How Many Drops?
In this lesson and its associated activity, students conduct a simple test to determine how many drops of each of three liquids can be placed on a penny before spilling over. The three liquids are water, rubbing alcohol, and vegetable oil; because of their different surface tensions, more water can be piled on top of a penny than either of the other two liquids. However, this is not the main point of the activity. Instead, students are asked to come up with an explanation for their observations
Making Decisions: Packaging and the Environment
This activity has students redesign and justify the packaging currently used in some consumer products. Design criteria include reducing the amount of packaging material by 25%.
Floaters and Sinkers: Curricular Unit
This curricular unit introduces students to the important concept of density. The focus is on the more easily understood densities of solids, but students can also explore the densities of liquids and gases. Students devise methods to determine the densities of solid objects, including the method of water displacement to determine volumes of irregularly-shaped objects. By comparing densities of various solids to the density of water, and by considering the behavior of different solids when place
How Far?
To learn how friction affects motion, students explore how different textures provide varying amounts of friction to objects moving across them. They build a tool to measure the amount of friction between a note card and various surfaces by measuring the distance that a rubber band stretches. They experiment with a range of materials to determine which provides the least/most friction.
Les Couleurs - Quiz
How well do you know your colors in French?
Cape Hatteras Flyby 2
A flyby from Albemarle Sound to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina, using Landsat data
San Francisco Onion Layers (432) and zoom to San Jose
An animation of Landsat spectral bands, followed by a zoom to San Jose, California.
Monroe: Era of Good Feelings? (4:36)
This video is a biography about the presidency of James Monroe and the
Monroe Doctrine. Despite a relatively easy presidency, Monroe created
much controversy during his time in the office including the beginnings of the slavery issue and battles with Spain about Florida. This is a good overview of this time and provides insight into the events that were to follow.
Clouds and Precipitation by StudyJams
Clouds are made of water vapor and dust. When the water gets too heavy, it falls back to the Earth. Clouds are named according to their shape, such as cumulous, or puffy, stratus, or blanketed, and cirrus, or high and cold. Learn more about the types of clouds with this slide show from StudyJams. Vibrant images are set to music with information written under each photo. A short, self-checking quiz is also included with this link.
The Assassination of JFK (3:37)
The course of events surrounding JFK's assassination shocked the nation and left more questions than answers. This is a good overview of the events that came after the assassination and the
The Properties of Matter - by StudyJams
Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space. That is why mass and volume are the properties of matter. There are many different kinds of matter: conductors, insulators, and magnets to name a few. Learn more about the properties of matter with this cartoon animation from StudyJams. A short, self-checking quiz is also included with this link.
Gravity and Inertia - by StudyJams
Gravitational force is the constant force of attraction between the masses of two objects. The attraction between objects and the Earth is called gravity. Weight is caused by gravity: it is the measurement of gravity's force on an object's mass. Learn more about gravity and inertia with this cartoon animation from StudyJams. A short, self-checking quiz is also provided with this link.
Seasons - by StudyJams
The Earth has four seasons: summer, fall, winter, and spring, which are caused by the Earth's rotation around the sun and the way the Earth tilts on its axis. Seasons are not the same everywhere. They vary by climate and region. Learn more about the season with this slide show from StudyJams. Vibrant images are set to music while information is written under each photo. A short, self-checking quiz is also included with this link.
Fooled by Nature: Beaver Dams
On Animal Planet's series "Fooled by Nature," beavers create dams in
order collect more water and store food. One beaver can chop down 200
trees a year and it only takes a few hours for them to gnaw through and this three minute video shows them how they do it and why.
Assignment Discovery: The Four Types of Plants
This 40 second video quickly reviews the 4 different types of plants:
bryophytes, ferns and fern allies, gymnosperms and angiosperms. A quick introduction.
Brush Your Teeth Now!
This cute video will show young learners how to correctly brush their teeth with a fun song. Some of the lyrics include "Brush your teeth everybody. Won't you show me how? Brush at the back. Brush at the Front" Words to the song appear at bottom of screen as song is sung.
Hurricane Bonnie from TRMM with Cloud Tower: August 22, 1998 (Short Version)
These compelling images are from Hurricane Bonnie showing a cumulonimbus storm cloud, towering like a sky scraper, 59,000 feet (18 kilometers) into the sky from the eyewall. These images were obtained on Saturday, 22 August 1998, by the worlds first space-born rain RADAR aboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), a joint U.S.-Japanese mission. Launched November 27, 1997, the TRMM spacecraft continues to provide exciting new insight into cloud systems over tropical oceans. By comparis
