Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Friday, November 1, 2013

Chemical Change- Decomposition



A little gross!
What are the physical properties of French fries? Is decomposition a chemical or physical change?

Monday, October 28, 2013

Friday, October 25, 2013

What is Ice? Why does it float?

What is ice and why does it float?
Great explanation.

Mysterious blob shows up on radar

I love when the experts are confused. There was a mysterious blob that showed up on meteorologists radar. They thought it might be a rain cloud- but nothing was in the sky!

Here is a link to the article.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/what-mysterious-blob-radar-answer-traced-military-8C11466181

I am going to use it when we discuss radar and the EMS.

Here is a video about it as well-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly3jF75WdQU


Could it have been ladybugs?

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Recycle Aluminum

Why should we recycle aluminum? What are some physical properties of Al?

Recycling




Recycling Video
America Recycles Day November 15th

http://americarecyclesday.org/pledge/

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Coke and mentos gone wrong




Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Vermicomposting TED-Ed



http://ed.ted.com/lessons/vermicomposting-how-worms-can-reduce-our-waste-matthew-ross

An excellent video on the benefits of vermicomposting.

How to Geckos stick? Scientific Method



How do geckos stick? What is something you would like to learn more about? What are you curious about? Why? If you could figure out one big mystery of the universe, what would it be and why?

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Women in science Big Bang Theory



Thinking about a daily question.....

Metric

Ahhhh Metric time....

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=189578

A funny song about our change to metric in 1975. ( Wait our what?)


American Choppers- A great demonstration on why should we use metric and pay attention in math class.



Monday, September 16, 2013

Crows Recognize Faces- Scientific Inquiry



Daily Question: What is the hypothesis the Professor is studying? What is his independent and dependent variable?

Monday, September 9, 2013

Terminal Velocity





Can a Penny dropped from the Empire State Building kill someone? Why? What are you basing your guess on? What is Terminal Velocity?

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Scientific Method and Mythbuster Waving a Flag on the Moon



The questions are in the video!

Daily Questions: Answer the questions embedded in the video.
Key words: Hypothesis, Control, Variable

Scientific Method Big Bang Theory





Daily Question: What is the Scientific Method? What would the dependent and independent variables be in their experiment?

Diet Coke and Mentos Results Hypothesis



Daily Question: Before you watch the video, write a hypothesis. How do you design an experiment? What would the independent and dependent variables be? How could you collect and interpret data about the coke and Mentos?

After the video- What was their hypothesis? How did they test it? What was their independent and dependent variable?

Saturday, August 31, 2013

What is Chemistry? Mr. Bean



What is Chemistry?

Kid invented solar power (Why should kids invent)




Why do we need to encourage students to invent and think outside the box? They need practice. Inventing is a skill that can be developed with support, either by parents or teachers or both.

Short video on using HIV cells to treat lukemia (Experimentation)



I am going to use this as a starting point to talk about the moral dilemmas associated with experimentation.  Daily question: Do you think doctors and researchers should be allowed to test new treatments on children ?

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Liquid Density Tower




I love this demo. I usually try it with a couple of liquids, but this is taking it to a whole new level.
Daily Question: What conclusions can you draw about the density of the objects dropped into the liquids?

Change of your coffee having the same water molecules as Lincoln's coffee




Daily Question: Draw a picture and label the water cycle.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Hydrogen Atom Joke Big Bang Theory

 
So by now most of my students have caught on that I love Big Bang Theory.
Daily Question: Why was this joke funny? OK, if you didn't find it funny, why was it suppose to be funny?
 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Sound Decibles Drag Racing

 
Thanks to Mythbusters to introducing me to this contest. They do a episode on exploding a car using a sound system. Still debating a daily question...

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Waves- Japanese Wave Pool

 
This is great! I saw this video on Outrageous Acts of Science on the Science Channel. A common misconception about waves is that the water moves with the wave, when in fact the wave is the energy moving through the water. This video is a great example of this principle.
Daily question: Why don't all of the people in this video get washed out of the pool in the first wave?

