Laser Jello
In this activity, learners use gelatin as a lens to investigate the properties of laser light. Learners can view total internal reflection of a beam of light and investigate angles of reflection and refraction. Using different colors of gelatin demonstrates its color filtering properties. Use this activity to help learners explore light reflection and refraction, wavelengths, color, and lenses.
Author(s): No creator set

Ken Robinson - Changing Education Paradigms

Excellent animation adapted from Sir Ken Robinson's talk at RSA.

Arithmetic, Population, and Energy Part 3 of 8

Most people do not understand exponential growth, yet the concept is of fundamental importance. Lecture by Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, professor emeritus of Physics at the University of Colorado-Boulder

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Visualization of Air Traffic

A visualization of worldwide air traffic during a 24-hour period.

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Banking disunion: the main players
Dec. 12 - As EU ministers meet in Brussels in a bid to break the impasse on banking union, Reuters correspondents in France, Berlin and Frankfurt lay out the sticking points and what's at stake.
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1 Wind energy

Wind energy was the fastest growing power source at the start of the 21st century, yet wind-driven mills and pumps, and nautical sails for transport were, along with waterwheels, the first mechanical devices to power industrial production. The advantages of harnessing wind energy are obvious; it is free, clean and widely available (but see later). Although a favoured source of ‘green’ energy, the increasing deployment of wind turbines where they are most efficient, on hilltops and coasts,
Author(s): The Open University

2.7.1 Recognizing geological problems

The most profitable coal mines are those that possess unbroken, horizontal seams of constant thickness and quality. In mines where this is not so, profit levels will depend on the ability of the mine geologist to predict changes in the seam before they are encountered at the face.

Geological problems fall into two categories — gradual changes and sudden changes. Where a change is gradual, such as a seam thinning or splitting, data from boreholes in advance of the workings, supplemente
Author(s): The Open University

1.5 The physics and chemistry of coal formation

Coal is a type of sediment made up mainly of lithified plant remains. But how does spongy, rotting plant debris become a hard seam of coal? As discussed earlier, plant material growing in mires dies, and then rots under anoxic conditions to form peat (by the process of humification). With time, the mire becomes covered with layers of sediment, the weight of which squeezes water and gas out of the pore spaces and compacts the vegetation. As subsidence allows deposition of further mireâ€
Author(s): The Open University

5.2 Motor proteins

The final element that is needed for a vesicle transport system is motor proteins, as indicated in Figure 9. These proteins bind to vesicles and organelles and use energy from ATP to move them along the microtubule or microfilament network. Two families of motor proteins, the kinesins and dyneins, move vesicles along microtubules, and members of the myosin family move them along microfilaments (see Box 1). The myosin family is also important in cell movement.

5.2 Passive properties

Freezing is nearly always harmful to living cells because the tertiary structure of hydrophilic molecules such as proteins is disrupted and the permeability of membranes is drastically altered. The concentration of solutes in the blood of teleost fish is only about half that of seawater so, while seawater freezes at −1.9° C, fish blood would be expected to freeze at −1 to −0.6° C. One way in which fish living in very cold seawater avoid what seems like inevitable disaster is by s
Author(s): The Open University

1.7 Demonstration of research skills

The ‘key ingredients’ are reflected in demonstrations of various sorts of skills: transferable, generic, project based, discipline based.

2.1 The heart of spectroscopy: dispersing light

Telescopes may simply be used to collect the light from an astronomical object in order to measure its position, brightness or spatial distribution. However, it is often far more instructive to examine the spectrum of light from an object such as a star or galaxy, namely the distribution of light intensity as a function of wavelength.

The spectrum of a light source may be revealed in several ways, all of which involve making light of different wavelengths travel in different dire
Author(s): The Open University

Barker Family Greeting
President & Mrs. James F. Barker extend greetings and well wishes for the holiday season.
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Time Lapse of Plants Growing

Time lapse of some bush beans growing from seeds. The video was shot over a 4 day period using a Canon GL2 video camera in time lapse mode.

Is it Outer Space or Underwater?
Under the Arctic ice is a cosmos of spectacular and rarely seen bio-luminescent creatures with an otherworldly quality. This video would be better if it had vocal or written narration. (04:27)
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Manitoba History 1.1

Video link (see supported sites below). Please use the original link, not the shortcut, e.g. www.youtube.com/watch?v=abcde