For future animation scientists

iD Tech Camps include 3D Computer Animation summer camps, where you can create your own characters and bring them to life, then take home a portfolio and a trial version of the software.

LINK

Follow a computer graphic artist illuminating the movie WALL*E

For creative kids who love computers

If you love robotics, or dream of a career in the movie or music business, or want to be a graphic artist, look at the Digital Media Academy teen summer camps.

LINK

Follow a computer graphic artist illuminating the movie WALL*E

Create your own animated film

The New York Film Academy Summer Film and Acting Camps for teens and tweens include 3D Computer Animation Camps in New York City and at Harvard University. Students with little or no experience learn how to build objects and creatures, animate them, and add color, light, and sound, to create their own short film!

LINK

Follow a computer graphic artist illuminating the movie WALL*E

Get inspired by women inventors



Hear a 30-second review of the book, Women Invent! Two Centuries of Discoveries That Have Shaped Our World, by Susan Casey.

Cool science summer camps



See "The 20 coolest STEM summer camps," a list that goes far beyond Space Camp, from the National Flight Academy in Florida to the Summer Safari Day Camp in D.C.

Favorite fun

Bareback on "Florida"

When I'm not writing, I love to do research (for my writing).

A dietitian's hobby

 

For dietitian Joy Ahrens, a favorite hobby is the art of paper folding. See her shimmering art work and read about her technique at her website, Joy of Folding.

LINK
Follow hospital dietitian Mary Ann Dames - a STEM career glimpse.

A conversation with a baboon scientist

"From Babies to Baboons: One Woman's Path to Success" is a conversation between Cornell graduate student Emily Cramer and leading biologist Jeanne Altmann, who is highly respected for adding to our knowledge of baboons, and for her 1974 article about the best ways to observe animal behavior.

Great resource on STEM careers



Need info about a career as an athletic trainer, actuary, aquarist, and over 100 less mysterious professions? Go to the Science Buddies website. Look for the careers that are "In Demand!" Enjoy the videos, interviews, and profiles.

Creative fun - easy-to-make mini perfume bottles

Once upon a time, I needed a gift for a friend who moved a lot as a student, lived in small homes, and used to collect miniature perfume bottles when she was a kid. What could I dream up that would be small and fun for her?

Later that day, I was back from the bead shop with four beads, and done glueing them together and onto a piece of plastic cut from discarded packaging.

It was great fun for me too!

High-paying jobs in demand

Which fields are growing and offer well-paying jobs? STEM careers!

But which STEM jobs are growing fast? Read about the top five.

Secrets from the sea



Marine biologist Tierney Thys works with other scientists to make films that share the wonders they see. Watch The Secret Life of Plankton, a story told... by a fish!

FURTHER RESOURCES

Go to the previous post for more about marine biologist Tierney Thys and her research.

Swimming with the world's biggest fish

Photo by Tonny Watanebe



Watch marine biologist Tierney Thys tell stories about her studies of the giant ocean sunfish. This is the world's heaviest bony fish. It can reach 5,000 pounds!

LINKS

 

* Marine biologist Tierney Thys.  As a kid, she loved being in the water. She learned to dive at age 15. Read her bio.

* Weird! All about sunfish: http://www.oceansunfish.org/

High school scientists publish!

...in the Journal of Experimental Secondary Science, a professionally reviewed academic journal of high school student research. The journal's mission is to promote student research and science literacy.

Read the published articles at the website and see the submission guidelines.

High school scientists who conducted original research, performed the experiments themselves, and wrote up the results, can submit manuscripts for publication in this journal. A school teacher must co-author the article. The research can be conducted at school or during an internship at a university research lab (in which case the mentor also co-authors the article). The authors experience the review and revision process that is standard in scientific publishing.

Follow a science writer using a motivation trick -- a STEM career glimpse

Do you ever feel a burning desire to start a new project?

I often do, and I use it to fuel the completion of current projects, one by one.

My experience is that new ideas are exciting--fresh, clever, perfect! I can't wait to get started on them.

But soon after starting, challenges arise--problems to solve. Maybe what I have is not as good as what I had dreamed up. It's taking forever. It's just plain hard. Then it sits.

Fortunately, I always have other ideas, and a burning desire to start on those.

Here's my trick: I tell myself that I can't start a new project until I've finished the current one. As if by magic, I begin to tackle problems, come up with solutions, and find extra energy to get it all done.

How do I make myself finish the old project before starting the new one? I have the discipline simply because this trick works like a charm.

The triumph of completing project after project and getting tons of things done makes me want to use this trick again and again.

Try it a few times. If it helps, you too might want to do it again!

LINKS

• This motivation trick is more powerful for small, short projects than the last two: telling a friend or keeping a hope journal.

• For a ton of links about science writing, scroll down to LINKS AND MORE after you click here.

Follow a science writer using a motivation trick - a STEM career glimpse

If you wish you could make more progress on a long, hard project, try this trick. It helps me. Maybe it will help you too.

I use this trick when I'm writing a book, and it's hard to find or make the time after working as a scientist and translator, and taking care of family, friends, and home.

