Jump! Mag

Science, Nature and Tech

Get Cracking With Computer Coding for Kids

Kids computing – there’s a lot of talk going on about it right now. What do you learn about computing in your school? Are they teaching you how to make cool video games? How to come up with a story that makes sense, how to make sure that it’s engaging, that there are challenges at each level, and that there’s a reward at the end? How to build that?

How to make the bird you toss flop realistically into a pile of whatever you choose – making sure that gravity works the way you would expect it to (or not). How to craft the graphics you need to tell your story? How to publish that to your own smartphone and to share it (or sell it!) to friends and strangers?

Hmmm, I didn’t think so. “ I’d rather just do some Power Point and Word exercises, “ said no kid, ever.

Language & Literature

Should Kids be Taught the International Phonetic Alphabet?

Have you ever flicked through a dictionary to find a word, and then noticed that right next to it there is a set of symbols, some of which resemble the letters you are used to using, but some of which are completely different?

These symbols are there to give you a guide to how the word is generally pronounced, and they are part of the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA.

Art & History

Falconry and the Tudors

When you write a book that is set in a particular period of history, it is important to get the details correct. This means that writers of historical fiction have to do a lot of research.

The first scene of Katharine Edgar’s novel, Five Wounds takes place on a hillside in sixteenth century England, where her heroine, Nan, is hoping to see her young merlin falcon make its first kill. Katharine had find out all about falconry and the Tudors – the keeping and training of falcons, and other birds of prey.

When I showed the first scene of Five Wounds to some writing friends, some of them asked a question I wasn’t expecting. ‘How rich is Nan’s family? They live in a big house so why does she need to hunt for food?’

Good question!

Science, Nature and Tech

What is Juno?

There has been a lot of excitement about the Juno probe this week, but what is it and what is its mission?

What is Juno?

Juno is a spacecraft designed and operated by NASA, the US space agency. It was launched from Cape Canaveral on the 5th August 2011 and has taken almost 5 years to travel the 716 million kilometres to Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. Juno is 3.5 metres in height, and when its solar arrays are extended it’s more than 20 metres across. These arrays are covered in more than 18,500 solar cells, which allows Juno to operate even when it’s at such a great distance from the Sun.

(Image: NASA)

Why is it called Juno?

In Roman mythology Juno was the Queen of the gods. She was married to the king, Jupiter, who wasn’t always well-behaved. Juno had to peer through the clouds to discover what he was up to; the spacecraft is called Juno because it will be looking beneath the clouds that cover the surface of the planet Jupiter.

Aboard the Juno craft are 3 models of Lego minifigures: Jupiter, Juno and Galileo, who discovered in 1610 that Jupiter had moons.

From left to right: Galileo, Juno and Jupiter. (Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LEGO).

What is it looking for?

Jupiter is enormous; it’s two and a half times larger than all the other planets in our solar system combined. It’s made entirely of gases and is believed to have no solid surface. The planet rotates at an immense speed, completing one rotation every ten hours, and telescopes have shown us that it has a cloudy atmosphere with colourful spots and stripes. The largest of these, known as the Great Red Spot, is a storm that is several times the size of Earth and has been raging for more than 300 years.

Jupiter. The Great Red Spot is clearly visible. (Image: NASA).

This mission is the first time that humans will be able to glimpse what lies beneath Jupiter’s cloudy atmosphere. The main objective is to understand how the planet formed and evolved, which will give us more information about the formation of gas giants as well as the rest of the solar system. Juno will also measure the quantities of water and ammonia within the atmosphere, examine the magnetic field that surrounds the planet, observe any polar auroras and measure the gravity to see whether a solid core may exist after all.

For more information about the Juno mission you can watch this video from Nasa, and have a look at the Juno mission webpage.

News & Politics

Who Was Tony Benn?

You might not have heard of Tony Benn, but his life and work helped define the country in which Jump! Mag is based – United Kingdom. A towering figure of British politics, he worked for over 60 years, first as Member of Parliament for Bristol South East and later Chairman of the Labour Party. Even after leaving parliament, he continued to make his views known, and was an extremely popular politician, both among Labour voters and supporters of other political parties.