How does a bridge work? Here’s a simple activity for kids that demonstrates the principles that keep bridges standing: all you need is a bowl or plastic container, a small sheet of paper, and a few pennies (or a few small toys). Ask your child (or children) how they might fold the paper so it would bridge [...]

Tonight PBS airs the second of its four part series “Fabric of the Cosmos,” (9 pm ET/PT) based on the bestselling book by Columbia physicist and mathematician Brian Greene. He spoke with Budding Scientist about the NOVA series, which aims to demystify such concepts as multiple universes and bring viewers up to date on the [...]

Got a Jack-O-Lantern that’s past its prime? In the story below, Rose Eveleth reports on one creative way of tossing it. David Bodmer is the Robotics Engineering teacher at Mt. Olive High School in Flanders, New Jersey. Every year he leads a team of students in a nation-wide robotics competition. But last year they started [...]

Every two years, the Nation’s Report Card test results come out and remind us how much better most American students should be doing in math (and reading, but I’m going to focus just on math here). The press release accompanying this year’s results, announced just a few hours ago by the Department of Education, emphasizes [...]

Watching a Monarch butterfly flit past the 9th floor windows of our Manhattan offices the other day reminded me that the annual fall migration is in full swing. And with that thought came another: the end of summer need not spell the end of outdoor entomology projects. On a recent trip to Western Massachusetts, I [...]

Molly Josephs, who teaches 5th, 7th and 9th grade biology at The Dalton School in Manhattan, wrote to me recently about the educational value of nature films for kids. “I would love to write something about the power, intelligence, and importance of nature films for families to watch together in order to cultivate curiosity and [...]

There are big changes underway in how kids across the country are learning math. Forty-four states plus the District of Columbia have adopted a common set of standards that detail what students should understand and be able to do at each grade level, from Kindergarten through the end of high school. Known as the Common Core State Standards, [...]

If you live anywhere between North Carolina and Connecticut, chances are you felt the earth shake a couple of hours ago. If you have kids, they are probably asking you lots of questions–or will be, soon. Here are some resources to help you answer them, adapted from the blog of the National Science Teachers Association:   [...]

So, our caterpillar finally came out of its cocoon, and  it’s a … beautiful white moth. To be specific, it’s a Virginia Tiger moth (Spilosoma virginica), which comes from the arctiidae family (eNature.com and discoverlife.com are two useful sites for identifying bugs). Now that I’ve seen the moth, I realize that our caterpillar was a yellow [...]

Several Scientific American staffers recently flew out to Mountain View, Calif. for the culmination of Google’s first annual science fair. SA was an event sponsor, and editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina served as a judge and as the awards dinner host. We were impressed with all 15 finalists: they were bright, engaging, articulate – and, of course, [...]