Informational Nonfiction

“How to Create a Think Tank in Your Classroom”

It happens every Spring – ideas come to life in elementary and middle schools across the country. The end of the school year is in sight, curriculums are on track, and teachers are given the freedom to incorporate projects that interweave creativity, inventions, and out of the box thinking.

This is also the time of year when my inbox explodes with requests for author visits to help inspire these young minds to consider the world of entrepreneurship. I’ve spoken at “Invention Conventions,” listened to “Inventor Reports,” helped kids “Launch a Business,” and inspired students at “Career Days” – all wonderful ways to young minds thinking about the real world and how their ideas can change the world.

So how can you create a Think Tank in your classroom?

First, read how other people built their businesses.

Reading how others did it is one of the most important teaching strategies in business school so why shouldn’t it work for elementary and middle schools? Called Case Studies, they are the foundation for teaching MBA programs at Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, and Northwestern’s business schools. After graduating business school, I created a writing company that composed MBA case studies for some of the top business schools in the world. And it was those case studies that inspired my nonfiction children’s book series, From an Idea to… (LEGO, Nike, Google, Disney) as well as my new book entitled Idea Makers: 15 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs.

Lessons of perseverance, bravery, resilience, and creativity run deep throughout all my children’s books. They help inspire kids to think about their own ideas and teach them the steps it takes to turn an idea into reality.

Next, hold a Brainstorming Session

Most great ideas come from a person’s passion. Think Steve Jobs with computers, Walt Disney with animation, and Milton Hershey with candy. Each of these founders knew their industry inside and out and loved spending every waking minute working on it. Entrepreneurs need to have passion for their idea. So, it’s important that kids really understand who they are and where their passions lie. Here is one of my favorite brainstorming session exercises:

• Have each student write their name in the middle of a piece of paper and circle it.
• Next, have them write 4-10 things that is important to them and helps define them. I’ll call these Circles of Passion. This could be a sport, an instrument, a relative, a food they like to cook, a friend, a pet, a toy, a language… you get the point. Now circle each of those words.
• From those 4-10 circles comes the real idea generation. Each student should think about those words. I mean really think about them. If it’s a sport, for example, what do you love about it, what do you hate about it, what problems are there with the equipment or the field, the uniform or the shoes or their hair when they play it, etc. If the child wrote down a sibling or cousin or grandma, what’s special about them, what do you admire about them, what do they struggle with or what do you help them with? There could be 20 branches coming from one passion and zero coming from another.
• Looking down at the child’s paper, he or she should tons of words and phrases on their paper. Now have the student ask themselves: Is there a problem in here? Could they solve that problem?

Keep these business concepts in mind

A few ideas should start to pop out now. Hooray! Now it’s time for your students consider some business concepts to see if their idea has legs. We call these the 4 P’s in business school.

• PRODUCT: What does your product do? What will it look like? What will the packaging look like? Take water, for example. You can find water bottles in plastic, aluminum, and glass. You can find small bottles, tall bottles, skinny bottles, fat bottles. Some water is from spring water, some from Fiji or Iceland, some are just purified tap water.
• PRICE: How much it would cost to create the product? How much could it sell for? This is a great time to incorporate math into discussions about profit margins.
• PLACE: Place is another way to say distribution. Where will the product be sold? Some examples include online, Amazon, Walmart, boutique stores, farmer’s market, door-to-door, etc. What are the steps to get the product into each of these options?
• PROMOTION: How do people find out about the product or service? Examples include : social media, flyers, PR, etc.

Now it’s time to show off these ideas!

Consider holding a pitch day in your classroom or a Shark Tank competition with parent volunteer judges. Another idea is to hold a town fair where all the kids display their idea and parents are invited to visit each business and listen to their pitches.

Good luck and be sure to tag me if you post it online! @LoweySichol

Published March 1st, 2022 by Chicago Review Press

About the Book: Entrepreneurship can change your life—and even the world.

Idea Makers shares the incredible stories of 15 women who changed the world through their entrepreneurship. Author Lowey Bundy Sichol presents five industries that women are leading in recent years: food, fashion and clothing, health and beauty, science and technology, and education.

Jenn Hyman brought couture fashion to everyday women with her idea to Rent the Runway. Morgan DeBaun supports Black journalists through Blavity. And Sandra Oh Lin is inspiring kids everywhere with KiwiCo activity boxes.

Readers learn about how the women featured risked their early careers, gave up their salaries, and sometimes even went against the approval of their families to follow their passions and start their own businesses. Today, these women are modern leaders worth billions of dollars and employing tens of thousands of individuals.

