Simplify School Elections with Google Forms/Sheets!

For those that have explored the Google Forms, you know how powerful a tool it can be. You also know how easy ti is to create one and use it to collect information for people. For those of you that are not familiar with Google Forms, it is basically a tool that allows you to create an information gathering tool much like what you use to fill in information on a website to shop or register.

You choose the questions that are asked, and then you share the form by either emailing it, sharing on a social media outlet, or even posting a link to it on your website. As people fill out the form, the data will automatically appear on a spreadsheet. 

Here are a few ideas for Forms:

1) Use it to collect data for surveys or statistics projects. (Great for Mean, Median, and Mode!)

2) Use it to gather contact information from parents or students.

3) Use it to create quizzes or tests that can then be auto-graded using a free add on. (Click the link to see how!)

4) Or use it as a tool to gather votes for your school wide class elections. (Which is the subject of this post.)

Here is the Class Election Template I have made, and used successfully for the last two school elections. It has a link on it that you can use to get to the balloting form you will use to gather the votes. Just follow the directions on the sheet and it will guide you through the process. It is really easy, and will only take a few minutes.

Once you are done, you will have a ballot you can share via a website or email that students can use to vote. It is designed to be used with Google Apps users, so as long as your students have Gmail accounts it will capture their student login info. This makes it easy to spot duplicate votes.

Once you copy the Voting Results sheet from the template to your results spreadsheet, you will be able to watch the votes as the come in for each candidate, and instantly know what the numbers are.

The Animals of Chernobyl

For anyone that grew up in the 80's, the Chernobyl accident in 1986 was a huge news event. The nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, which is located in what is now Ukraine, suffered a meltdown which ejected a huge plume of radioactive material into the sky.

The radiation that was released still haunts the area almost 30 years later. In this story, we see biologist Timothy Mousseau exploring the wildlife of the 1000 square mile uninhabited zone. While it looks like nature has reclaimed this area that was once inhabited by people, a closer look reveals a different story. Though wildlife has returned the biodiversity in the area is about half of what it should be, meaning many types of wildlife are not living there.

Another issue is the mutations being found in the creatures living in the shadow of Chernobyl. The radiation that remains in that area caused mutations in animal behavior and the actual animals themselves. With the recent Fukashima Reactor meltdown in Japan, it is important that we learn from the mistakes we have made that have damaged our environments.

The video does allow us a glimpse into a world that we would not otherwise be able to visit.

Here is another video available on YouTube. It is special that Discovery Channel did a few years ago that looked at the Chernobyl area and how wildlife had reclaimed it.

Chernobyl image from: http://cdn0.cosmosmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/Chernobyl%20nuclear%20meltdown%20radiation.jpg

Edmodo Snapshot Tool: Free Common Core Based Assessments

OK... so the Common Core has been a challenge for many over the last few years, but hopefully this tool will make your life a little bit easier!

Edmodo has been a growing LMS (Learning Management System) for the last few years and it has grown to be a very useful tool in that short time. It is available on the web and as an app for just about all devices, and it creates a safe, teacher controlled environment that students and teachers can use to extend their learning outside the traditional walls of their classrooms.

In Edmodo, teachers can share links to websites or materials, post reminders, updates, assignments, and even host inline discussions. In addition there has been a custom quizzing feature that has allowed you to create your own quizzes that you can use to assess your students. The quizzes are saved so you can use them again, and they also can grade themselves and display the results data in some very helpful ways. It even adds students' results to a grade book.

It gets better though! Edmodo Snapshot has just been added to Edmodo for you to use. It is free and just becomes a part of your existing Edmodo account if you have one. What it is, is a collection of questions for Grades 3 -12 based on Common Core Math and ELA standards. You can assign "snapshots" to your students and they show up as a quiz that needs to be taken. The quizzes are based on and aligned with the Common Core so it is great practice for the exams.

As much as I hate the thought of practicing by taking tests, this is the world we live in right now, and this tool can help you give your students practice on these types of assessments, while also providing you with data that can show how your classes are doing on particular standards. You can also drill down to individual students and see how they perform.

Hopefully this data can be helpful to guiding instruction in covering topics that students have trouble in or pinpoint areas a particular students is struggling in to help devise a strategy to help them.

