I went to an old link to the Kids Science Zone ("Awesome Science for Kids"), kidssciencezone.com/astronomy. It said "Nothing found!" Oh, wait, the top-level structure had changed, so I clicked on the "Space" link: kidssciencezone.com/category/space, empty. kidssciencezone.com/category/space-travel, empty. In fact, all the top-level sections were empty, even when their sublevels were populated.
Which leads to the idea that we could simply add tumbleweeds, and make it like a ghost town. Intentionally, I mean, not as it is now.
But what really amused me were the entries that were on the site, at the http://kidssciencezone.com level. "Model for managing asthma in preschoolers leads to dramatic drop in ER visits and hospitalizations" (full of stats, too.) "Stress and tension do not stop fertility treatments from working." Both were in the category 'Anthropology'.
So while I'm not sure what's up, I do find it tremendously amusing but not very kid-centric.
Which led me to thinking, what would it take to make a kick-ass kid's science site? Besides from refraining from using the words "kick-ass", that is-- you'd be surprised what parents complain about.
The answer is... an editor. Something often missing in dialogs about Web2.0, new media, and transmedia. That would be a fun job-- spend the day trolling Science20.com for stories relevant to K-12 kids, then write 1-paragraph lead-ins to improve access for the under-12 set, followed by the full stories as written.
And, a pony.
Alex
Disclaimer: Kid's Science Zone is part of the Science20.com network, so I am risking ninja assassins coming and eliminating me for bringing this up.
