Which potato chip is healthiest: (1) regular; (2) baked; or (3) sour cream and onion? This problem requires critical and numerical skills in order to read and compare nutrition labels. The question has applications in mathematics and science classrooms but also in teachers' lounges and school cafeterias. It is a problem that addresses the five…

In "Fool's Gold: Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library," Mark Herring paints a fairly grim picture of the future of libraries. Basically, he posits that a confluence of events and attitudes have come together to bring about the demise (unless something is done, and soon) of the library as people know it. First, people mistakenly believe…

This article discusses how a school librarian can help students improve their critical thinking and strengthen their higher order thinking skills through the inquiry process. First, it will use a Guided Inquiry approach to examine how higher order thinking skills are taught within an inquiry paradigm. Next, it will consider how formative…

Some of the author's most valuable experiences as a library media specialist (LMS) were not in a school library. Rather, they were on the streets of Chicago, in community gardens, and on the rooftops of buildings in Humboldt Park, where she was hired by the University of Illinois Community Informatics Initiative as a graduate assistant and LMS in…