# data[].attributes.headline
Standard 3.19 Identify and compare different ways of looking at an event, issue, or problem. 3.20 - Identify how people or other living things might be affected by an event, issue or problem

# data[].attributes.subject
Standard 3.19 Identify and compare different ways of looking at an event, issue, or problem. 3.20 - Identify how people or other living things might be affected by an event, issue or problem

# data[].attributes.body
Grade level: 3rd grade

# data[].attributes.body
Retell A Fairytale

In an activity to look at perspective, I would have students review a well known fairy tale. In a way to differentiate, I would give them choice on this activity. After giving them an example using Cinderella, I would give them several other fairy tales to read. Then they will decide to pick a character, other than the main one, and write the story from their perspective. This might be from the mouse's perspective in Cinderella or the momma bear in Goldielocks and the Three Bears.

I love the idea of using a graphic organizer, like the one below. Before writing, students could identify the problem and provide the point of view of several characters first. This will allow them to think about it several ways and then decide on one character to tell the story.

# data[].attributes.body
If you could see the world through my eyes

This is a activity I found on Teachers Pay Teachers. The lesson asks students to share a challenging situation from their viewpoint and has them think of a different outcome. The lesson will have students take perspective of others, look at empathy, and learn problem solving skills. The essential question in this lesson is: How would we behave toward one another if we could understand things from someone else's perspective?

In the beginning of this lesson I would have them define empathy and review expectations of their behavior as this lesson has students share feelings and things that might be difficult to share otherwise. Students write down a problem or something they are worried about, even if it seems like a small problem, is worth including (provided they don’t mind others discussing their problem). Then they turn them in anonymously. In a small or large group, pass them back out to different students. Then, have them read aloud one at a time the problem they have. Ask them how they would feel and what they would need from others? Ask other students to give thoughts, suggestions or connect if they too have experienced something similar. The teacher can  add to the discussion and also explain that students can reach out to teachers or peers for more support after as well.

This activity is one that can help students learn who is in class and remind them that many situations and struggles are felt by others in class. It can make connections, help students see situations from other perspectives and teach empathy as well.

# data[].attributes.body
Creating a Podcast

For this activity, I would like my students to research current events and create a podcast on one of interest to them. I will have them use Newsela, so they can filter news stories by their grade level. Using DailyGood and Yes! Magazine I will pull articles that focus on more positive stories. I will create a space with several links so students can choose from articles I have prepared.

In class we will discuss what "news" and "current events" are and how we find them. We will discuss how news is important and  why people use it. We will practice how to create a summary of a news story. I will also demonstrate how to create a podcast of what we read in the news. Items for them to include:

-Key Names (people, places, scientific words, proper nouns)
-Key Details (a couple words to a sentence on key ideas from article)
-Main Idea of News Article
-Summarize the news in
3 - 5 Paragraphs that they write out in their journal.

Tips on teaching current events in the classroom from Edutopia below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With each click of the mouse or flip of the channel, our society is inundated with headlines focused on natural disasters, sexual harassment allegations, countries on the brink of war, and teen suicides. While none of this is anything new, the bombardment of these stories is unique to this generation of student. Social media, the 24-hour news cycle, and questionable media sources (or questionable reporting techniques) have become their own newsworthy headlines. As a result, life can appear dark, far darker than in pre-social media days.

As adults, we bring our prior knowledge of history and our optimism about humanity to help us process and filter this inundation. Our students, however, do not have hindsight to combat their feelings of helplessness. They are surrounded by unfiltered current events-a rapid fire of negativity that can leave them vulnerable and overly anxious. It's no wonder that teen stress is on the rise.

Nevertheless, our students have to know about the world around them, and part of our job as educators is to prepare them for the realities of the world outside the classroom walls. It's difficult, however, to walk this precarious high wire of responsibility knowing that we need to expose students to current events and yet still nurture them developmentally.

Teaching Current Events

So how can we create an honest counter story to the negativity out there without abandoning our responsibility to teach current events altogether? How can we help students see hope through the smog?

Some teachers decide not to tackle current events. But I argue that is a slippery slope toward an uneducated populace. Instead, I propose the following approach in the battle against an overabundance of negative news:

1. Utilize resources that differentiate informational reading levels. Look at resources like Newsela to filter news stories not by topic but by grade level, so that articles are suited to your students' emotional stages. After all, just because a student is academically ready to read a higher level of text doesn't mean they're developmentally ready to do so. Newsela helps to adjust levels so stories are age-appropriate without shying away from particular topics.

2. Create an archive of resources that focus on more positive stories. Find sources that help students learn about human achievement and accomplishments. Start with Common Sense Media's list of news sources for kids. Remember, however, that every site has articles that need to be vetted. Check out these sites for some possibilities for your students:

DailyGood: This is a great resource of straightforward pieces with an emphasis on the amazing and interesting. This site strives also to present news from diverse perspectives.

