Nomad's blog

We're joining today's STEM Friday blog about autumn with our Explore Weather and Climate! title. Explore Weather and Climate! teaches kids ages 6-9 exactly why seasons happen and what is going on out there to make the weather change and climates differ.

From Chapter 1, your kids will be preparing to be future meteorologists with their own Weather Prediction Chart. They'll be off making a Weather Game for you to enjoy, a rain stick for your entertainment, and figuring out the Doppler effect using all sorts of odds and ends from around the house. If you're lucky, they'll share their Edible Climate Zone Map -- and if you're really lucky, they'll choose to make it out of cookie dough instead of pizza dough (maybe you can use your powers of persuasion with that one)!

 Here’s a link to an interesting article that supports the integration of video games into the English Language Arts classroom. I’ve never tried any of the games mentioned. I’ve never even heard of them.

What do the letters S – T – E and M have in common?

You guessed it.

Art.

Those four letters have art as a common denominator.

They do this week anyway. Formally, that is. It’s National Arts in Education Week. So it’s a week when we, as a nation, can focus on merging art with subject areas like STEM. It’s a formula to make our children…you guessed it:

Super duper “stemart.”

I remember many years ago, probably 10 or so at this point, watching a little dog play around the living room of my sister-in-law's apartment. The dog had a ball that it loved to fetch. It very clearly let you know its mood. It napped and it played. It stretched and it did tricks. Sounds like most any dog you know, right? Wrong. This dog had no fur to pet and no tongue to slobber all over you. It was AIBO, the robotic dog manufactured by Sony from 1999 until 2006.

The name AIBO stands for Artificial Intelligence roBOt. And that's what AIBO is. He's fun to play with because he does actually learn. He has intelligence. He's just not very cuddly. But he's a fascinating little guy, and he is one example of what is possible in the broader fascinating field of Robotics. In our latest book by Kathy Ceceri, Robotics: Discover the Science and Technology of the Future, we explore one of the most exciting fields in technology today. Kids of all interests and abilities will come up with creative solutions to tricky problems and marvel at the working robots they make themselves.