Thursday, July 18, 2013

What is Physics? Big Bang Theory

 
Do you recognize the name of any of the scientists Sheldon mentions? If you could understand one thing that he talks about, what would it be? If I could promise, that with a little effort this year,
you will understand almost everything he is talking about by the end of the year, would you try?

Saturday, June 8, 2013

States of matter

Daily: What are the Four states of matter? Do you know the fifth? Give examples of each.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Gamma radiation


Daily question Where would you find gamma rays on the electromagnetic spectrum?

Makey Makey

This is a little off the normal posts, but I recently bought a Makey Makey. What a great product! We (the 8th grade science dept) are hoping to have a few in our class next year. These are amazing. What is a makey makey? Check out the video How to Hack a Banana. Go ahead I promise it is worth it!


http://popularscienceteacher.blogspot.com/2013/05/ted-hack-banana.html








Cool right? Here is a video of my own kids about five minutes after we got it out of the box!

It is so easy to use. They are a little intense. They really loved it. You can hook it up to almost anything, it just has to be a little conductive. The makey makey how to site was a big help.

I love how they decided the 4 year old should be a note.



Here is a link to MakeyMakey, I will update as soon as I have tried it out in my class! We ordered 8 which should be enough for 3-4 per group. I think I am going to give them a theme and see what happens. Can't wait!

http://www.makeymakey.com/howto.php

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

TED- Hack a Banana



Daily: Define conductivity. Did you see anything that was conductive that you did not expect to be a conductor?

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Sound Wave Breaking the sound barrier





Daily Question: What causes the cloud around the jet?

Gravity Supersonic Free Fall


Free fall from space
Daily Question: How fast was he falling at his fastest point? Draw a picture and label the forces acting on him.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Rube Goldberg Music Video OK Go




Daily Questions: What simple machines did you see? Do you think this was filmed all at once? Why or why not?

Friday, May 10, 2013

What? A cockroach dissection? Sound Waves? Electric signals?



This is great!
He actually dissects a cockroach on stage, hooks it up to a speaker and makes it move based on the electric signal produced by the sound. Lots of good possible daily questions. Since I am focused on sound right now I am basing it on that. Daily Question: What type of speaker produces a low frequency sound? Draw a picture of what that wave might look like.

Electricity Vocabulary




This video is really interesting. It looks at the history of the vocabulary we use when we talk about electricity.

Daily Question: Where did the word Electron come from? Electrics? What did Ben Franklin add to our knowledge of electricity? What trick did he play on others?










History of Optics, Color, Glasses













Daily Question: What historical event resulted in more people needing glasses? What observations did Galileo make? What causes something to be a color?

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Big Bang Theory Doppler effect.



Daily Question: What is the Doppler effect? Does it only apply to sound waves?

Resonance Fat Lady Signing in Harry Potter

 
Resonance
Daily Question: Define Resonance.  What was wrong with the Fat Lady's voice?

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Archimedes bath

I always tell this story! This illustrates it so well.
Daily Question: What is the formula for density? Is density a constant? Why?


Animals and sound



17 minutes long, but totally worth it.

Daily question: Why does sound travel so well in water?

Color and waves




This is a great video describing waves and color.

Daily question: What color is the lowest wavelength? Which is the highest?

Hearing color



A little advanced, but really interesting.

The smallest ideas- Ted





Thursday, April 25, 2013

National Lampoons Chrismas Vacation- Electricity



I was surprised how many students had never seen this movie. You could connect a number of different vocabulary to this video; circuit breaker, short circuit, series and parallel circuits.
Daily Question: What happened?

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Kids exploring cold seeps

I thought I would try this out on my kids! 



JASON project

So today was the best experience ever!! We got to go to a Nautilus live training. They demonstrated 8 lessons we can do with our student to integrate Nautilus Live in our class. Look for links under my favorites. I plan on using what I learned today in my class tomorrow!



Sunday, April 14, 2013

Web of Life Game

Web of Life Game

String and cards to show relationships between animals withing an Ecosytem.

What's the Difference between Weather and Climate?

What's the Difference between Weather and Climate?


What a cool (pun intended) lesson plan on the difference between weather and climate! It even involves chocolate!

Hot Wheels Real life 2012 X Games




Inertia anyone? Friction? Gravity? There are several opportunities to work this one in.


