A Very Old Sloth Teach for America Spelling Champion Greenland Ice

A Very Old Sloth
Pythons
on the Loose!
Sloths are slow-moving planteaters that live in the rain forests of Central and South America.
And the odd-looking, long-clawed beasts have been around a lot
longer than scientists believed. A complete fossil of a sloth that
lived five million years ago has been discovered in the South
American country of Peru. The 10-foot-long fossil was found under
the floor of a house that was being worked on to install a new
water system. Fossil parts of a giant armadillo were found nearby.
As a class, talk about different things fossils can teach people
about life long ago. Then pick an animal from the photos, stories
or ads in the eEdition. What might it teach future scientists if its
fossil were found thousands of years from now?
Learning Standards: Explaining how fossils provide evidence about the nature of ancient life; understanding the nature of scientific inquiry; generating scientific questions about the world based on observation.
Invasive species are a big problem
in many parts of the United States.
These animals and plants are introduced by people to areas where
they didn’t live before and grow out
of control because they have no
natural predators or foes. In the
Everglades wetlands in the state of
Florida, Burmese pythons have
become a problem — a very big
problem, since these giant snakes
can grow to be more than 20 feet
long! As many as 150,000 Burmese
pythons now live in the Everglades
after being dumped there by pet
owners who didn’t want them when
they got too big. As a class, talk
about ways people could control
invasive species. With a partner
find a photo of an outdoor scene in
the eEdition. Brainstorm kinds of
invasive species that could harm
animals or plants in the area.
The Teach for America program
takes graduates of top colleges and
trains them to be teachers for the
nation’s neediest schools. These
teachers most often join the teaching staffs in public schools in cities
or rural areas far from cities. This
year more than 35,000 top college
students applied to the program,
and a record 4,100 were chosen for
teaching positions. As a class, talk
about the skills and personality a
person needs to be a good teacher.
Pick a person from the eEdition
whom you think would make a good
teacher. Write out reasons for your
choice and share with the class.
A 13-year-old girl from Olathe,
Kansas is this year’s top speller in
the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Kavya Shivashankar topped 10
other student finalists from around
the country to take home more
than $40,000 in cash and prizes in
the Washington, D.C., competition.
As a class, talk about ways to sound
out words when you are trying to
spell them. Divide into teams and
pick words from the eEdition to
challenge other students in a class
spelling bee. You must know the
meaning of each word to challenge
others with it. Exchange words
until only one player remains.
Learning Standards: Engaging peers in constructive conversation
about topics of interest or importance; explaining ecosystem concepts
and processes; describing positive and negative effects of humans on
nature and wildlife.
Learning Standards: Engaging peers in constructive conversation
about topics of interest or importance; responding to a variety of oral,
visual, written and electronic texts by making connections to students’
personal lives and the lives of others.
Learning Standard: Employing multiple strategies to recognize words
while constructing meaning, including the use of phonics, syllabication, spelling patterns and context clues.
Teach for America
Greenland Ice
Greenland is a country up near the Earth’s
North Pole, and much of it is covered with
ice. But global warming of temperatures in
the Earth’s atmosphere is causing much
of Greenland’s ice to melt. If the melting
continues at the speed it is happening now,
the Atlantic Ocean could rise more in the
Learning Standards: Reading and writing fluently, speaking confidently, listening
and interacting appropriately, viewing critically and representing creatively; engaging peers in constructive conversation about topics of interest or importance.
Spelling Champion
northeast part of North America than in any
place on Earth, researchers said last week.
The rise in areas from New York City to the
Atlantic provinces in Canada could be 12 to
20 inches more than in other areas, scientists
said. As a class, talk about ways global warming could affect the Earth in the future. Then
keep a scrapbook of stories about global
warming from the eEdition for month or
two. Use what you collect to make a report
on global warming for the class. Design a
poster to go with your report.
Capital
On June 10, 1793, Washington,
D.C., replaced Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the nation’s capital.
Using the eEdition, the Internet and other resources, make a
chart comparing Washington with four other capital cities in
four different countries. Include where each city is located, its
geographical characteristics, its climate, what its economy is like,
what type of government it has and a few fun or quirky facts. The
CIA World Factbook is a good online resource for learning about
other countries. It can be found as a hotlink on the right of the
CIA home page at www.cia.gov.
Drugs
Learning Standards: Locating and describing the diverse places, cultures and communities of major world regions; organizing data using tables,
charts, and graphs.
Two of the world’s biggest drug
makers, AstraZeneca and Merck &
Co., have announced they are working together to develop a pair of
drugs to treat cancer. The companies each have a cancer drug in the
very early stages of development.
Clinical trials indicate that the two
drugs together could fight cancer
better than either drug alone. In the
eEdition or online, find another
example of rival individuals, companies or countries working together
for a common goal. In groups, talk
about ways teamwork plays a role in
your lives. Create a list of tasks or
goals that can only be achieved if
people or countries work together.
Use the search functions of the
eEdition to find other examples of
teamwork by searching for the
words “teamwork” or “team.”
Learning Standard: Responding to a variety of oral, visual, written and
electronic texts by making connections to students’ personal lives and
the lives of others.
