Cybils Round 1 Judge for 2018!

Yay! I have been chosen to be a Round 1 Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction Judge for the 2018!

Once again I really feel honored since I have been so inactive on my blog. I did manage to get that PXRF article I mentioned a year ago done, so that is good. The better news is that I am no longer department chair and should theoretically have more time to do things like outreach rather than paperwork. This is a big Yay!

The Elementary/Middle Grade Non-Fiction Category Description is as follows ...

Category Description
Kids are curious about the world around them and nonfiction is the perfect way to introduce them to that amazing world. History? Biography? Art? Science? Math? Animals? Sports? It’s all here and more besides! We love text and illustrations or photographs that will wow kids and adults alike and topics so fascinating that kids will want to go digging for more, more, more nonfiction!

Nonfiction Elementary/Middle Grade includes titles with factual content and informational titles. At least 50% or more of the book should be narrative nonfiction (as opposed to experiments, activities, instructional, or collections of facts without a strong narrative thread like encyclopedias). Mythology, folklore, poetry, graphic novels (including nonfiction), and historical fiction should be nominated in the appropriate category (which isn’t this one). We are currently accepting nominations only in print (no ebooks or books containing additional materials like kits) for this category.

How do I decide which category to nominate in?

Elementary Nonfiction
Intended for preschool through beginning readers (picture books, easy readers, and early chapters).

Middle Grade Nonfiction
Intended for elementary age readers up through 5th grade. May include picture books with more complex text and themes as well as chapter books.

Nominations for all Cybils categories open October 1st and close on the 15th. The guidelines/categories info is here.

Submissions from publishers and authors will be accepted October 16-26 and information for that is at the publisher section.


The mission of these awards is as follows ...

"The Cybils Awards aims to recognize the children’s and young adult authors and illustrators whose books combine the highest literary merit and popular appeal. If some la-di-dah awards can be compared to brussels sprouts, and other, more populist ones to gummy bears, we’re thinking more like organic chicken nuggets. We’re yummy and nutritious."

So if you have read a great picture book, early reader, chapter book, middle grade or young adult novel, graphic novel, poetry or nonfiction book this past year please nominate them!

Congrats to my fellow Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction Round 1 Judges!

Reshama Deshmukh 
Stacking Books @stackingbks

Ellen Zschunke 
On the Shelf 4 Kids @ontheshelf4kids

Lynne Marie Pisano
My Word Playground @Literally_Lynne

Jennifer Dieleman 
Picture Books 4 Learning @jensbooktalk

Irene Latham 
Love Your Poem@irene_latham

Elisa Bergslien
Leopards and Dragons @DNAPL (me!) 

Roberta Gibson 
Wrapped in Foil @RobertaGibson

Arggghhhhh! For God's Sake VOTE!

Okay - I always knew this was a problem. I regularly poll my upper division environmental classes and find that less than half of them vote.  In the majors only capstone course I have had several years where NO ONE in the class bothered to vote. They all get righteously outraged when we talk about how environmental laws work and how they get made, and they get even more outraged when I make them look up the voting records of regional congress members, but they don't vote!

AAArrrgggggHHHHHH!

Now this ...
15 million super environmentalists don't vote

I can't even scream loudly enough to make my feelings heard on that one. People find it easier to be vegan than to vote?  #$*%&#$*&%

In November - VOTE!!!!!

If you want anything to change - VOTE !!!!

If you don't want to see the return of asbestos - VOTE!!!!!!!!!!

Free!!!! I am no longer Chair !!!!!

Which means that I might, just might, once again start to have a life and time to read and blog and do things that have nothing to do with filling out reports and doing administrative work!

I spent the week before classes frantically moving out of the chairs office and into my normal faculty office. Give the size difference and the fact that I still won't have a lab until the last phase of the building is complete, I also spent that entire week wishing for a Tardis.


I had to fit everything from this space  ...

... which I can't find a picture of with my stuff still in it.  Believe me - lots of stuff - an additional book shelf, a second two drawer file cabinet.  Llllllotttttsssss of stuff.


Into this space ...

 ... which is about a quarter the size.  There are still boxes and I can't find things and this picture is from before the two computers and the laser printer were moved in.  Plus there is a closet full of stuff too. I will probably just finally start to get organized in time to have to move again when they finish the last phase of the building.

Eeeeeek!

2017 Cybils Judge!

 I have been chosen to be a Round 1 Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction Judge for the 2017! This is a lovely honor, since I am still so inactive - work and life have taken over all my so-called "free-time." As I type this is really should be working on my XRF article (I am running the PXRF right next to me.) I love doing this.


The Elementary/Middle Grade Non-Fiction Category Description is as follows ... 

Kids are curious about the world around them and nonfiction is the perfect way to introduce them to that amazing world. History? Biography? Art? Science? Math? Animals? Sports? It’s all here and more besides! We love text and illustrations or photographs that will wow kids and adults alike and topics so fascinating that kids will want to go digging for more, more, more nonfiction!

Nonfiction Elementary/Middle Grade includes titles with factual content and informational titles. At least 50% or more of the book should be narrative nonfiction (as opposed to experiments, activities, instructional, or collections of facts without a strong narrative thread like encyclopedias). Mythology, folklore, poetry, graphic novels (including nonfiction), and historical fiction should be nominated in the appropriate category (which isn’t this one). We are currently accepting nominations only in print (no ebooks or books containing additional materials like kits) for this category.