Yes! Magazine: The tagline for this magazine is "Powerful Ideas, Practical Actions." It focuses on problems, yes, but also on how people are solving those problems.

Positive News: This site focuses on challenging stereotypes and sharing what people are doing to tackle the world's challenges. It's inspiring and easy to navigate. The menu breaks stories down by society, economics, science, environment, lifestyle, and perspective.

3. Help students read critically to tease apart the true from the questionable and the false. Every teacher should be taking this on, and hopefully your school or district has adopted a program to help teachers achieve this goal. However, there are resources out there to help individual teachers. From PBS to KQED, from Common Sense Media to The New York Times, there are many outlets out there to help teachers tackle this challenge.

4. Teach students the necessity of unplugging sometimes. And while we're at it, teach students that unplugging is healthy for their hearts and heads. We all need to detach from the news feed sometimes. Unplug, recharge, and oxygenate your brain with exercise. Be transparent about what intelligent adults do (or try to do) to keep life in perspective.

We need our students to leave classrooms knowledgeable and critical but also hopeful. We have a responsibility to balance the horrors with the hopeful and the frightening with what is also festive. Help kids focus on the good that is immediately before them. Make your classroom one of positivity so that they have a place to go to feel that the state of the news is not necessarily the state of their own lives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching Current Events in the Age of Social Media

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With each click of the mouse or flip of the channel, our society is inundated with headlines focused on natural disasters, sexual harassment allegations, countries on the brink of war, and teen suicides. While none of this is anything new, the bombardment of these stories is unique to this generation of student.

# data[].attributes.body
Students Taking a Stand

This activity is showing slideshow of students that have been insulted by a classmate due to clothing, race, religion, hair, food choice, etc. Students will talk with a buddy about how that student felt. Then, they will write a response to the student who gave the unkind words. Students will practice standing up to insults and unwelcome comments.

After we discuss their responses, we will talk about positive ways to respond as a whole class. In small groups, students will work on posters that we can place around the school grounds that can help other students know how to respond to hateful and unwelcome comments. This can easily address bullying, racism, and students that are targeted due to stereotypes.

# data[].attributes.body
Brainstorm problems or issues you see in your school, community or state.

After reviewing the videos below, discuss the inventions these middle school students have come up with to make their communities better. Homelessness, hunger, babies left in cars, all problems they wanted to solve. These kids came together and invented brilliant ideas to help.

For this activity, I would put students in small groups to talk about issues they see in their communities and are of interest to them. Next they will decide on one, either as a group or on their own, and come up with possible solutions. In their notebooks, they will write it out and draw a picture to go with their idea. Next, they will type up what they wrote in a Google Slide. After editing the slide and adding photos, students will put them in a class slideshow. Students will present their ideas during community building time at the begging of class.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's Note: Students across the country were challenged by Samsung's Solve for Tomorrow contest to design, create, and implement a new piece of technology that would benefit their community. Dozens of projects, addressing concerns that ranged from environmental to social, were submitted. Several of the participants agreed to write down and share their reasonings behind their projects, as well as explain how they overcame the struggles they faced. These are their stories.
The Baby Saver 2000
Written by Mason Covington and Tyler Duke, Beebe Junior High School, Arkansas
When we decided to create The Baby Saver 2000, we were trying to solve the problem of babies dying in hot cars. Last year, thirty-seven children died in hot cars. Two have already died in 2017. This is a very big problem, not only in the south where summers are very hot, but also around the world. When it is 80 degrees outside, it only takes 60 minutes for the inside of a car to increase to 123 degrees; which the child cannot stand. When the human body reaches an internal temperature of 107 degrees, organs begin to shut down.

In 2015, a young boy in Arkansas died from being left in a hot car. The incident and the trial were constantly on our local news, so this issue was fresh on our minds. We built our project in hopes that we could prevent deaths around the world. When we started, we noticed that vehicles have a lot of technology and sensors in them already, like alarms for when you leave your keys in the car, your headlights are still on, or when your seat belt is unbuckled.

However, cars have no sensors built in to them specifically aimed at saving a child's life. In 2017, we felt like this technology should have been readily available and affordable. Where do do babies normally sit in a car? Their carseat, the perfect place for us to implement some tech to monitor a child's condition.

We began by building a basic prototype that worked using Lego EV3. We were excited to see our concept worked, but it didn't actually connect to the car in any way. So we played around with different ideas of how to alert parents. We originally wanted to call and text parents using an Arduino and SIM card.

However, after much debate, we felt there were too many opportunities to miss the phone call, leave your cell phone at home, or have bad cell reception. We visited an engineer from EvenFlo who gave us some great advice: don't use any switches to activate the device. People might just stop activating it or fall victim to human error. The device should be user friendly and simple.

