"Save the Planet Pluto!" and improve your children's reading scores

PRLog (Press Release) - Jun 08, 2007 -
(For immediate release)
A survey published on the web by the National Institute for Literacy had disturbing implications for children’s abilities to grasp ideas from technical and science articles. The survey results:

By age 17, only about 1 in 17 seventeen year olds can read and gain information from specialized text, for example the science section in the local newspaper. This includes:
•   1 in 12 White 17 year olds,
•   1 in 50 Latino 17 year olds, and
•   1 in 100 African American 17 year olds.

The Business Scribe, Inc., a Williamsburg Virginia based developer of web features believed that a recent news item that has stirred much interest among young people could be the subject of a continuing web story children would read.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recently announced that the Planet Pluto was too far from the earth and too small to qualify as part of our solar system. If Pluto is “expelled,”  thousands of school solar system charts and Styrofoam models will have to be replaced. The proposed expulsion has stirred an international outcry from many surprising sources, including children – creating a situation that is ripe for satire that children can enjoy as they learn about the solar system and even some common business practices such as molding public opinion with public relations tools.

The Business Scribe, Inc., a Williamsburg-based developer of web features, has introduced a new web series on www.virginiahospitalitysuite.com that begins with this “news bullein”:

BREAKING NEWS FROM PLUTO-CNN
International Astronomical Union (IAU) expels our beloved Pluto from the Solar System, and calls us a "dwarf" planet. Supreme Pluto Tourism Council, Prizefighter Rocky Ballona and his wife Rockelle Welch, will travel to Earth to tell our side of the story to that world's population.

Rocky and Rockelle are living rocks that can survive and grow living with Pluto’s nitrogen ice. With their head antennae they have learned how to speak English and even taken courses in American public relations. They plan to fly to the U.S. and use their pr skills to turn public opinion against the IAU’s decision. However, they must also face the Goldmonster, the Neptune enforcer, who is jealous of Pluto’s publicity and is also traveling to earth at “rock speed” to keep Rocky and Rockelle from succeeding.

Children readers are invited to sign a “Save Pluto” petition that will be forwarded to the United Nations, IAU, and the White House as a demonstration of democracy in action. The story series was written by Hal Gieseking, the former consumer editor of Travel Holiday magazine with the help of his grandson Christian, a second-grader who designed the Rocky and Rockelle pink and green Pluto rock people..