support cross-curriculum content. Each Inventive Thinking Toolkit includes a teacher's guide, 30 student guides, an interactive learning dvd with individual sections for educators and students, an Inventive Thinking game poster and an example of a kid-invented product. The teacher and student guides, including additional lesson plans, are downloadable free of charge at www.bkfk.com, where you can also request a free complete boxed version of the kit.

Science Sleuthing
The HOBO Energy Challenge, sponsored by iScienceProject, is a free, company-sponsored contest for K-12 classrooms. The contest, which runs through May 1, 2006, is designed to promote energy awareness within schools while offering students of all ages a fun, hands-on science learning experience with HOBO® data loggers. A data logger is a simple-to-use, portable electronic recording device that monitors light usage, room temperature and relative humidity. Accompanying software turns the energy usage data into colorful, time-stamped graphs that indicate, for example, when lights were on/off and what room temperatures were during the night. The mission of the contest is for kids to use data loggers to find examples of energy waste in their schools. Participating classrooms will receive a free HOBO Loaner Package that includes a HOBO data logger, software and energy-saving contest activities. Classrooms that investigate and document at least one example of energy waste win a complete HOBO data logger system ($200 value). An entire classroom set of HOBO data loggers ($1,000 value) will be awarded to elementary, middle and high-school classrooms that make the greatest effort to investigate energy waste. For more information on the HOBO Energy Challenge, or to sign up, please visit www.iscienceproject.com and click on HOBO Energy Challenge. The deadline for contest entries is April 30, 2006.

"Madre Y Bebe" by Priscilla Webb,10, Gibbs Magnet School, Little Rock, AK.

Have Art, Will Travel
Masterpieces by young artists are traveling the country, and the world, in Pentel's 35th annual International Children's Art Exhibit (ICAE). This year a panel of judges in Tokyo, Japan, where the ICAE was founded, viewed more than 200,000 entries in many mediums from children in 67 countries and territories. (U.S. children ages 3-15 entered more than 2,000 pieces.) Then, several exhibitions consisting of thousands of multinational pieces are assembled to tour in 12 countries including Japan, Ireland, the United States, Mexico and Hong Kong. The U.S. nine-city tour began in September 2005 and will end in Los Angeles, CA, in August 2006. Visit www.pentel.com and click on Children's Art Exhibit for the tour schedule and to view selected works.