Young women today are embracing innovation and idea making, and the women profiled in Idea Makers will show them how that can change the world.

Praise: 

“Idea Makers: 15 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs leads with the notion that in growing the entrepreneurs of the future, representation matters.” —Suzanne Schaefer, Vice President, Bain & Company

“Lowey’s book is written with kids in mind—curious, creative, and ambitious kids.” —Rebecca Burstein, Founder and Principal, Burst Marketing Strategy

“It’s rare to find books that capture the attention of older and young readers alike, but Lowey Sichol has done it again.” —Karen Loggia, Director of Marketing and Communications, Tension Corporation

“A must read for every kid (and adult) who has a crazy idea and big dreams! In Idea Makers, Lowey Sichol tells the inspirational stories of 15 female entrepreneurs who had the vision, passion, and determination to build iconic companies.” —Alexis McLaughlin, CEO, 2020 On-Site

“This book is amazing! It is full of empowering stories that are sure to inspire a new generation of creative thinkers and future entrepreneurs. Readers are going to love it!” —Todd Burleson, School Library Journal 2016 Librarian of the Year

“Informative and inspiring, Idea Makers tells the transformational stories of 15 amazing women entrepreneurs. Lowey Sichol skillfully brings each of those stories to life with lessons of creativity, perseverance and passion.” —Kevin Lane Keller, E.B. Osborn Professor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College

About the Author: Lowey Bundy Sichol (her last name rhymes with pickle) is an award-winning children’s author with an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She is a leading expert in teaching business and entrepreneurship to kids. Lowey’s nonfiction series, From an Idea to… is the world’s first business and entrepreneurship book series for kids, and has received a 2020 Best STEM Book, a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection, and a 2020 ILA-CBC Children’s Choices Book, among others. She is also the founder of Kids Idea Tank, the nation’s biggest entrepreneurship competition for kids age 13 and younger. She lives near Chicago, Illinois. Visit her online at www.loweybundysichol.com, https://twitter.com/LoweySichol, and https://www.instagram.com/loweysichol/.

Thank you so much for this amazing post about pushing our students to the next level!

“Spread Hope and Optimism with STEM Picture Books”

Last year was a challenging year for children. The pandemic disrupted familiar routines associated with school, play, and family life. Kids were thrust into a world with masks, Zoom, and isolation that have taken a toll on their social, emotional, and academic well-being. While news outlets reported grim statistics, students struggled to focus. For some families, basic needs like food and shelter were challenges. Mental-health related visits to pediatric emergency departments increased 24 percent for children aged 5–11 from mid-March 2020 to October 2020.

When the situation seems insurmountable, it’s hope and optimism that help us deal with the stress. Researchers from the University of Minnesota and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece studied the qualities that make kids resilient to disasters like pandemics. They wrote that hope and optimism in families, schools, and communities contribute to resiliency.

In these extraordinary times, hope and optimism can brighten a world that seems dark. They can temper feelings of anger, worry, loneliness, anxiety, and despair. Hope and optimism in STEM books can educate, illuminate, and inspire while shining a light on science.

In STEM books, hope is a promising discovery, a new method, a novel solution, or an advancement in technology that benefits society. In addition to educating readers, STEM books with visions of a better tomorrow inspire them. In a time of rising seas, raging covid variants, and racist tensions, hopeful books can help a child cope and inspire them to action.

They are many benefits in giving kids hope. Hopeful children have better health and less anxiety. Studies show hope improves academic and athletic performance. It builds resilience and lessens stress in challenging times. Hope can motivate a child to take action towards a long-term goal.

In my book, Robo-Motion: Robots That Move Like Animals, (Millbrook, 9/7/2021) the design team at Millbrook Press took my words and made them richer by surrounding them with color, intrigue, and hope. On each spread, in strikingly similar poses, animals are paired with the robots that mimic their motion,. Robo-Motion, a book about biomimicry, has action verbs on every page. Like animals in the wild, robots in the lab skitter, scuttle, grip, and glide. If we could move like animals, we could jump without getting tired, squeeze into tight spaces, and climb up glass. By building robots that mimic animal motion, we can move like them. Robo-Motion is a hopeful book about how robots can benefit society. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.

With the following exercises, you can use Robo-Motion to boost hope and optimism in your classroom:

EXERCISE 1 – Gratitude

Ask children to pick the robot they are most thankful for. Have them write down the robot name and why they picked it.

EXERCISE 2 – Boost optimism

Have children close their eyes and spend some time thinking about the robot they picked. Ask them to imagine a scene where the robot is doing its job. The robot could be saving a life, cutting costs, gathering information, or making work more efficient.  Have them imagine that everything works out for the best.