I keep a "hope journal." It's not a regular journal or diary. I write in it only what I've done to make progress on one project--nothing else--every day, for two weeks or two months or until the project is done. One hope journal is for only one project.

A hope journal begins as a blank notebook. I like small books for my small hands.

Hope journals
for The Night Olympic Tea, Horse Stories, and two future books

First, write the name of your project on the cover.

Then, every day, write down the date and what you did on that date to make progress.

I like to circle the date, and to write in blue or black every other day.

It's O.K. if you don't move mountains every day. Do your best to do something, every single day.

Writing in my hope journal at night was too hard because I was tired. Now I write, first thing in the morning, what I did the day before.

For example, I wrote in my hope journal for Horse Stories, about a story entitled "Paco of the Andes:"

- I revised Paco in my hotel room, in pencil on a printout.

- I revised Paco in the plane on the way home.

- I started entering my edits into my Word file, from the printout I carried on my trip.

- I finished entering edits and reprinted Paco.

I submitted "Paco of the Andes" to The School Magazine in Australia in August 2008. The editor accepted it for publication within two months. It was published within a year after that.

My horse stories are fictional, but I do research, check facts, and consult experts, exactly as I would for science writing.

The funniest entry I made was in my hope journal for The Night Olympic Team: I wanted to highlight background information, to make sure it didn't go on too long, taking readers out of the ongoing story. But I dropped the highlighter. It left a spot on the carpet. ARGH! I tried to get it off with spot remover. When that didn't work well enough... I gave the carpet a haircut!

Keeping a hope journal is as powerful for me as telling a friend what I will get done before we meet (read my post about that trick). The journal works better because it goes on day after day.

LINK

• For a ton of links about science writing, scroll down to LINKS AND MORE after you click here.

Follow a science writer using a motivation trick - a STEM career glimpse

If you wish you could get more done, try this trick. It works for me. Maybe it will work for you too.

I use this trick when I'm working on a new writing, but have no deadline to drive me to make progress.

Sometimes choosing my own deadline helps: "I'll complete the first draft by March 31."

What helps ten times more is simply telling a friend. And what helps even more is telling a friend whom I'm scheduled to meet, what I'll get done by the time we meet: "I'll finish revising once by the time I see you."

For my writing, this works best with friends who are also writers. For my science work, it works best with friends who are also scientists. They understand what it takes to get the exact kind of hard work done. Their cheers are most gut-felt.

Best of all, they can also tell me what they'll get done by the time we meet. We can help each other even if the work is not team work.

Try this for a project dear to your heart, especially if it has no deadline and you wish you could make more progress.

LINK

• For a ton of links about science writing, scroll down to LINKS AND MORE after you click here.

Earth Day every day

One of my favorite hobbies is imagining ways to reuse things, for the environment's sake.

Recently, my sewing basket of 20-some years failed. The wicker snapped in the back (not seen in photo) of the hinged lid. I couldn't fix it and make it look good. The parts poking out could have scratched anyone using the basket.

What if I removed the lid and saved the rest?

If it couldn't be a sewing basket any more, what else could it be?

Maybe a plant pot cover. But what plant pot would fit? Several small round ones? Would the plants look lost?

Later that day, I gathered the week's recyclables. Look what was among them:

A salad box. Yes, occasionally when life really gets too busy with family activities or good work, I'm guilty of buying salad boxes instead of lettuce.

All the box needs is a few holes at the bottom to let water drip out.

And plants.

Treating blindness with robotics

Watch neuroscientist Sheila Nirenberg talk about how she wants to treat some types of blindness, by hooking into the optic nerve and sending signals from a camera directly to the brain.

For more on how to do this without surgery--with only an injection and special glasses!--watch the Q&A beginning at 3 minutes.

Read the article that explains that Nirenberg's team used gene therapy to add a special protein to specific cells in the eyes of blind mice, to make them responsive to light. Next, a pair of glasses containing a tiny video camera and computer used a math recipe (algorithm) to turn images into mini light flashes, which the glasses were equipped to shine into the eye. Then the blind mice could see!

Factory balls - test of problem-solving skills



Goal: paint a ball to make it look like the one on the box.

How: drag a ball and drop it on the tools, in logical order.

Click here and have fun!

Meet a world-class earthquake expert

Seismogram of Aug 23, 11 earthquake that shook east coast of U.S.

Her name is Lucy Jones and she's known as "the Earthquake Lady." The Smithsonian magazine calls her "one of the most influential seismologists in the world." Read about her work and fascinating career path, beginning at age eight, in her profile.

Coming soon to Olympic Games near you: high action science

Watch this video for a sneak peek at the most advanced Olympic anti-doping tests ever, already ready for the Summer Games in London.

More on pharmacy as a career

Watch videos about pharmacy as a career at the website, Pharmacy is Right for Me.

For more, go to my initial pharmacy blog post, "Follow a hospital pharmacist," and don't forget to scroll down to the links at the bottom.

The unstoppable girl scientist

The absolutely amazing high school senior Samantha Garvey is a semifinalist in the prestigious Intel science competition! No matter what happens, she's going to college.  Meet her in this news clip.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy