Hope winter has been kind to you. Warm up with some activities that get you moving, or tune into nanotechnology podcasts. Find out if climate change will bring warmer winters.

Contents

1 - LITTLE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT NANOTECHNOLOGY
2 - EXPLORATORIUM AT NAA AND NSTA
3 - GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
4 - STRUCTURES AROUND THE WORLD: ACTIVITIES FOR THE ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM

1 - LITTLE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT NANOTECHNOLOGY
http://www.nisenet.org/podcasts
Your students are plugged into their iPods. Why not plug them into the
Exploratorium at the same time? (Remember, you don’t need an iPod to listen to a
podcast. A computer connected to the Internet or any MP3 player will work.) We
have a new podcast series on nanotechnology - called SmallTalk - available for
your listening. It's geared to anyone interested in science, including you and
your students. We think nanotechnology could dramatically change our world through
revolutions in electronics, medicine, energy, and materials. In this podcast
series, we explore this new science and what it could mean to all of us. Each
month we chat with leading scientists, thinkers, artists, writers, and
visionaries, and look at quirky nanoscience stories in the news. 

SmallTalk is hosted by the Exploratorium Teacher Institute's Stephanie Chasteen,
in collaboration with science writer Karen Schmidt. E-mail
smalltalk@exploratorium.edu with comments or questions. Visit
http://www.nisenet.org/podcasts to subscribe to future podcasts.

2 - EXPLORATORIUM AT NAA AND NSTA
The Exploratorium invites you to visit our Exhibit Hall booths and meet us at
these upcoming conferences:
- March 21-23: NAA (National Afterschool Alliance) in Phoenix, AZ, Booth 302
- March 29-31: NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) in St. Louis, MO,
Booth 2398

We always look forward to meeting our subscribers face-to-face, so please stop by and say hello.

3 - GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/about.html
Global warming has been headline news for some time. In this Web site, you'll find a general discussion of the physical processes underlying the earth's climate, an outline of the kinds of data that may shed light on how the climate is changing - and the role of human activity in these changes - and a description of some of the questions and uncertainties that researchers continue to explore. This primer is organized into four interconnected sections: the Atmosphere; the Hydrosphere (the earth's oceans and water); the Cryosphere (the areas of the planet covered by snow and ice); and the Biosphere (the living organisms inhabiting all these domains). The Web site draws on live data sets from researchers around the world.

4 - STRUCTURES AROUND THE WORLD: ACTIVITIES FOR THE ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM
http://www.exploratorium.edu/structures/index.html
Select from hands-on activities on Building Out, Bridges, and Scale. Activities
are available in American English, French, and Italian.

The Structures Around the World Web site contains eight multilingual versions of
the nearly three dozen activities found in the English language publication, The
Exploratorium's Guide to Scale and Structure
http://explo.stores.yahoo.net/exguidtoscal.html
written by Barry Kluger-Bell and the School in the Exploratorium (now the
Institute for Inquiry). All activities in this book have been tested in elementary
school classrooms.  The publication also contains additional information such as
overviews for each section, a glossary of terms, and an extensive bibliography.