Our own Lindsey Carmichael, author of over 20 books, will be doing an author visit at North Vancouver Public Library on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 - 1:30pm to 2:30pm. This is great news, not only for people in North Vancouver, but anywhere -- because this author visit is online!
This online event is geared for children, particularly students in Grades 4 through 7. Families are welcome. You can click on the link to learn more about the book, the author, and how easy it will be to attend the event.
has won the 2021 Children’s Literature Roundtables of Canada’s Information Book Award!
Read all about the Information Book Award, and Children's Literature Roundtables of Canada at this link. It's hard to go wrong, reading any of the books on the award's shortlist!
For those unfamiliar, Science Literacy Week is an annual event that celebrates the messy, astounding, wonder-filled thing that is the scientific method and all the knowledge it gives us. It's a time to learn about science, do some science, and - you guessed it - read science books to improve our understanding of what science is and how it works.
It's a science writer's favourite time of year.
The theme of Science Literacy Week 2021 is C is for Climate, which works out beautifully, because this year Science Literacy week overlaps with National Forest Week AND National Tree Day! All of which make this the PERFECT time to officially launch the Million Tree Project.
Here are three ways you can join me in celebrating Science Literacy Week while taking concrete action to fight the ongoing climate crisis.
Read The Boreal Forest
Especially if you are participating in the Red Cedar Awards this year, because The Boreal Forest is on your reading list! And it's chock full of both gorgeous art and amazing facts about the world's largest land biome and Canada's biggest forest - including the way this forest traps and stores carbon dioxide, slowing the pace of climate change.
Participate in the Million Tree Project
The Million Tree Project is a brand new, Canada Wide Experiment brought to you by Science Rendezvous. Its goal is to spark a million conversations about trees and ALL of the things they do for people and the planet. Spoiler alert: slowing climate change is only one of them!
I am super stoked about the Million Tree Project because I am the author of the official Resource Guide for the initiative. The guide is available in print and online. It's totally free, and it's jam-packed with both forest science AND practical tips for tree planting. But don't stop there: check out all the of the additional goodies on the Million Tree Project's official website, including tree-themed lesson plans written by teachers and aligned with Canadian curricula.
If you're really digging it (see what I did there?) you can even watch this recording of a virtual presentation I did during our soft launch in the spring. Watch out for sky-diving ducklings!
Explore Wáhta Teachings
Wáhta Teachings is also launching this week! This free, multimedia resource places Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and the science of the sugar maple side-by-side, and is also full of cross-curricular information and activities. Working on this collaborative project was an honour and a privilege - to learn more about it, check out this "how-to" video where I tell you all about it! And be sure to hop on over to the website to see if for yourself.
Want More?
Visit the websites for your local universities, libraries, and science centres to see what's going on. Or check out the Science Literacy Week website for more ideas on ways to celebrate and get involved, this week, and all year round.
This Red Cedar Book Awards have just announced their nominees for the 2020/2021 season. And on this list there are books by two people among the Sci/Why writers!
Red Cedar Book Awards are British Columbia's Young Readers' Choice Book Awards. Click on this link to see the entire list of nonfiction nominees. It's worth saying that ANY of these nonfiction books will make good reading, and most of them are very scientific indeed. You can also see the list of fiction nominees here at this link.
The Forest of Reading is a Canadian reading program by the Ontario Library Association -- the largest recreational reading program in Canada. Most participants hear about it through their libraries. Across the country, kids register in the Forest of Reading program to read books nominated for awards and then vote for their favourites.
This year, Sci/Why's own L.E. Carmichael has a book nominated for the Yellow Cedar Award! Her book is The Boreal Forest, a science book you can read about on her website at this link. You can also click on this link to see a number of resources she has shared about the book here on Sci/Why, including fun videos, lesson plans, activities and projects, and links to traditional indigenous knowledge websites.
L.E. Carmichael talks all about the Yellow Cedar Award and her book's fellow nominees at this link to her website. Many of the nominees this year are books on science topics. If you're looking for some great ideas for science reading, that's a great place to start! And the other nominees are interesting, too. If you're looking for books that are more age-appropriate, the Forest of Reading program has nominees for ten awards at this link.
