Science Matters: Rain Forest, Moon, Rocks, and Machines, a Weekly Reader publication articles

Recent articles from Science Matters: Rain Forest, Moon, Rocks, and Machines, a Weekly Reader publication

New Discovery in World's Largest Rain Forest. (RAIN FOREST MATTERS).(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... What has stripes like a zebra's, has a face like a koala's, and is small enough to fit in your pocket? It's a newly discovered species of monkey! This monkey lives in a rain forest in Brazil. A Swiss scientist discovered the monkey while...

Layers of Life: There are four layers of life in a tropical rain forest. Each layer provides a good home to the plants and animals that live there. (RAIN FOREST MATTERS).(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... A rain forest is like a tall apartment building, with many different plants and animals living on different floors. Some animals that live high up never set foot on the forest floor. Some animals move freely between layers. Look at the...

A Food Chain! (RAIN FOREST MATTERS).(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... The animals and plants of a tropical rain forest depend upon one another for life. Rotting parts of trees and plants provide food for insects and other living things. Insects and smaller animals are food for larger animals. What-eats-what...

Medicines From a Rain Forest.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... One out of every four medicines we use in the United States comes from plants that grow in a rain forest. Study the medicine shelf, the map, and the plants. These show a few medicines that come from plants in a rain forest. Connect the...

Going, Going, Gone! (RAIN FOREST MATTERS).(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Scientists say that every minute, 100 acres of rain forest are destroyed. Every hour, one animal species becomes extinct. Why? People clear rain forests to make a living. Hunters seek big cats and other mammals for their fur. Loggers...

Rain Forest Matters.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... If tropical rain forests are destroyed, scientists predict these things will happen: global warming The climate of the world will become much warmer and drier. medical losses The source of many medicines will disappear. ...

Moon Blamed in Flood.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... One of the worst storms of the century hit the East Coast in December 1992. Winds blew at hurricane force. The worst part of the storm was the flooding. In New York, scuba divers rescued people trapped in their cars. In parts of New Jersey,...

A Lunar Eclipse.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... A lunar eclipse is a hiding of the moon by Earth's shadow. It happens when, Earth passes between the sun and the moon. From two to seven eclipses take place every year. Look up eclipse in an almanac. Find out the dates of this years...

Our Closest Neighbor.(moon)(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... The moon is our closest neighbor in space. But it is very different from Earth. There is no air, water, or life of any kind on the moon. The surface of the moon is covered with light and dark areas. The dark areas are called Maria. Maria...

Lunar Luggage! (Moon Matters).(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Astronauts who plan to work on the moon take special equipment, including a strong rope, a shovel, a radio that allows them to communicate with their spacecraft whenever they leave it, and a special vehicle to travel over sand dunes and hills....

Rock from the Moon.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... TUCSON, Arizona--Robert Haag has a special rock collection: Haag collects meteorites. Meteorites are rocks that fall to Earth from space. One day, Haag was looking at some meteorites he had found in Australia. They were thought to have come...

Go on a ROCK Hunt.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... You may not find meteorites in your area. But if you look around, you can find many other kinds of rocks. Collect as many rocks as you can of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Look at the rocks in your collection. Pick them up, feel them, tap them...

What's in a Rock?(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... All rocks are combinations of two or more minerals. A mineral is a solid substance found in nature. Granite, for example, is a combination of the minerals quartz, mica, and feldspar. The combination of minerals affects the weight of the...

How ROCK Is Formed.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Rocks are made when changes take place inside Earth or on Earth's surface. Some rocks are formed deep inside Earth by heat and pressure. Basalt Others are formed by forces such as wind, water, and ice. Often, pieces of old rocks come...

Move Mountains-A Rock Race!(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Mountain ranges take millions of years to form. Some mountains are made from sedimentary rock on the ocean floor. Sections of Earth's crust push against each other to fold and force the rock layers upward. Try this to see how it works. ...

