The home page of today’s Science News for Students website looks like this:
That exploding apple is the lead image for my first article for the site — a project that’s taken a full year to complete! I’ve long been a fan of this website, which until recently was called “Science News for Kids.” I regularly looked to their articles for inspiration for my Science Scoops column in Odyssey magazine. Last October, I finally got around to sending in a resume and sample article for their consideration, thanks to the advice of a fellow writer who had worked for them.
In a serendipitous sequence of events, the editor got back to me in December, and asked if I might be attending the AAAS conference in Boston in January. Boston is a short drive away, and press can attend for free, so of course I decided to go.
I was assigned an article on free-electron lasers. Before that day, I had never heard of a free-electron laser. That’s my favorite challenge in science writing — taking a topic I know nothing about, and learning enough about it to find the most fascinating aspects, the parts that will make kid readers go: “Wow!”
I wrote the article in the spring, then it went through several rounds of editing. I was very lucky to have the chance to work with such experienced science editors. They asked excellent questions, and each round of revisions deepened my understanding of the topic.
Then… Science News for Kids became Science News for Students, and my article waited patiently behind the scenes for the website transformation to happen. I’m glad it’s finally out, and I hope it gets lots of kids (and students) excited about atoms, lasers, and photosynthesis!