3 2 10 everyday inventions (science)

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by Christine Forrest

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ISBN-13: 978-0-547-02135-5

ISBN-10: 0-547-02135-6

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Imagine this scene: The telephone rings You answer it The call is for your mom, but she’s out You grab a pencil from the plastic

pencil holder You

write the message

on a piece of paper

After you leave the

note on the desk,

you zip up your

jacket and head

out the door

The telephone is one

of the most popular

inventions ever made.

Maybe that scene once happened to

you Did you stop to think about all of the gadgets you used? The telephone? The zipper? Those things are inventions

We use many inventions every day Let’s find out about some Their stories may surprise you Often it took someone

many tries before they came up with the inventions we use today

Inventions are all around us.

Plastic is over one hundred years

old An English scientist cut himself

He looked in his medicine cabinet for something to stop the bleeding He saw

a tough, rubbery substance there He had an idea

He worked on the materials in his laboratory Soon he had created a new material that we know today as plastic Over the years, other

scientists worked

to make plastic

better Today, plastic

is everywhere

Today many products

are made from

recycled plastic.

The Telephone

“Mr Watson—come here—I want to see you.” Those simple words changed

history How? Those were the first words spoken on the telephone Alexander

Graham Bell spoke them in 1876

Bell found a way to send the sound

of a voice over wires The sounds

turned into electric signals This led

to the first telephone

Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone made it possible for

us to have radios and cell phones.

Paper is one of the oldest inventions The ancient Egyptians made a kind of

paper over 3,000 years ago They used

a plant called papyrus That is where we

get the word paper

Long ago, paper was not cheap, so only the rich used it There were no ways to erase mistakes Only scribes, people with

Today paper is made in factories.

The Pencil

Pencils are a very old invention Long ago, people found a rock that made dark marks on paper The rock was graphite But there was a problem writing with

these rocks Graphite breaks very easily

So what was the answer?

About 400 years ago, a clever

person in Germany thought of

putting the graphite

into wooden tubes

The first pencil

was made

Did you know…

A normal pencil

can write up to

45,000 words?

That’s a lot of

The Eraser

The eraser was not invented at the same time as the first pencil People used to erase pencil marks with pieces of bread What a mess!

Then an explorer found people

in South America using rubber He

brought it back to Europe The rubber could erase pencil marks These first

erasers were called rubber because

The rubber used to make erasers and other

things comes from the rubber tree.

The Zipper

There are many stories about how

inventors created the zipper

One is about an inventor who had a friend with a bad back The friend could not tie his shoes The inventor used his genius, and after many experiments, made

a sliding fastener It could open and close the man’s shoes It led to our modern

zipper Today zippers are on many items, from coats to luggage to backpacks

The word zipper comes from the

Every day you use inventions Some inventions have occasional uses, and

others are used every day Inventions make life better for all of us Do you have an idea for something new? Stick with it Maybe someday you will invent

an exciting and useful new thing, too

Maybe you will be the next great inventor.

TARGET VOCABULARY Word Builder

Make a chart listing some inventions that

you know about Name the invention Tell

what the invention is used for Then write

whether you use it often, sometimes, or

never.

Inventions Use How Often

I Use It telephone

?

?

to communicate

?

?

often

?

?

Text to Self Write a paragraph about an

invention that you think is important

Choose one of the inventions from your

chart Tell who invented it, how it is used,

and why it is important to you.

Write About It

TARGET STRATEGY Summarize Tell the important parts of the text in your own words.

Which word has a short nickname?

electric

experiment

gadget

genius

invention laboratory occasional signal

TARGET VOCABULARY

ISBN-13: 978-0-547-02135-5 ISBN-10: 0-547-02135-6

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

Online Leveled Books

Level: N

DRA: 34

Science

Strategy:

Summarize

Word Count: 641