Apparently, I’ve been busy! In a span of three weeks, five of my articles came out on Science News for Students.
June 8, 2017: Cool Jobs: New tools to solve crimes
June 5, 2017: Underwater robot vaccuums up lionfish
June 1, 2017: Are fidget spinners tools or toys?
May 25, 2017: Cool Jobs: Counting calories and Explainer: All about the calorie
I didn’t write them all at once, though. This represents several months of work. I only work on one feature at a time for the website, though I will write shorter news stories whenever I get a chance. I wrote the piece about Calories starting in January, then moved on to Forensics in the spring. Those two pieces were like night and day. With Calories, I couldn’t get in touch with some of my first choice contacts, and I wound up with an unwieldy story that was difficult to pull together (lots of rounds of edits). One section of the article got turned into an “explainer” – so it’s not quite a separate piece, but I had to do a fair amount of work to get it to stand alone, so I’m counting it.
Forensics on the other hand, was quick and easy. The story came together smoothly, I had great sources, and the editing process was much faster. I think the opening scene (a fake burglary) may be my favorite from any of my stories on the site.
For the fidget spinner story, my editor asked for a quick turn-around so it could go up before the end of the school year. I did a whopping nine interviews for that story – a personal record! Four of them were with my husband’s cousin and her kids – they are featured in the story, which they thought was super cool.
Oh yeah, and I also wrote a short news story about lionfish. I’ve got another story on lionfish in the works. Stay tuned for that one!
Edit: Here’s the new lionfish story:
June 26, 2017: Camera catches new fish species — as it’s eaten!