I hear it's a long weekend? I'm not sure how to tell, really, since we will all (hopefully) be doing exactly what we've been doing for the last couple of weeks: preventing the spread of potentially deadly viruses by eating too much while watching Netflix in our jammies.
Jammies are a long-standing Easter tradition in the Carmichael family, because the Grandparents Carmichael used to give my brother and me a new pair of PJs with our baskets of chocolate and kids' books every year. And it occurred to me that once you and your kids recover from your chocolate comas, and have finished reading your shiny new copies of The Boreal Forest, you might find yourselves in need of more fun and educational things you can do at home. And thus I present:
The Great Big Boreal Forest Resource List
First - it's a video of me reading from the book!
Thank you to my publisher, Kids Can Press, for permission to keep this video available online until the end of the school year. May it bring the outdoors inside to you.
Note:
Worldwide, hundreds of Indigenous peoples live in the boreal biome. I’ve included resources for those peoples featured in my book, but I encourage you to learn about the Nations nearest you!
Canada Gwich’in Social & Cultural Institute – a repository of Traditional Knowledge, including audio recordings of Gwich’in words and information on Gwich’in medicine plants
For teenagers that want to learn more, or for adults who want more knowledge to help support their children's learning - here are some of the adult-level books I consulted while researching The Boreal Forest. Check your local library for ebook options, or see what you can find online!
Bannick, Paul (2008) The Owl and the Woodpecker: Encounters with North America’s Most Iconic Birds. Seattle, WA: The Mountaineers Books.
Bondrup-Nielsen, Soren (2009) A Sound Like Water Dripping: In Search of the Boreal Owl. Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press.
Chang, Mingteh (2013) Forest Hydrology: An Introduction to Water and Forests. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Crawford, R.M.M. (2013) Tundra-Taiga Biology: Human, Plant, and Animal Survival in the Arctic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gawthrop, Daniel (1999) Vanishing Halo: Saving the Boreal Forest. Vancouver, BC: Greystone Books.
Lynch, Wayne. (2001) The Great Northern Kingdom: Life in the Boreal Forest. Markham, ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside.
Do you know of additional boreal resources? Drop them in the comments for others to explore!
As Sci/Why readers might know, my newest children's science book, The Boreal Forest: A Year in the World's Largest Land Biome, will be published on April 7, 2020. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of my in-person book tour events have been cancelled through early May. But that doesn't mean we can't celebrate - or help our kids learn at home! And so...
Here's everything you need to know about my International Day of Forests Twitter Party!
When it is?
Saturday, March 21, from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time. Do I have to have a Twitter account?
Nope! Twitter is 100% public and free. You can view all of the content I will be posting - fun facts, cute photos, links to resources - on my Twitter page:
Note, you will need a Twitter account to enter the giveaway. More on that below. Will any other authors be there?
I am so please to announce that kid lit creators Darren Lebeuf and Carmen Oliver will be special guests at this event! You can follow all of their posts here:
Like, tweet, comment, retweet! The more the merrier.
#IntlForestDay is the official hashtag for the UN event. You can also email forest-themed photos to IDF@fao.org for possible inclusion in the UN's official Day of Forests gallery.
And, of course, you can enter to win the giveaway!
How can I enter to win the exclusive Day of Forests Prize Pack?
Contest Begins: March 21, 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time Contest Ends: March 21, 4:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Contest Rules:
One prize pack will be awarded, including 1 copy each of:
The Boreal Forest, by L. E. Carmichael, illustrations by Josée Bisaillon
ONE entry for each account that retweets the opening contest post, which will appear on Lindsey's feed at 1:00PM
ONE entry for each account that tweets using #KCPKidsLoveTrees
Entries must be received during the contest period
Canadian and US shipping addresses only
No purchase necessary
Note: Creation of multiple accounts for the purpose of entering a contest is a violation of Twitter Rules – anyone found to be using multiple accounts will be disqualified.
Note, the Day of Forests Twitter Party prize pack is different than the forest-themed giveaway I'm running on my website - it's just for people who participate in the Twitter event. If you don't want to be on Twitter, check out Forest Fridays posts on my blog for other ways to win!Those posts are also a great source of homeschooling content, FYI.
Remember, you can't catch a virus from Twitter - this is the perfect bookish/educational activity for anyone in self-isolation or who's social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hope to see you there!
