Readers of Science News for Students should be quite familiar with Stephen Ornes. For more than seven years, week in and week out, he has written stories on a broad range of topics. Last year, I asked him to write a longer piece — what we call a feature story — on lightning. What do we know about this force of nature? More importantly, what aspects remain a mystery? Ornes turned in a story that I thought was truly great. But you don’t have to trust my judgment.
Today, the American Association for the Advancement of Science announced that this story — “Where will lightning strike?”— was an example of remarkable science journalism. Indeed, it has just won first place, a gold award, in the Children’s Science News category of the 2015 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards.