Daily Question: Did you play with hotwheels when you were little? Or now? How does this work?

Seasons

Well, I don't teach the seasons in Physical Science but since I do have to review 6th grade science for our SOL, I couldn't resist this video. I found this on Pintrest. If you aren't pinning yet, you don't know what you are missing!





Daily question: What causes the seasons to occur here on Earth? What is your favorite season and why?

Dark Lightning (Electromagnetic Spectrum)




Dark Lightning! How cool is this. Be prepared for some serious conversations about radiation exposure.
I first thought this would go along with lightning and electricity, but I think it fits better in my Electromagnetic Spectrum unit. Nice clip of the Hulk doing his thing.

Daily question- Why is the Hulk big, green and mean?

Super slow motion lightning




Slow motion lightning! This is awesome. I am going to use this as an introduction to electricity this week.

Daily Question: Why does lightning occur? Draw a picture of the positive and negative charges.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

David Blaine and Giant Tesla Coil


 
 
 
The students really enjoyed this video. I was surprised to see how many of them didn't see this when he originally did it.
 
Daily Question: What is going on here? Why doesn't he get electrocuted?

Monday, March 25, 2013

Newton's cradle Mythbusters



Newtons cradle
If you have the time to show this whole episode to your students. I think it is worth it, except for the chicken on the car myth. I like the way they size up the models.

Daily question- what are Newtons three laws?

Relative Motion Ballerina and Volvo truck comercial




This is the craziest video!! This was on the NSTA website. Here is their summary of it-

This is an advertisement for a brand of truck, but it is also an excellent way to introduce relative motion. The two trucks, the rope, and the high-liner are all moving relative to the ground, but not moving relative to each other. To fully describe motion, it is essential clearly state your "frame of reference" so that others will know what "zero velocity" actually means.

Daily Question- What is relative motion?  What is her velocity relative to the ground? Relative to the truck? Relative the the wire?

TED organization of the periodic table

If you are not familiar with TED you must check this out. TED is a collection of short lectures from some of the greatest minds of today. In their words, "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world". The following link will take you to TED Ed which covers several subjects.

http://ed.ted.com/lessons


This video gives a nice history of the early theories of the elements and the periodic table.

 
Daily Questions: Who organized the periodic table in the format we use today?
 
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/solving-the-puzzle-of-the-periodic-table-eric-rosado

Sound waves and fire

Although this is a little advanced for most middle schoolers, the idea of sound traveling in longitudinal waves is beautifully displayed using fire and music. He mentions rarefaction and compression in the first couple of minutes. After that it gets complicated quickly.

Daily question: Define rarefraction and compression. Draw a picture and label each.



Sunday, March 24, 2013

TED How small is an atom?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQP4UJhNn0I&sns=em


I know my students always struggle with how small an atom is. This video does a nice job of illustrating the size of an atom. 

Daily question- What are the three subatomic particles in an atom?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQP4UJhNn0I&sns=em


Rube Goldberg Honda commercial


One of my students first brought this to me and I love it. I don't spend nearly as much time on Rube Goldberg as I would like, but I always introduce him and check out a few of his original designs with my students when we start simple machines.
Daily question- List as many simple machines as you can in this clip.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Science humor


 

Gotta love science.
Daily Question- Who are these guys? How does what they are saying help you figure it out?

Kinetic/ Potential Energy Wiley Coyote style

This video shows the usual encounter between Wiley Coyotoe and the Roadrunner but includes kinetic and potential energy  labels. I haven't tried it yet, but I would like to have students make their own videos and caption it with kinetic and potential energy. Let me know if you have tried something like this, I would love to know what software/app you used.


 
Daily Question: What is kinetic energy? Potential energy?

Pressure/Friction/Melting point Ice Skating Mystery

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/science/weird-science-sci/idkt-ice-skating-science/






This is a quick clip that looks at the science behind ice skating. They do a nice demo of a wire on an ice cube.

Daily Question;
What effect does pressure have on the melting point of ice? Is melting point a physical or chemical property? What is the melting point of water?

Gravity Bungee jumping



Bungee jumping.
This video includes the history of bungee jumping.

