Wild Tracks; a Guide to Nature’s Footprints by Jim Arnowsky, 2008, Sterling.
Jim Arnowsky says that learning to read animal tracks is like learning “an ancient language of shapes and patterns,” like being a detective. You can identify animals, find out where they’re going and even how fast they might be traveling. From the life-size drawings you can see the difference between a walking and a running deer. Compare the size of your hand to the size of a polar bear’s footprint. Polar bears have the biggest feet of all bears, big enough to use as snowshoes! Use this book to learn about animal tracks from birds to buffalo.
Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Movement by Loree Griffin Burns, 2007, Houghton Mifflin.
What happens when a ship’s cargo of sneakers or plastic toys spills into the ocean? Oceanographers, scientists who study ocean currents, track the trash to help them learn more about the ocean currents. Tracking drifting objects helps identify patterns of wave movement. These scientists also use the debris that washes up on beaches to make people aware of ocean pollution. Try trashtracking for yourself. See how you can help even if you don’t live near an ocean.
Q is for Quark: a Science Alphabet Book by David M. Schwartz, 2001, Tricycle Press.
Patterns in science can be made of the smallest subatomic particles, quarks. Or even a little larger pattern is found in DNA. Discover more about patterns in atoms, patterns in music, and patterns in the universe in this very special alphabet book for scientists like you. Start your own science alphabet from the new words you learned in this Spigot issue.
You read about Fibonacci. He’s in this math alphabet book for the letter F. Learn more about Fibonacci in N for nature. Look for some more patterns in B for binary numbers. See how some patterns are S for symmetrical or how to make T for tessellation patterns. Even V for Venn diagrams can be patterns. They’re all in this math alphabet.
The Seasons Sewn: a Year in Patchwork by Ann Whitford Paul, 1996, Voyager/Hartcourt.
If you have a quilt on your bed. maybe someone in your family stitched it for you. If you lived a long time ago, maybe you would have helped make your own family quilts. Did you ever wonder if the quilt patterns have any meanings? Seasons, animals and special events all provided ideas for quilt patterns. There are even patterns about baseball, fishing, and playing games. See how many quilt patterns you can find and identify.
Pieces: a Year in Poems & Quilts, by Anna Grossnickle Hines, 2001, Greenwillow Books.
Colorful patterns fill this book to make the illustrations for each poem. See how the pieces look before they are stitched together into quilt pictures. You might try to illustrate your own poem with pieces of fabric or construction paper. Make a pattern that’s also a picture.
Math Potatoes by Greg Tang, 2005, Scholastic.
This book isn’t really about anything you eat. It has problems in riddles and the answers in patterns. Discover lots of fun and creative ways to solve problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Sharpen your thinking skills with Tang’s “mind-stretching brain food.”
The Best of Times by Greg Tang, 2002, Scholastic.
Poems, patterns, and products are all part of the fun in this multiplication book. Learn how to multiply large and small numbers quickly by understanding the patterns in the groups of numbers. You can remember even more difficult facts like the seven times tables with rhymes such as “Seven is a cinch to do, first times 5 then add times 2!”
Forensic Science by Chris Cooper, 2008, DK Publishing.
If you are a detective, you use patterns or clues to solve mysteries or crimes. If you are a forensic scientist, you use patterns and scientific methods to investigate crimes. Many kinds of science like entomology, the study of insects, might be used in investigations. Learn how a forensic scientist takes and analyzes fingerprints. Read about crime scenes, blood evidence, and clues or patterns in nature. This book comes complete with a CD of forensic clip art and helpful web resources. Find out about the most famous forensic scientists and discover how the future of forensics might even be in your future.
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