1. Trees Rebuilding Sand Dunes

What can people do with Christmas trees after the holidays? There’s an unusual answer this year in the state of New Jersey, whose shore communities were battered last fall by Hurricane Sandy. In some shore towns, old Christmas trees are helping to rebuild sand dunes damaged or wiped out by the hurricane. The trees are being placed in the dunes to hold and build up the supply of beach sand, and donations have been arriving almost daily. Collection drives mounted online by local groups, environmentalists and beachfront towns have resulted in an “amazing outpouring” of donations, one environmentalist said. Recycling Christmas trees for the dunes is not new, but in recent years that method for trapping sand had been replaced by other measures. The new interest in the tree approach has been caused by increased need created by the storm and the fact that using discarded trees is practically free. As a class, find a story in the newspaper or online about people working to help the environment. Write a short description of what is being done and why it is needed.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

2. You Can Get There From Here

As a class, read a short story in today's newspaper about people from another part of the world. Find that place, and your community, on a map. Then imagine that you are going to visit a person from that part of the world in her home town. Make a list of ways you could get there. For example, you could walk to a bus stop, take a bus to the airport, fly to the country and then ride a horse to your new friend’s home. Finish by drawing a picture of you traveling in that part of the world.

Common Core/National Standards: Explaining how transportation and communication link people and communities; using drawings or visual displays when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or points.

3. Snake on the Wing

Looking out an airplane window is usually not very interesting, but passengers between Cairns, Australia, and the southeast Asian nation of Papua New Guinea saw something truly unusual recently. A 10-foot python had climbed onto a wing of the plane, staying there when the plane took off. The snake managed to hang on during the two-hour flight, until the plane landed in the city of Port Moresby, but was dead on arrival from the frigid winds high in the Earth’s atmosphere. Pythons are native to many areas of the world, and surprisingly adaptable to others. In Florida, for example, so many have gotten loose and multiplied in the Everglades that the state wants to hunt them. As a class, discuss problems that can occur when too many wildlife live in an area. Draw a comic strip for the newspaper showing one way to deal with the problem.

Common Core/National Standards: Engaging effectively in a range of collaborative discussions; using drawings or visual displays when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or points.

4. Never Mind Ducking

Whew! A 1,000-foot-wide asteroid named Apophis (a-POE-fis) is not going to hit Earth after all. Earlier calculations by some astronomers had indicated the orbiting space object would smash into Earth on April 13, 2036, doing significant damage (but not destroying the world). After it whizzed by Earth recently, astronomers recalculated, concluding that it is no longer even a remote threat. Some asteroids have hit Earth over time, causing varying degrees of damage. As a class, find space news in the newspaper or on the website of America’s NASA space agency, www.nasa.gov. Write a complete sentence describing a mission or discovery that interests you. Write a second complete sentence stating why you find it interesting.

Common Core/National Standard: Producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.

5. Scratching the Surface

Everyone itches, but why? Researchers in the United States and the Asian nation of China have identified sensory nerve neurons in mice that relay itchy sensations from the top layers of the skin to the animals’ spinal cord. These findings, they believe, suggest that itching may serve an important role, and is not just a by-product of pain nerves, as was once believed. For many people, one researcher noted, itching is “devastating.” Scientists believe that their findings could lead to drugs that reduce the itchy side-effects of some medicines and the constant itchiness in skin diseases. As a class, talk about medicines that can help children and families stay healthy or get better from colds or the flu. In pairs or alone, find a medicine in the ads in the newspaper that your family might use. Write a sentence or paragraph explaining why.

Common Core/National Standards: Engaging effectively in a range of collaborative discussions; producing clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and audience.