Daily question- Define gravity. Draw a picture of a person jumping off a bridge or mountain. What are the forces acting on the jumper? Is this something you would want to do?

Water pressure




This is a neat video about underwater diving and water pressure. Short and Sweet!

Daily Question: Define water pressure.

Manatees,National Geographic

Manatees, Manatee Pictures, Manatee Facts - National Geographic

Great for a lesson on density and buoyancy.
Daily Question:
How come the manatee which weighs 440-1200lbs manage to look so graceful underwater

Physics and the NHL

This is a great resource from NBC. All of these videos are extremely high quality and well done. The subjects vary and include kinematics, velocity, density and friction. I am going to included a couple of my favorite videos with daily questions, but I highly recommend this whole site. It is worth taking a closer look at.

https://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn/science-of-nhl-hockey

Acid versus Base

This one demonstrate how destructive strong bases and strong acids can be.
Daily question: What is the ph of an acid? A base? What is the ph of a weak acid and a weak base?

Periodic table video coke cans ( There is a mistake on this video- or at least a confusing camera angle where the Base and Acid are mixed)

Friday, March 22, 2013

Parkour and friction

The students love these videos. Parkour is a popular form of urban sport where a person must get from one point to another in a creative and fast manner. Whenever I show the Parkour video I also show the fails video. The professionals make it look so easy, the fails bring kids back to reality and I think it is less likely for students to Parkour down the hallways and stairs. The music is very hip hop and may not be appropriate for everyone, you may want to mute it. As always with You Tube, you need to check the area around the video for inappropriate ads.

Daily question: What are the four types of friction? What type of friction do the runners use to stay on the walls or bars? During the fails video what the of friction is causing the injuries?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX7QNWEGcNI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Fails video

Decomposition Chemical Changes

Time release video of a hamburger decomposing. If the hamburger is too gross, another option is the fruit. The different types of hamburgers does stir up a lively conversation.

Daily question-

What type of change is occurring? Physical or chemical? How do you know?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uHxRwQqWFo&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Air pressure and change of state

I like a lot of the Steve Spangler videos, but this has to be my all time favorite. It takes the can crushing demo to a whole new level. He crushes 55 gallon drums! It has the can demo at the beginning so show this after any in class demo. You don't want him stealing your thunder.  This video is 14 minutes long. I think it is worth the class time, but if you want a shorted clip the link to a 2 minute video is below.

Daily Question:

Draw a picture of the forces acting on this can. Draw a picture of the molecules in the can before the warm water and after.

 
 
Two minute clip

Bernoulli's Principle Twister and We've got cows

This one is the clip from the movie Twister where the cow is circling the truck in the tornado. The faster the fluid flows-the lower the pressure goes.

Daily question: What is happening to the cow and why?

Air Resistance- Transformers 3

This is one of my favorite clips. It is a behind the scean look at the Squirel Suit or Wing Suit jumpers, jumping off the Sears Tower in Chicago. This is a great clip for gravity, air resistance or fluid friction.


Daily Question: Draw one of the jumpers  and label the forces. Include the words, gravity, air resistance, fluid friction and awesome.

Buoyancy the Dead Sea

This clip is 6 minutes long and demonstrates a 14 lb bowling ball floating in the Dead Sea.
Daily Question: Draw a picture of the bowling ball in the Dead sea. Label the forces acting on the ball.


Buoyancy Killer Quicksand

This is a nice clip for buoyancy. It is only a few minutes long and summarizes the whole experiment.
Jamie and Adam test the movie image of killer quicksand. The kind that sucks you under.

Daily Question:
Why didn't Jamie sink in the quicksand? Why is his buoyancy different in quicksand vs. water?

Bernoulli's Principle

This is a clip from Finding Nemo. It is the scene where Marlin (Nemo's father) wakes up on the shell of Crush the sea turtle cruisn' the EAC. (East Australian Current)

This is a great video for Bernoulli's Principle. The faster the fluid flows, the lower the pressure goes.
http://www.movieweb.com/movie/finding-nemo/the-eac

Daily Question:
What is the EAC? How does it relate to Bernoulli's Principle?