Weekly Roundup for June 1, 2012

Check out our fabulous new piece of office artwork, thanks to our friends at ExpandED School McDonogh 32/Young Audiences in NOLA.

>   Looking for great elementary-age reading lesson plans and materials? For free? Check out this New York Nonprofit Press piece on ReadWorks, a web portal for reading curricula for teachers and community educators.

>   For more literacy tips, take a look at this NPR story on what researchers have learned about why reading to kids doesn’t necessarily help them learn to read—and what educators can do about it.

>   When it comes to getting more girls interested in STEM, the U.S. News and World Report says that college-age role models and mentors may be the key. (As long as they aren’t too girly.)

>   And when it comes to getting more kids to exercise, peer pressure may actually be a good thing. TIME reports that the biggest influence on kids’ physical activity levels is the activity levels of their friends.

>   My brain is still spinning after reading this stat in The New York Times earlier this week: “Children of parents who do not have a college degree spend 11.5 hours each day exposed to media from a variety of sources, including television, computer and other gadgets.”

>   And this one in the Huffington Post: “An average of 5 students were arrested each day in New York City schools during the last three months of 2011. …And of those students, a staggering 90 percent were black or Latino.”

>   We’ve all heard about the “summer slide,” but I was surprised to learn in this CNN piece that the first known report about it was in 1906. So, why does the school year look the same 106 years later?

>   More time for reflection and planning “is crucial to really having effective teachers in schools,” says one teacher in this new video from the Time to Succeed Coalition.

Featured Friday Funding Opportunity:

Open Meadows Foundation Grants
These grants of up to $2,000 support projects that are led by and benefit women and girls, particularly those from vulnerable communities.

Deadline: August 15

And now for something completely different:

This Harvard Business Review article on rooftop gardens on urban office buildings has me wanting to start a green rooftops revolution here in Times Square (and elsewhere). Who’s with me?