SCIENCE YEAR NEWSLETTER - ISSUE 73 Week ending Friday, 28th June 2002 This week's hot news from the Science Museum "Waiter waiter, there's a dinosaur, a mountaineer and a Steven Hawking book in my newsletter!" "That's right sir, there is. And that's not all. There's also some free software, an online quiz, a secret coded-email engine and a mathematical fortune teller." "Well, that sounds excellent value, if I may say so." "I know sir, it is!" Here’s the recipe: • Physics teacher CONQUERS EVEREST • PRIMARY TEACHERS WANTED - prizes on offer • BRIGHTSPARKS quizzical testers wanted • Send a friend a SECRET CODED MESSAGE • FREE SOFTWARE for YOU • DINO DAY marches forth in NEWCASTLE • Get reading - AVENTIS PRIZE-WINNERS ANNOUNCED • Recommended Websites of the Week • SCIENCE LINE Question of the Week • Joke of the Week • Get predictive with some MYSTIC MATHS • A.O.B. HE'S DONE IT! First of all, hats off to fortitudinous physics teacher Chris Mothersdale who has in the last week successfully reached the top of Everest. What a star - and just check out that view from the top of the world! In case you’ve missed the updates on Chris’s adventure, the reason Science Year has been cheering him on is because he’s been breaking records all the way as the most tech’d up teacher ever to attempt such a feat. Throughout his ascent he’s been transmitting back information about the weather, the altitude, and about his own body’s physiological state – and he even stopped off briefly to conduct the world’s highest ever science lesson while at online at 7010m. And the reason for all of this is that Chris’s data and teaching resources have been made available by NewMedia at http://www.new-media.co.uk/scienceyear/everest.asp for schools to track and analyse as a way of truly bringing parts of the national curriculum to life. Fellow climbers Stuart Peacock and expedition leader Dave Pritt deserve congratulations too, and speaking of people who made it all possible, Chris and New Media did say they’d like to thank all their sponsors: Trend Micro, Sony, Suunto, Datex-Ohmeda, Philip Harris, Livingwell Health Club, Canon and Bolton Stirland Fitness for contributing to the event. (Check ‘em all out here.) And as a final flourish, all schools who made use of the website, are hereby invited to send in their analysis of the data (written by pupils, that is, just to be clear!). The best ones received before July 17th will win some state-of-the-art ICT prizes. NB: Please remember to read the rules on the web page before entering the competition! >top CALLING ALL PRIMARY TEACHERS You may already be aware that as part of Science Year we’re developing a book of science demonstrations. We’ve received a load of contributions already of favourite experiments, investigations and tricks from museums, science centers, teachers and professional scientists (and a few people who fit in between). We’re still looking for more, especially from teachers, so please get them to us asap if you’ve got one in mind. But with most of them we've got to the testing stage.... ... and we need testers! In particular, we need primary school teachers to look over the experiments, have a go, and tell us what they think. If that sounds enticing, email our experimental expert Alice Bell on alice.bell@scienceyear.com, and she'll send you three experiments (two long ones, and a shorter "science snack"). Just read them through, try them out with some kids and tell us what you think. And we are prepared to resort to bribery on this: if you test ONE of them we'll give you a £10 book token, if you test TWO we'll give you a £25 book token. Hurry up - book tokens only available for first 30 teachers to feedback on the experiments! >top AND MORE VOLUNTEERS WANTED… We’d also like to invite a few special people from the teaching profession to have a go at testing our almost-ready revision quiz, BRIGHTSPARKS. This is a picture-based resource, which will be available both online and to download, with levels suitable for all key stages. The questions are presented with as much pizazz as those quiz-type fruit machines, with an image and multiple choice answer options, and a time limit on each question so they’re fun - if challenging – to complete. But the nifty thing is, the quizzes all relate to school curriculum science across a range of subject areas, and teachers can teachers can track the progress of their students as they complete the quiz, and download different sets of questions according to the needs of their classes. Shortly, the quiz will be online and available to everyone, but for now we’re looking for a few intrepid souls prepared to go where no teacher has gone before… namely into the online testing area where Brightsparks prototype is being housed. So if you’d like to have a sneak preview and test it out for us, let us know. Send your name, school and phone number to Bobby ‘Brightsparks’ Cerini at bobby.cerini@scienceyear.com . >top >>>>G1M9|5u8YGNR_zEKXDH]/ No, not a programming mistake… a secret coded message for your eyes only!! Yes, the fab new spies feature hinted at in last week’s newsletter has now been unveiled on our website, and we hope you’ll have hours of fun with it. With this amazing new tool, you’ll be able to send your friends an enciphered string of seemingly unintelligible gobblydigook, along with the password (or ‘key’ as they say in the encryption business) and directions to our online codebreaker. There, they’ll be able to easy-peasily convert the message back into its original words. Have a go at the CodeBreaker here. >top FREE SOFTWARE And there’s more… Many thanks to Granada Learning for their kind donation of this month’s free software. It’s taken from their CDRom ‘Investigating Science 2’ series, and the idea is that students can investige soundwaves interactively using mobile phone ring tones. Have a look here. >top DINO-DAY at LIFE CENTRE, NEWCASTLE SciZmic, the science clubs network, have been in touch with some news for any dinosaur fans in the Newcastle area… They say, "Do you have a secondary school science club or some Yr 9 students looking for something to do on July 9th? Well, how about going to the Centre for Life's Dino-day in Newcastle? They'll be digging for dinosaurs, talking to the experts, escaping from Dino Island and debating dinosaurs." If that’s of interest, contact scizmic@the-ba.net for more information. >top AVENTIS PRIZES FOR SCIENCE BOOKS 2002 In case you missed it, the winners of this prestigious award were announced at the Science Museum in London on Tuesday evening. There were two categories, junior and general, with the junior award being judged by 31 science clubs in schools, science centres and libraries across the UK. This major effort involved 340 junior judges reading the 6 shortlisted books, and it was a tough tough decision by all accounts… But as the the time-honoured expression goes, there could only be one winner. And the winner was (drum roll) ‘The DK Guide to the Human Body’, by Richard Walker. Judges’ comments included: "It kept me wanting to turn the next page." "DK deserves to win - colouful, easy to understand and tells you loads of things you never knew about your own body and other peoples!" "I think it is interesting and appealing for people like me who like science." "The writing is easy to read." "I think ‘The DK Guide to the Human Body’ has awesome illustrations." Meanwhile, in the general category, Stephen Hawking won for his book 'The Universe in a Nutshell'. Full details of all the shortlisted books can be found here - and of course your local library should have copies of both, so what are you waiting for? Get down and get with! >top RECOMMENDED WEBSITES OF THE WEEK Have you seen what BBC Science have been up to lately? It’s good! First of all, for all Wimbledon maniacs, they’ve got the The Science of Tennis. And for all Spiderman maniacs, they’ve also launched The Science of Superheroes which includes a game where you can test out your superpowers (!) and an interview with creator of spiderman, Stan Lee. If you’re a lover of Planet 10 on the Science Year website, you’ll enjoy this planetary challenge (and should be able to get it right first time – go on!). It’s their new Solar System Jigsaw. Place the planets in the correct spots and see them move and groove… >top SUPERMARKET SCIENCE QUESTION OF THE WEEK Ever pondered this while you’re waiting in a queue with a dim and distant checkout assistant at the helm: "What stops a bar code from being accidentally read upside-down? And who decides what bar code a new product is given?" This is one of the hot topics Science Line have researched for an enquirer – and you can learn the answer by scanning your eye across the black and white bits here. And remember if you’ve got any science-related questions that have been bugging you, Science Line will be only tooooo pleased to help you out. Phone them on 0808 800 4000 (Mon – Sat, 1-7pm) or contact them online at http://www.sciencenet.org.uk. And it’s a completely free service, so go for it! MATHS JOKE OF THE WEEK Just a quick one though. Q. "What did the nought say to the eight?" A. "Mmmm - nice belt!" >top MATHS PREDICTION OF THE WEEK And so to football. OK, not exactly "science", but we hope you enjoy this item of discussable maths for striking up conversation at the bus stop. (And who knows it could even be a beyond-our-ken accurate way of working out which country will win the World Cup on Sunday too...) Here's the algorithm: Brazil last won the World Cup in 1994. Before that they won it in 1970. Add 1970 and 1994, it equals 3964. Argentina last won the World Cup in 1986. Before that they won it in 1978. Add 1978 and 1986, it equals 3964. Germany last won in 1990. Before that they won in 1974. Add 1990 and 1974, it equals 3964. So going by this logic, let's work out the winner the 2002 World Cup: Take the total 3964 and subtract the year 2002. This gives us the year 1962. Which makes Brazil the winners on Sunday ... Why? Because Brazil won the 1962 World Cup. So there you go. Sorry, Germany. Hey, and let's just see ... if you work it out for 2006, the winners will be ... hang on ... get the calculator ... WOW - guess who ...? It's Scotland!!! WHAY-HEY! Oh sorry hold it, hit the wrong key there, it's, er, Brazil again. >top A.O.B. Sadly, there we must leave the as yet pre-pubescent 2006 Brazilian team to dream of their lap of honour and of football going home, to their house, again. Back on a sciencey note though, if you have any contributions for forthcoming newsletters, please email them asap to anne.mcnaught@scienceyear.com . Meanwhile, have a great week - and may the sun shine down wherever you may be! >top