I think Edmodo is a great tool, and this Snapshot tool makes it even more appealing to me. Check out the short video above describing what it is, and if you are interested take a look at the video below to learn more about how to use it.

Here is a great video from Megan Wall on YouTube:

Create Self Grading Quizzes with Google Forms and Flubaroo

This tool has been shared before, but due to the improvements in quality and ease of use I think it is worth sharing again.

One of the lesser know tools in Google Drive is Google Forms. This tool allows you to create a number of different questions that can be assigned through email or hyperlinks. The results from these questions are automatically gathered into a Google Spreadsheet. It makes it incredibly easy to gather information from multiple sources and compile it in one place.

If you create a quiz made up of multiple choice, list, or very specific text answers you can even make the quiz self grading!  By using the Flubaroo Add-on (formerly a script) you can choose an answer key that the program will use to grade all of you results. It will even create a new sheet with the students' graded results and an item analysis of all of the questions.

It is an easy and free way to create assessments that grade themselves and save you time.

Check out the video below to see how.

Fashion... The Newest and Best Shark Repellent?!

While shark attacks are a relatively rare risk compared to the dangers of driving your car to work, for those that share the waters with these predators it can be a real danger. A growing market has emerged in the area of shark repellent devices that use electronic signals or foul tasting chemicals, but it seems a possible alternative could just be the color and patterns of a wet suit.

In this TED Talk, Hamish Jolly: A shark-deterrent wetsuit (and it's not what you think), Mr. Jolly talks about research they discover how and what a shark sees. They focused on the eyes of the three most dangerous sharks the Bull, Tiger, and Great White Sharks. Research had discovered that these predatory sharks see in greyscale, and their continued research explored the way sharks see and the patterns they respond to.

The research explored patterns for suits used on the surface of the water in activities like swimming and surfing, as well as those used in SCUBA diving below the surface. These two types of suits are designed using different ideas.

The first suit is designed for surface divers. This one utilizes bold stripes that mimic the warning stripes of fish that are left alone by sharks because they either taste bad to them or are in a symbiotic relationship with them. Since most shark attacks are attributed to sharks mistaking humans for their prey, the hope is that by making humans look like things a shark would normally not eat or avoid would prevent an attack. When they placed this type of pattern on a wet suit covering a bait container the sharks left it alone. The same container covered with a traditional black wet suit was attacked.

The second suit is designed for divers beneath the waves, and its goal is not to use bold patterns to warn the sharks away, but instead allow them to blend into the water so that they become invisible to the sharks. The patterns on this suit are designed to make the diver hard to see from the side, as well as from below, which is a favored ambush position for some sharks.

Both of these designs mimic the strategies that many ocean creatures already use to protect themselves from sharks. Humans can benefit from this by saving money on more expensive repellent ideas, as well as by being safer in the water. This is also good for sharks... the less they harm people, the more likely they are to be left alone when they drift to close to where people live.

Here is the TED Video:

Stripe Suit Pic
http://www.surfersvillage.com/sites/default/files/field/image/1807-sharksuit_4.jpg

Water Camo Pic
http://images.watoday.com.au/2013/07/18/4580593/9-620x414.jpg

3 Suits
http://cdn.novafm.com.au/sites/default/files/No-More-Shark-Attacks-article2.jpg

Google Cultural Institute... An Amazing Classroom Resource

The Google Cultural Institute is an amazing tool for exploring art, history, and the world around us. Google has partnered with museums and galleries around the world to create an immense library of ultra high resolution images of famous art work and photographs that can be examined in an amazing amount of detail. The Institute is made up of three powerful tool... The Art Project, Historic Moments, and World Wonders.

Many works of art can be zoomed in on so far you can see the dirt that has accumulated in the ridges of brush  strokes. You can also visit the museums themselves to see the work and where it is located using Google Street-view links that are embedded in it!

One amazing work that is available for exploration is called Sun That Does Not Set by HoyAyer. It is a collection of photographs taken in one of the southern most points of South America. One was taken each hour and when combines you end up with this beautiful collage. It is also an awesome science resource to show how the sun does not set in certain places and certain times.