We then took our ideas to the Arkansas Innovation Hub in Little Rock, where an engineer, Nick Jones, helped us further develop our working prototype. We decided a pressure pad that connects the ground wire would start the Arduino and thus start the code. This was the simplest way to ensure the device was user friendly and would always come on when a child was present in the seat.

The future of this device has many different variations. We would like to have a solar panel on it that recharges the battery. We would also like a version that uses the signal from a cigarette lighter to tell the Arduino that the car is turned off and it should now start checking for temperature fluctuations. It is important to us that we continue to improve this tech, so we can give people some simple technology that can be used to help save the lives of children.

Wildlife Detector
Written by Kaika Burk, Christian Watson, Anna Burger, and KayBree Raisor, Snowflake Junior High, Arizona
America's deadliest animal doesn't have big claws, sharp teeth, or venomous fangs. Surprisingly, 150 people die each year due to collisions with deer and other large wildlife.

The Federal Highway Administration of Research and Technology reported that there are more than 1 million accidents with wildlife each year. State Farm Insurance calculated last year's average cost for these wildlife collisions is $3,995. Last year, 4 billion dollars were spent on Wildlife Collisions in the United States alone.

To help prevent future collisions, we decided to construct a low-cost wildlife detection system. Although animal detection systems aren't new, they are extremely expensive and lack the ability to address the widespread need.

In the beginning, our design was a large and expensive pole mounted device. However, economic and manufacturing pressures forced our project to evolve. For it to be successful, we knew our device had to be low-cost, quick to fabricate, and easy to install.

Our final design is a 10-inch-tall motion detector that is placed on top of existing fence posts along the road. When triggered, it sends a radio signal to all other devices, causing 100 feet of fence line to strobe in a programed pattern. This is intended to warn drivers that an animal has approached the road.

We designed all of the 3D parts on SketchUp Make. We then sent the files to our 3D printer. After printing the objects, we sanded them down in order to remove all of the printing layers. We then painted them to get a smooth finish.

3D printing can take a long time. In order to speed up this process, we molded our original prints with silicone, and then resin cast all additional parts. We had to design all parts with slanting sides so they could be pulled out of the mold. To help save silicone, we made a plexiglass mold that was about an inch bigger on all sides in comparison to our other molds. We used a carbon dioxide laser cutter to cut the pieces.

Our electronics are controlled by an Arduino compatible Pro Mini. A separate photo (light) sensor turns off all electronics during the day by means of a MOSFET buz11 transistor. At night, the devices use two PIR (passive infrared) sensors to detect moving body heat of deer or elk.

Once triggered, the microcontroller does two things: First, it sends a radio signal to all of the other devices using a Nrf2401 transceiver module. Then, they all enter into a strobing light sequence. We encountered a little trouble setting up the communication so that all of the devices can "talk" to one another. However, we fixed this problem by setting them all up as listeners, until they are triggered to become a transmitter.

We hope our device will be used around the world in order to help prevent roadway collisions and save the lives of both people and wildlife.

A Shower Vending Machine
Written by Patrick Camacho and Jendayi London, Gulfport High School, Mississippi
While brainstorming about future project ideas, members of the National Technical Honor Society (NTHS) try to think of ways that technology can benefit their community. Homelessness became a recurring theme of our latest brainstorm, so we decided our most recent project would focus on addressing that.

We discovered the Gulfport School District has 143 homeless students. NTHS members looked into what resources were currently available for those in need. We found soup kitchens, extreme weather shelters, and a proposal for a Center of Hope that will provide temporary housing and access to showers. However, the center will not be available for some time. There is a shower program; unfortunately, the shower service is only available one day a week from 8:30 am to 11:30 am. Students without a home would have to miss school to shower.

We set our minds to finding ways of providing personal hygiene items to impoverished students facing hardships in our community. After much discussion, brainstorming, and inspiration from Taylor Rosenthal's first-aid vending machine, we figured it out: a vending machine that dispenses personal hygiene items and provides access to a secure shower stall!

The plan is to upcycle available technology. To reduce costs and ensure the machine maintained power (so any student could use it whenever they needed it), we decided to use solar power. Solar panels will provide enough power to run the machine and trickle charge into two deep cycle marine batteries throughout the day. The machine will run on those batteries through the night.

NTHS's Build Team is currently working with local technicians and electrical engineers who specialize in solar energy to create a complete diagram of the solar system needed to power our vending machine. Additionally, the machine will accept tokens which school counselors and local non-profits will distribute to individuals in need. With the help of Gulfport High School's Construction Technology Instructor, NTHS members will create design plans for the shower stall component.

