MOUNT VERNON — A new addition to the Mount Vernon News’ Gear Page will be unveiled next week. The weekly student page which appears on Monday will now feature “Earthweek: Diary of the Planet,” a weekly overview of headline events affecting our planet.
“This will be a nice way for kids to learn geography and what’s going on in the world,” said Michelle Hartman, Newspaper In Education manager at the News.
The Gear Page is an educational tool used in teaching students different topics in history, geography and current events. Hartman explained how the page is used each week by numerous Knox County teachers in their classrooms for grades three and up.
“From man-made occurrences to nature’s own news, Earthweek provides a weekly overview of headline events affecting our planet,” states a release from distributor Universal Press Syndicate. “Covering cyclones, floods, earthquakes, oil spills and nuclear testing — even monkey attacks, snake infestations and a bounty of other natural phenomena — the stories in Earthweek are as diverse as nature itself.”
Earthweek was created by meteorologist Steve Newman, “who pioneered the real-time reporting of natural and environmental events with the launch of the feature in 1987. He has been a broadcast meteorologist for more than 30 years, and a frequent guest on ABC’s “Good Morning America” during El Niño and La Niña outbreaks,” Universal said.
Topics in some recent weekly features have included polar bears making an epic long-distance swim; mutating bedbugs being immune to common pesticides; La Niña bringing New Zealand a summertime fly plague; a record ice melt in Greenland during 2010; among others.
Hartman is excited about the addition to the Gear Page because not only will it provide an avenue for young minds to study the planet, but it is also an opportunity for adults to learn the same fascinating information.
Look for Earthweek in the News beginning with Monday’s Gear Page.
