DIG is a themed magazine targeted to kids 9-14 interested in the study of fossils and archeology. Readers experience adventures at archeological sites around the world. DIG also lets readers peek into working laboratories to learn about modern techniques used in cleaning and conserving fossil finds. Published by Cobblestone, DIG runs nine issues a year. The November/December 2013 issue centered around penguins, modern and ancient. Overview DIG TITLE: Fossil Penguins: Change Is Good • Pages 2-4: "Dear Mr. Dig." A regular column. An archeologist answers readers' questions. • Page 5: "Awesome Antarctic Facts and Dig Facts." Interesting fun-to-know facts about Antarctica. Dig Facts are resources on the web readers can use to learn about a variety of topics. • Pages 6-7: "Stones and Bones." A regular feature. This month explored three different archeological sites. One in Iraq was a rare find: a complex of rooms around a large courtyard thought to be about 4000 years old. A second site located in Sumatra contained 66 human skeletons 3000 years old. The third site, in China, was an archeological first: an ancient workshop that manufactured bronze mirrors about 2000 years ago. • Pages 8-10: "ABCs of Fossil Penguins." An overview of these amazing birds sprinkled with facts and pictures. Explores how penguins branched away from other bird species by looking at information gleaned from penguin fossils. • Page 11: "Monster Penguin Takes A Mudbath." Photo spread of an exciting discovery made by kids in New Zealand of a 35 million year old penguin measuring more than 4 feet high. • Pages 12-14: "Bird Brains." Using CT scans, paleontologists are able to study the shape of the brain case of an extinct penguin more than 20 million years old. Even though the actual soft tissue of the brain does not fossilize, the shape of the brain case can tell a lot about the way the birds lived and how they evolved over time. • Page 14: "A Penguin Puzzle." Using clues from the article “Bird Brains,” readers solved a riddle. • Page 15: "Finding Food And Losing Heat." Explains how the structure of a penguin's wings helps the bird to conserve heat while spending large amounts of time in cooler waters hunting for food. • Pages 16-17: "Intimidating Beaks." Looks at the wide variety of ancient penguin beaks, their shapes and uses. • Pages 18-19: "Wings to Flippers." Article explains how a penguin's wings are ideally suited for swimming. • Pages 20-21: "Let The Feathers Tell Us." An exciting find of an extinct giant penguin in 2010 was not only a complete skeleton: it revealed feathers on the body and wings. The feather structure was very similar to modern day penguins, suggesting that this unique feature was an early adaptation in the evolutionary process. • Pages 22-25: "Meet Kairuku." Kariuku was a giant penguin living in the New Zealand area about 27 million years ago. Article explores the process of digging an embedded Kariuku fossil out of the ground, transporting it to a lab, the cleaning process, and the complicated procedures used to piece an ancient skeleton together. • Pages 26-28: "Moss Mystery." How does moss survive in Antarctica with such extreme cold and long dark winters? A critical piece of the puzzle: penguin poop. • Page 29: "Dr. Dig." Regular comic strip wrapped around the monthly theme. • Page 30: Art sent in by readers. • Page 31: "Triceratops Vs. Torosaurus." Are these two completely different animals or are they the same animal at different stages? • Page 32: "Art-i-facts: Artifact, or Not?" A regular column. Explained why “The Three Penguins” rock formation of Arches National Park (near Moab, Utah) was not a manmade artifact. Additional Information The website for DIG is https://cobblestonepub.com/product/dig. Submission guidelines and current themes are here. The editor is Rosalie Baker. Articles need to be queried, not sent as completed submissions. Writing for Children's Magazines, January 2014       Text: Copyright Debbie Cochran