Donald Duck
Cartoon character Donald Duck
made his screen debut on June 9,
1934. He starred in “The Wise Little
Hen” by Walt Disney. Using the
eEdition and the Internet, find an
example of another popular fictional character. It can be someone from
a book, a short story, a movie, a cartoon or anything else. Write a few
sentences about who the character
is, where he or she has appeared
and basic biographical information,
such as how old the character is or
what town he or she lives in. Then
write your own short story based
around the character.
Learning Standard: Writing fluently for multiple purposes to produce
compositions, such as personal narratives, persuasive essays, lab
reports and poetry.
Word Use
News stories generally aren’t known
for flowery prose. Their goal is to
deliver the who, what, when, where
and why of a situation. So does that
mean they use the same basic
words over and over? Split up into
groups, and have each group review
a section of today’s eEdition. In
your group, pick an article. Then
select five words in the article. The
words shouldn’t be proper names
or words like “the” or “a.” Read
through the rest of the section and
count how many times each of your
five words is used. As a class, figure
out which are the most common
words in today’s paper.
Learning Standard: Reading with developing fluency a variety of texts,
such as short stories, novels, poetry, plays, textbooks, manuals and
periodicals.
Justice Marshall
Thurgood Marshall, the first African
American justice on the U.S. Supreme
Court, was nominated for the position by
President Lyndon Johnson on June 13, 1967.
Marshall had spent many years fighting for
civil rights as a lawyer and judge. During
his 23 years on the Supreme Court, he
Learning Standards: Selecting events and individuals who have had impact on the
modern world and describing their impact; demonstrating the ability to write clear and
grammatically correct sentences, paragraphs and compositions.
played a prominent role in dismantling the
country’s system of racial discrimination. Look
through the eEdition and find another example
of a person from a minority group making news
in law or politics. With the eEdition, the
Internet and other resources, write a short
biography of the person.
Rough Draft
On June 11, 1776, the
Continental Congress selected five people to write the Declaration
of Independence: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin
Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston. Jefferson
wrote the first draft, which was then carefully revised by Franklin
and Adams, before all five men went over it once again. And that
was all before it went back to the Continental Congress for its
review. Newspaper eEditions go through a thorough editing
process, too, but sometimes mistakes slip through. Read the
eEdition carefully this week and see if you can catch any errors,
such as typos. Then, in pairs, pick one article in the eEdition and
see if you can edit it to make it better. Share ideas as a class.
Confession
Learning Standards: Planning, drafting, revising and editing texts; analyzing and critiquing the texts of others in such areas as purpose, effectiveness,
cohesion and creativity.
Police didn’t always have to tell
people they arrest that “You have
the right to remain silent.” The U.S.
Supreme Court decision in Miranda
v. Arizona established suspects’
“Miranda Rights” when it was
handed down on June 13, 1966. The
case concerned Ernesto Miranda,
who was accused of attacking a
woman. He confessed, but later
took back his confession, explaining
that he didn’t realize he could have
stayed quiet. After Miranda was
convicted, the ACLU appealed on
the grounds that the confession had
been forced out of him by the police.
Using the eEdition and online
sources, find an example of a
law that was based on a specific
incident or ruling. Write a summary
of what the law is and why it came
into effect. Include your opinion of
the law.
Learning Standards: Describing the political and legal processes created to make decisions, seek consensus and resolve conflicts in a free
society; selecting pivotal decisions in United States history and evaluating them in light of core democratic values.
Triple Crown
Electricity
On June 9, 1973, Secretariat became
the first horse in 25 years to win
America’s three biggest races: the
Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and
the Belmont Stakes. Winning all
three is known as winning the
Triple Crown. Find another example
in the eEdition of an outstanding
athlete — animal or human. Pretend
you’re a reporter interviewing the
athlete for a sports magazine. Do
some research to learn more about
the athlete’s background. Then
write 10 interview questions you’d
ask him or her. Then answer each
question the way you think the
athlete would.
Legend has it that on June 10, 1752,
lightning hit Benjamin Franklin’s
kite and transferred its electric
charge to a metal key Franklin had
tied to the kite as part of an experiment. The incident led Franklin to
invent the lightning rod, a metal
rod that protects a building from
lightning strikes by directing the
electricity into the ground. Look
through the eEdition and find a
mention of another invention. It
can be a brand-new device or something older. Write a short paper
explaining how the invention came
about and what impact it has had,
or could have in the future.
Learning Standard: Reading and writing fluently, speaking confidently,
listening and interacting appropriately, viewing critically and representing creatively.
Learning Standards: Asking questions that help students learn about
the world; learning from books and other sources of information;
communicating findings using appropriate technology; reconstructing
previously learned knowledge.
Mad Libs
The eEdition is a source of a lot of information. It can be a source of fun, too. There are
many ways to play games with it. Here’s
one: Choose an article that interests you.
Cover up some of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in the article, but indicate
what type of word you covered up, as in the
Learning Standards: Using reading for multiple purposes, such as enjoyment, learning
complex procedures, and analyzing information; understanding and using grammatical
constructions, sentence structures, punctuation and spelling.
game Mad Libs. For example, you can tape little
pieces of paper that says “noun,” “verb,” etc.
over some words, or retype the article but
replace some words with “noun” or “verb.” Then
have a classmate come up with as many nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs as you need, without looking at the article. Fill the new words
into the article, and read it to the class. Who has
the silliest article? Who has the most realistic?