Thinking about summer already? Why not! Bay Area Parent's Summer Survival Guide, being published this week, features inexpensive, challenging, fun STEM activities—plus summer reading connections—from Howtosmile.org. With 90,000 print copies being distributed around the San Francisco Bay area, and an online version, the free Bay Area Parent guide highlights SMILE activities that can be done outdoors or indoors and include arts and crafts, stories, a field trip, and both offline and online components. 

Students in grades K-8 are invited to submit original artwork, poetry and short stories to the 2012 Humpback Whale Month Ocean Contest. Entries must be received by 12 noon on March 15. By participating, students become members of the NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries Ocean Guardian Kids Club.

Humpbacks are the Hawaiian state marine mammal. Even if you don't live in Hawaii, or near any ocean, you can find lots of whale information at the library, or online at websites like Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. At Howtosmile.org, you can listen to humpbacks' amazing underwater sounds in Identify Whale Songs, and use real humpback population data in Let's Count Humpback Whales to find out if humpbacks are endangered.

February 12 marks the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address ("Four score and seven years ago...") is famous from his time as President of the United States. In a less well-known campaign speech, Lincoln talked about the power of scientific discoveries and inventions, including the challenge of harnessing forces of nature, like the wind.

"As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of it," Lincoln predicted. 

American Heart Month is a great time to have a heart to heart talk with learners—about hearts! Howtosmile.org gets to the heart of the matter with physical, outdoor, indoor and online activities about how the heart and circulatory system work.

Learners get moving to music, then measure the changes in their heart function, in Heart Rate and Exercise. This activity could be combined with music time or indoor recess. You can also connect it with lessons on living in space, since the activity PDF includes descriptions and photos of astronauts exercising in space so they won’t lose critical heart muscle mass.

Howtosmile.org is a "great, go-to website" for teachers of all subjects and levels, says the National Association for the Education of Young Children. NAEYC recommends howtosmile.org under "Tools for Teachers" in the February/March issue of Teaching Young Children, NAEYC's magazine for preschool professionals. The review particularly notes the SMILE collection's high-quality activities, and the fact that "teachers can search for experiments and activities by age, keywords, materials needed, and content subject."

The youngest learners can discover the science and mathematics of the world around them in hundreds of SMILE's hands-on activities for ages 4-8. Many activities involve role play, music, movement, art, games, sensory explorations, literature connections, and field trips. 

Thinking ahead to spring-themed activities? (For learners in many locations, spring is already here!) Try SMILE activities about the life cycle of animals and plants, like Chickens and Eggs, Life Cycle of a Grasshopper, Lupine and Butterflies, What is a Seed or Growing Plants: Track Their Growth.

The 2012 theme for Black History Month is “Black Women in American Culture and History.” At Howtomile.org, learners can explore the connection between culture and science, including the kind of scientific work done by African American plant scientist Dr. Fatimah Jackson, who is both a biologist and anthropologist.

The 2012 Google Science Fair likes SMILE, a lot. The Fair’s Educator Toolkit page recommends Howtosmile.org as a great resource for helping spark learners’ interest in math and science.

At Howtosmile.org, a number of activities use Google Earth in connection with other hands-on components.

SMILE Principal Investigator Darrell Porcello will speak at the “Sharing Science with the Public Worldwide” session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. With 2,800 activities, and activity translations in over 20 languages, the howtosmile.org collection is a growing resource that can be used around the globe.

January 23^rd marks Chinese New Year—the Year of the Dragon, lunar year 4710. Learners can engineer model dragon boats and learn more about Chinese history and culture in the Draggin’ Boats activity at Howtosmile.org.

Learners design, build, and test floatable models made from milk cartons, exploring how changes in design affect a boat's motion through water. Add an arts and craft component by having learners decorate their model boats. (They can get lots of ideas for decoration from Google Images.) 

While robotic rovers are busy exploring distant planets, "robonauts" are helping human astronauts conduct research on the International Space Station. In 2011, engineers and ISS astronauts together began the first in-space tests of R2, a humanoid robotic helper. So far, R2 has just the top half of a body, but will be further developed to move through the Space Station, and to travel in a robotic rover on the surface of another planet.