The Communications Team reached out to local non-profit organizations and businesses to raise awareness and gather donations for the project. The reception from the community was heartwarming. Allen Beverages donated an old vending machine, The Nourishing Place (a local non-profit) agreed to be the site of the first machine, the Congregational Partnership (a collection of Gulfport non-profit organizations) pledged their support to our project, and local businesses donated supplies for the machine.

Drones in Agriculture
Written by Elexus Johnson and Eric Crane, Gering High School, Nebraska
In twenty years, kids will not be staring at the big crop duster "blanket" spraying fields, but instead looking at precision guided drones spraying minimal amounts of herbicide. This new process will control weeds and infestations while helping farmers make a more economic and environmentally responsible choice.

In October of 2016, we agreed that a major problem in our community is the nitrate levels in our water supply. The Ogallala Aquifer supplies water to 2.3 million people, and is considered by many to be Nebraska's goldmine. Recently the nitrate levels in the aquifer have been observed at record levels. We set out to find a change.

We discovered that blanket spraying crops is one of the biggest problems for nitrate levels in the aquifer. For example, a farmer could have your typical 5 acres of crop. An application of herbicide for that size could be as large as 3 pounds (or 19 gallons) per acre. Altogether, this means farmers could be using 95 gallons of herbicide on their crops. That is just the first blanket too, there is no telling how many times they will continue to apply the herbicide. That is a massive amount, and most of it is wasted. It is not as if the entire farm is covered in weeds.

What could take away all that herbicide but still get the job done efficiently? Would there be a way to eliminate the cost as well? With our new drone spraying system, we hope to have come up with a permanent solution.

Our plan was to create two available drones, a scout drone and an applicator drone. By using the NDVI camera on the scout drone, GPS way points survey and capture pictures of the field. Once the scout has finished, we can download the images to a computer. The images are then transferred over to the data mapper application to take the pictures and form them into one single image. This image can be put under a series of filters, changing the colors to differentiate crops from weeds.

With the help of a geographic information systems specialist (GIS) from the North Platte Natural Resources District, we have created a user friendly program that anyone could use without the need to be educated on its design. Implementing the use of UAV imagery and multiple filters will isolate weeds and limit the time needed to analyze the (NDVI) images. Once the weeds have been located, the applicator drone can follow the scout's flight path. The drone will be able to hover just a few inches above the weed to spray it.

The class designed our final spraying platform with the help of a 3D printer. In a controlled environment, we also created an artificial grid pattern to imitate a field with weeds marked by red X's. Our tech proved to be a success. Our applicator drone was able fly down each row and spray the designated weeds without fault.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Student Inventions That Are Helping Their Communities | Make:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Editor's Note: Students across the country were challenged by Samsung's Solve for Tomorrow contest to design, create, and implement a new piece of technology that would benefit their community. Dozens of projects, addressing concerns that ranged from environmental to social, were submitted.

# data[].attributes.body
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka

This story is the wolf's version of events from the story The Three Little Pigs. It's a humorous take on an old tale. The wolf didn't go to eat the pigs, but to get some sugar from a neighbor. It just so happens he also has a cold and accidently, blows their houses over. The fact that they died and he ate them, was only by chance. Yes, he ate the pigs, but only after they were already dead.

This story is a reminder that sometimes the villain is not always what they seem. Students can see how two stories can actually be told very differently. They also can learn how to look at several sources before making an opinion.

# data[].attributes.body
The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt

This book is a humorous way to show students perspective and about feelings and empathy. Duncan went to color and found letters from all his crayons instead. Some were really upset with their use, or lack of use. Black crayon wanted to be used to color, not just outline. Others were not speaking because they were fighting over who was the true color of the sun. In the end, Duncan does what he can to make all of his crayons happy again.

After reading this book, students could choose a crayon and write about how it would feel and how they could help the crayon out.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'The Day the Crayons Quit' by Drew Daywalt - READ ALOUD FOR KIDS!

# data[].attributes.body
One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay And The Recycling Women Of The Gambia

This book is about a Gambian woman who came up with a way to recycle the plastic bags that had littered the landscape in her nation, an act that saved the environment and transformed her community. This book can easily lead into social justice discussions in the classroom. Ask students to think about the lack of local resources in the country of Njau. Compare it with the trash disposal and recycling of our own communities. What could a global response be to help other parts of the world that have fewer resources available to them?

# data[].attributes.body
Hey Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose Illustrations by Debbie Tilley

I love this book! It's a great way to inspire compassion and empathy. This story allows the students to see from the perspective of the boy and also of the ant as it gives the boy a case of why it shouldn't be squished. It will have students thinking more about the actions they make, even squishing little bugs. It shows how the boy is facing peer pressure and bullying and it gives the students the power to decide how the book goes. It ends with a question of: "What do you think that kid should do?"