Today is March 22^nd which can mean a variety of things to a variety of people.  It’s close to the beginning of spring this year; it’s in the middle of March madness, and it is also World Water Day.  According to the World Water Day website, this day is “It’s a day to celebrate water. It’s a day to make a difference for the members of the global population who suffer from water related issues. It’s a day to prepare for how we manage water in the future.” While the website has a variety of resources and materials other resources that can be utilized include the following which also appear in this month’s Leaders Letter.

• NPR Article on Taking a Shorter Shower
• Time article on ways to celebrate World Water Day
• Facts and figures are shared by the International Business Times
• Information on sustainable water usage.

While this day is important, it is not the topic of this month’s blog – rather the topic is “which current events do you integrate into your curriculum and how do you do so?” is the topic.

In recent months, the Leaders Letter has featured the following topics in the “Building Content” area:

• December 2014 – The Launch of Orion
• November 2014 – Brief Encounter with a Comet – The Rosetta Mission
• August 2014 – Ebola – Science in the News
• June 2014 – Science and Soccer – the World Cup
• May 2014 – So what is MERS?
• April 2014 – Mudslides – and the Western US
• February 2014 – Sochi Science – the Olympics

Each of these topics focused on a current event in the news and the application of science to helping solve a problem, investigate a phenomena, or understand what is happening in the world.

Current events often bring the science students are studying to real life and create an interest to explore in more depth and understand more about what is happening, as well as, the science behind it. Current events can be obtained from print, social or digital news sources (and a recommendation is to always verify through multiple sources especially if something is obtained online) thus allowing news to be almost at your fingertips.   Discovery News actually has a listing of science topics tagged “current events” which may be of help in finding reading materials for students about a variety of current topics.

Where and how you find the current events topics is part of this question but also what do you do with the topic once found is the second part?  Do you utilize a current event topic at the beginning or end of class? Keep a certain day of the week for these topics? Hold the topic until it appropriately fits into your curriculum?  Share your ideas with others as you continue this month’s conversation.