The Rock Cycle.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Any rock can change into another kind of rock if certain things happen to it. These changes may even repeat themselves in a cycle. The rock cycle has no starting point. The changes happen again and again over millions of years. All of Earth's...

The Super-Duper SuperComputer!(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... What weighs 7 pounds and is more powerful than most full-size computers? It's PowerBook, one of the newest computers available to help us do our work. But, we haven't always had such complex, complicated machines to help us do our work.

Simple Machines.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... What do you think of when you hear the world machine? Do you think of something big and loud? Something that runs on electricity? Most people do. But a machine is anything that makes work easier. Look at the simple machines below. They are the...

What is a Wedge?(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Wedges are used to cut things or to split them apart. Look at the picture of the pushpin. The tip of the pushpin is pointed so that it can pierce paper, corkboard, or other things. The tip of the pushpin is a wedge. The top of the pushpin...

Wheels and Levers.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Imagine a world without wheels. How would you ride a bike? pull a wagon? roller-skate? Wheels help us pull, spin, and grind things. Try the experiment with a partner to see how wheels work. Wheels help things move more easily. Levers...

Inclined Planes.(experiments)(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... An inclined plane is a slanted surface that connects one level to another. It helps get an object to another level using less force. Have you ever seen a wheelchair being pushed up a ramp, or an inclined plane? It is easier to move the...

All Wound Up.(twisting motion)(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... The twisting motion of a screw changes the direction of the force, or pressure, from a turning movement to a movement in a straight line. If you've ever seen a screw turned into a piece of wood, you can see how the turning motion of the screw...

Powerful Pulleys!(tets)(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... A pulley is a wheel with a groove between its edges that holds a wire or rope. A crane lifting heavy weights and a sailor hoisting up a sail both use pulleys. Try the experiment to see how pulleys work. RELATED ARTICLE: How Do Pulleys Work?...

Mechanical Advantage: All work takes a certain amount of energy, or force. Simple machines use force more efficiently, so less force is needed. (Machine Matters).(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Suppose you want to take a cap off a bottle. Your fingers may not have enough strength. A bottle opener concentrates your strength in two places on the bottle cap and less force or strength is needed to take the cap off. The bottle opener...

Word List.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... breccia a large rock made up of smaller rocks that have been fused together by heat canopy layer the cover formed by the branches and leaves of the large trees in a tropical rain forest crater a rounded hole on the surface of a planet...

Series Overview.(teaching sciences)(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... When science is an important part of the curriculum, children are likely to become science-oriented, curious about the world in which they live, and fascinated by the new technologies all around them. Students develop the skills of scientific...

Science Matters [TM], Grade Four.
January 1, 1993... The unit opens with news about the discovery of a new species of monkey in the Brazilian rain forest. As students explore this lush and intricate ecosystem of plants and animals, they learn how humans have destroyed major sections of the forest...

Skills Overview.(learning sciences)(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Students learn to * identify the four layers of plant and animal life found in a tropical rain forest; * identify on a food chain how energy moves through a rain forest ecosystem; * explore ways of preventing further human...

Unit 1: Rain Forest.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Background Information One of the newest rain forest exhibits is "Amazonia," staged at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. Visitors are invited into the scientific domain of Dr. Brasil, a fictitious Amazonian biologist, who leaves parts...

Unit 2: Moon.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Background Information The following anecdotes illustrate how lunar eclipses have greatly affected historic events. A Battle Is Lost The archrival Greek city-states Athens and Sparta battled continuously in the fifth century B.C....

Unit 3: Rocks.(earth studies)(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Background Information One of the great rock sculptures of the world is Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which rises majestically on the side of a granite cliff in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Taller than the Great Pyramid of Cheops...

Unit 4: Machines.(Brief Article)
January 1, 1993... Background Information The wheel was invented 5,500 years ago in what is now Iraq. The first wheels were made of solid slices of trees, linked by wooden axles. In places where trees were sparse, people made wheels by joining wooden planks....