How do I decide which category to nominate in?

Elementary Nonfiction
Intended for preschool through beginning readers (picture books, easy readers, and early chapters).

Middle Grade Nonfiction
Intended for elementary age readers up through 5th grade. May include picture books with more complex text and themes as well as chapter books.

And I just realized that there appears to be a problem here - the title says Middle Grade but the description is that same one that was used for Juvenile last year. I will double check this and fix the post to reflect whichever way it is really supposed to read. 

I really do love reading the entries - there are some really great non-fiction books out there for kids and they deserve to be celebrated.

Nominations for all Cybils categories opened October 1st and close on the 15th. The guidelines/categories info and link to nominations page is here.

Submissions from publishers and authors will be accepted October 16-26 and information for that is at the publisher section.

The mission of these awards is as follows ... "The Cybils Awards aims to recognize the children’s and young adult authors and illustrators whose books combine the highest literary merit and popular appeal. If some la-di-dah awards can be compared to brussels sprouts, and other, more populist ones to gummy bears, we’re thinking more like organic chicken nuggets. We’re yummy and nutritious." 

So if you have read a great picture book, early reader, chapter book, middle grade or young adult novel, graphic novel, poetry or nonfiction book this past year please nominate them!

Ozone "Hole" and Global Warming ... it's probably not what you think ... it's complicated

First - the "hole" is the ozone layer isn't really a hole but a zone of exceptional depletion that forms over the Antarctic during southern hemisphere Spring (August to October). A much smaller zone forms over the Arctic during northern hemisphere spring. It is caused by some extraordinary conditions and human release of synthetic compounds, most notably CFCs.  Soooo - a toupee won't help.

The key thing about this slow burning environmental disaster is that the world cooperated to find a solution. The Montreal Protocol was an International Treaty, which was initially signed by 24 countries in 1987, though now all UN countries are signatories to the original protocol. It entered into force in 1989, setting a timetable for a mandatory phase out of ozone depleting substances (richer nations first, poorer nations later) and creating a fund to help less developed countries pay for the change.

Embedded Video Player: The Hole - A film on the Montreal Protocol, narrated by Sir David Attenborough

And it worked! Now, on the whole, the ozone layer is improving and the "holes" have gotten smaller. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol. As part of the anniversary celebrations, the Ozone Secretariat launched a communication campaign ahead of World Ozone Day to be marked on 16 September 2017. (With all the hurricanes and other events, I am not sure many people in the US noticed).


This is a far cry from what would have happened if we didn't phase out use of CFCs - the conditions that create the "hole" break down at the end of spring and the depleted zone mixes in with the rest of the stratosphere - decreasing the total amount of ozone each time - thus that "hole" - really a depletion of ozone - would have expanded to cover most of the planet. Take a look at this NASA visualization below which presents the two cases: the 'world avoided' case, where the rate of CFC emission into the atmosphere is assumed to be that of the period before regulation, and the 'projected' case, which assumes the current rate of emission, post-regulation. Things start off the same but start to diverge radically as you pass the point at which the Montreal Protocol goes into effect. Both cases extrapolate to the year 2065. (You can see the whole article at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov//vis/a000000/a003500/a003586/index.html)

So this is more or less where we are now ...

You can check the state of the ozone hole at NASA's Ozone Hole Watch (https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov) which is exceptionally cool and has tons of information and visualizations of what is going on there right now!

It is also very important to understand that global warming and the ozone hole are not directly linked and the relationship between the two is complex. The extra ultraviolet radiation that reaches the Earth due to the reduction of ozone in the stratosphere does not heat up the Earth because overall UV radiation makes up only a very small percentage of the incoming solar radiation. The purple line represents inbound solar radiation - you can see that UV makes up only a mall portion of that radiation. The red line is the rebounding black body radiation from the Earth - incident visible range solar radiation is absorbed and re-released at a longer wavelength, the infrared range that we can't see but experience as heat. (This is why a blacktop parking lot can still be burning hot on a sunny day where the air temperature isn't really that high)

UV radiation is also the wrong wavelength to bounce around and be absorbed by the atmosphere like IR (infrared radiation) does. The problem with increased UV radiation is that it harmful to animal and plant cells - high levels destroy cells - you have probably experienced this in the form of sun burn. This is why in regions of the planet near the south (and to a lesser extent north) polar region are experiencing higher levels of skin cancer and damage to crops.

However, the enhanced greenhouse effect is acting to warm the troposphere and cool the stratosphere, acting to further deplete ozone. Cooling in the stratosphere exacerbates the conditions that lead to the destruction of ozone, and as the amount of ozone decreases in the stratosphere, the temperature in the layer cools down even more (i.e. less ozone to absorb UV radiation means the layer cools down even more - what would be a small amount of energy in the troposphere is very significant in the stratosphere), which in turn leads to more ozone depletion. This is what's called a "positive feedback loop." So even though the ozone "hole" is healing, though things could potentially get worse or be delayed by increased global warming (which happens in the troposphere.)

You can read more about this at http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/ozone-hole-and-gw-faq.html#bf-toc-0