EXERCISE 3 – Writing skills

Ask children to write an optimistic story about the robot they picked and how it helped society.

EXERCISE 4  – Spread optimism

Ask children to share their optimistic stories with the class.

You can also bring hope and optimism into your classroom with these recent STEM nonfiction picture books:

• Crossings by Katy Duffield (Beach Lane, 2020) is a unique STEM book about structures built to protect wildlife from traffic. Although the vehicles that make crossings dangerous for animals are never mentioned in the main text, they appear in nearly all the illustrations. The book takes a fascinating look at manmade structures created to help various animals avoid traffic in the United States and abroad. The common thread is the desire to help wildlife and the hope that they will survive and flourish.
• The Brilliant Deep by Kate Messner (Chronicle, 2018) is another book with a hopeful message. First, readers meet Ken Nedimyer, a diver. Then, in a wordless full-page spread, readers see the effect of one hotter-than-normal summer—bleached coral. Nedimyer and the Coral Restoration Foundation are farming corals and transplanting them to restore reefs. They’ve planted thousands of coral stalks off the Florida Keys and they’re working with other countries to help their threatened reefs. The book gives readers hope something can be done to regenerate corals damaged by warming ocean waters from climate change.
• Mario and the Hole in the Sky by Elizabeth Rusch (Charlesbridge, 2019) is a story about Mario Molina discovering and helping to solve a global problem. In the 1980s, scientists discovered a huge hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. When countries came together and agreed to stop making the CFC’s that were in everything from aerosols to air conditioners, the ozone layer began to recover. By comparing the ozone problem with climate change, readers see that by working together countries can solve global problems. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.
• A leaking oil pipeline can wreak havoc on the environment. In We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom (Roaring Brook, 2020), the Ojibwe tribe fights to protect the ecosystem. A black snake symbolizes the oil pipeline that’s never mentioned in the text. The last page gives readers the opportunity to sign a pledge to protect the Earth. With gorgeous illustrations, this book is a rallying cry to action. It leaves the reader feeling hopeful that the tribe, along with others, will not give up their fight to protect water, land, plants, and animals.

STEM books with hope and optimism have power. They can broaden a child’s horizons, expand a child’s mind, and brighten a child’s world. In Emily Dickinson’s poetry collection, hope is the thing with feathers. In a post-pandemic classroom, hope is the thing with pages.

Resources:

• Bailis, Daniel S., and Judith G. Chipperfield. “Hope and optimism.” (2012): 342-349.
• Braun-Lewensohn, Orna, Sarah Abu-Kaf, and Tehila Kalagy. “Hope and resilience during a pandemic among three cultural groups in Israel: the second wave of Covid-19.” Frontiers in Psychology 12 (2021): 340.
• CDC, “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,” November 13, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6945a3.htm#:~:text=Beginning%20in%20April%202020%2C%20the,17%20years%20increased%20approximately%2024%25
• The University of Kansas Healthy System. https://www.kansashealthsystem.com/health-resources/turning-point/programs/resilience-toolbox/hope-and-optimism/why-do-we-need-hope
• Masten, Ann S., and Frosso Motti-Stefanidi. “Multisystem resilience for children and youth in disaster: Reflections in the context of COVID-19.” Adversity and resilience science 1.2 (2020): 95-106.
• Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/201702/whats-the-difference-between-optimism-and-hope

Published September 7th, 2021 by Millbrook Press

About the Book: Like animals in the wild, robots in the lab skitter, scuttle, grip, and glide. In this STEAM title about biomimicry, crisp color photographs of animals are paired with the robots that mimic their motion. Action verbs and literary devices introduce each animal on the left, while details about each robot and its purpose grace the opposite page. This nonfiction picture book is a hopeful look at how robots can benefit society. Back matter includes a glossary and information about biomimicry. The book will appeal to young readers interested in animals, engineering, technology, and science. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.

About the Author: Linda Zajac is an award-winning science writer. She’s a former computer programmer, systems analyst, and consultant who would have jumped at the chance to program a robot. Linda writes about cutting-edge science, technology, and biotechnology and how they’re used to save wildlife, advance medicine, and protect the environment. Linda is a Tassy Walden winner and a recipient of the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award. Her published works include six Minecraft books for kids along with many magazine articles in Highlights, MUSE, ChemMatters, and more. Robo-Motion: Robots That Move like Animals was published September 7, 2021 by Millbrook Press.

Thank you, Linda, for this post focusing on the social and emotional learning our students need to do in addition to academic and a way to combine the two!