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WHAT'S NEW @ SIRS

Our product development team is constantly reviewing customer feedback and making changes to our learning resources to meet your needs. Several updates to our SIRS family of products were recently completed and we wanted to bring them to your attention.

Subject Tree Updates

At SIRS, we’re continually reviewing the Discoverer and WebFind Subject Trees to provide a more comprehensive search function that reflects the carefully selected content available in the database. New Subject Tree additions include: Under SPORTS, a new branch for softball was created. Under CULTURES/Holidays, Ceremonies & Observances, a new branch for Constitution Day (September) was added.

Current Events

Our editorial team updates our SIRS products every day with new articles and resources. Here's a short list of the timeliest and most topical articles added to your product this month. Publication dates may vary due to the editorial selection process.

Scientists: You Can't Modify Hurricanes

Mars Orbiter Spots Changes on Red Planet

Happy Birthday, United Nations

Disney Opens Theme Park in Hong Kong

Camera IDs Sea Creatures

Changes in Saturn Rings Puzzle Scientists

Suggested Research Topics

Tens of thousands of students mine SIRS resources for the latest information on the leading issues of the day. To help maximize their research time, our Suggested Research Topics feature offers instant access to relevant articles and resources on many of the most popular research subjects.

Here's this month's list of hot topics and timely issues in Discoverer:

Caffeine
Cloning Animals
Global Warming
Iraq
Ocelots
Phillis Wheatley
Stepfamilies
Synesthesia
Tennis

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. Students in grades 3-8 may be victims or know of classmates that are victims of child abuse in its many forms. Even bullying by peers can be included as domestic violence. Research activities on this subject can help students to understand what domestic violence is and how they can support efforts to reduce it or eliminate it in their
communities.

Activity: Students should be encouraged to create one to two minute oral reports that use at least a pair of resources from SIRS Discoverer and WebFind. Oral reports give student an opportunity to develop essential and standards-based skills. Oral reports also promote the sharing of ideas and information which can lead to post report discussion activities.

Click Social Issues Subject Tree icon; then click Violence and Crime subtopic. Students will find two subtopics that will provide the articles and/or Web sites to use for this issue: family violence and school violence. Assign different aspects of violence to each student or group of students. Here are some examples: bullying in school; bullying after school; child abuse; prevention of violence; and domestic violence of women/mothers.

EDUCATION BUZZ BLOG

A recent issue of The Physics Teacher magazine contained an article about building fan carts for studying Newton's Laws in your classroom. A wealth of studies can be performed in the lab with the carts.

If your students need to spend additional time experimenting with the carts feel free to let them explore our ExploreLearning Fan Cart Gizmo, which allows you to perform almost every experiment discussed in the article (everything but the torque/angular acceleration experiment).

The Gizmo is a great tool for using during classroom discussions, in your office when students have questions, when you are preparing a quiz or test and want images, or for students in the evening when they are reviewing content at home. Feel free to explore Newton's Laws with the Fan Cart Gizmo!

Special thanks to Edward Cossette from our ExploreLearning group for this insightful blog entry from The Buzz.