Tag: reference website

And a Comet Hits the Sun

Comet colliding with the Sun coincides with a coronal mass ejection. Image from the NASA SOHO Observatory.

SOHO scientists think that coronal mass ejection that happens right after the comet hits the Sun was probably not caused by the collision. But it looks really cool.

SOHO has a nice glossary of terms for understanding the Sun that’s specifically for middle school students (there is also a more general one). They also have some much higher quality video.

Guide to U.S. Geology: For Teachers

The Coastal Plain, one of the three major geologic provinces of the southeastern United States. From the Teacher-Friendly Guide to the Geology of the United States (Picconi, 2003).

J.E. Picconi, from the Paleontogical Research Institution, has a nice website that describes the geology of the different regions of the U.S..

This image shows the low-energy, offshore environment of the grey shales like that of Coon Creek. From Picconi (2003).

The site has a nice clean design, and is readable to anyone with a basic grasp of geology and geologic time.

I’ve looked at the the section on the southeastern U.S., which even a section on the different, official state fossils.

I particularly like the icons they use to show the environments in which the different fossilized organisms once lived.

Counting syllables

If you need a little help finding how many syllables are in a word so you can use it in your haiku, there’s the How Many Syl.la.bles website.

Screen capture from the How Many Syl.la.bles website (Grade Level Technology, 2009).

It also suggests related words if you need a differently-syllabic synonym.

Where disciplines meet
creativity emerges
from the shaking chrysalis

Building characters

Answer survey questions to better understand your characters in these Character Tests by R.J. Hembree as part of the online Writers’ Village University project (found via GalleyCat).

Sample question from the Character Builder Test (Hembree, 2010).

Building realistic characters is an essential component of writing fiction. The Character Tests are a part of a Character Building Workshop page, which also contains Character Building Tips, character archetypes, and a set of character disorders that help define them.

The challenge that comes with working with something like this is that following archetypes too closely has the potential to lead to cliched writing. This site could be very useful if used with caution. From the site’s creator:

The Character Building Workshop is an independent study of your characters using these online questionnaires. The process of filling out the forms will help you, the writer, learn about your characters on a more in-depth level. Once the questions have been answered, you will know more about the roles your characters play in your story. No longer will they be names on a page; they will become living, breathing beings as you continue writing your story.
—Hembree, 2010)