You also have the ability to explore an amazing collection of historic photographs and video clips for almost every historic moment in the modern age... basically anytime since cameras were invented... You can zoom in on photos to explore details and watch videos of interviews with people the actual events. All of these images are reliable and easily attributed since they have been shared by museums. This is not your average Google Images Search!

The contributors and Google have been collaborating to make Exhibits from the library of materials and have made a number of really good ones so far. One of the most powerful I looked at was called Tragic Love at Auschwitz , and it was about two young Jews in Poland that found love when they met in Auschwitz. They later went on to escape, although they were later recaptured and executed. The story is told in pictures, authentic documents, and written transcripts from the people that knew them in the camp. It is amazing how the story comes to life when these separate historic resources are displayed in this context.

More exhibits are bieng added all of the time, including this one on the history of computing: Revolution: The First 100 Years of Computing.

You can also explore many of the world's wonders through photographs, video clips, and Google Street View. One amazing example of this is on the Great Barrier Reef. You can travel here through the street view links and explore the beauty of this underwater wonder. You can then take a look at some of the amazing images that have been captured here as well. When you are finished, you can jump to another amazing place on this planet and explore that as well.

Since this tool is from Google, it is free and it is also linked to your Google Account. Just by being logged into Google you will be able to create collections and Galleries of your own. You can make a collection of images from World War 2, or even create your own Gallery of your favorite impressionist works. These galleries can be brought up anywhere you can access the internet and are easily shared via hyperlink.

These tools can be used to add amazing content to your lessons, but they can also be used by students as well. They can explore history to find their own answers and create collections for study or presentation.

Here is tutorial to get you started:  Google Cultural Institute Tutorial Playlist

Tired of Watery Ketchup?

Two Kansas City, MO teens were. Instead of just waiting for some other sucker to come along and use the ketchup before them and get the watery mess on their burger, they instead decided to come up with a solution.

Tyler Richards and Jonathan Thompson, both 18 years old, decided to make this the topic for a project for the Project Lead the Way course. The prompt for the project was "It bothers me when..." Both young men found watery ketchup as something that bothered them, and after finding that 85% of the people the surveyed agreed with them, the set off in search of a solution.

Their design is for squeeze bottles and changes the cap design so that the watery stuff that can ruin a burger is collected, and only perfect ketchup comes out. They call it SNAP, which is short for Syneresis Negation Apparatus. Apparently "syneresis" is the term used to describe when liquid comes out out solution in gelatinous substances as the material contracts.

Here is a video of the inventors demonstrating their product:

The two young men are currently in the process of seeking a patent got their invention. Now before any naysayers chime in with the idea that this invention could be replaced by doing something as simple as shaking the bottle before dispensing your ketchup... keep in mind that this is America. The only thing we like more than a cool new gadget, is a cool new gadget that saves us from doing work!

It is a great idea, and the two young men behind it will hopefully continue to recapture the spirit of innovation we used to be famous for. We need more programs like Project Lead the Way and projects like this one in our schools.

Teenager Turns Her YouTube Channel into a Career

I came across this story about 18 year old Bethany Mota, who has turned her fashion hobby into an extremely profitable career.
Bethany started he YouTube channel when she was 14 and posted videos containing her thoughts, beauty tips, and fashion advice. She has millions of followers and it is estimated that she earns about $40,000 a month from advertisements on her channel.



This savvy young fashion mogul also uses other social media like Instagram to share her ideas and videos. She currently has millions of followers, and actually has more followers than leading fashion institutions like Vogue, Elle, and Cosmo.

Here is a link to her social media outlets:

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Macbarbie07

Instagram: http://instagram.com/bethanynoelm

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BethanyMota

Recognizing her influence on young shoppers, Aeropostale hired her to pick things she like to be sold in their stores and was so successful at it, that they gave her the opportunity to design her own line of clothing to be sold in their stores!

It is a great story about a young lady that has overcome cyber-bullying as a teen and used social media to literally get her a dream career before she even finished high school. I think it is a great example for students to see what a fellow teenager has been able to accomplish with a responsible and productive use of the popular social media tools that are out there.

Changing the Way We Look at the World

TED Talk with Louie Schwartzberg - Mysteries of the Unseen World 

This is a preview of Mr. Schartberg's Imax 3D movie project now being shown in NYC at the Museum of Natural History and in other locations around the country. In this film, he is able to capture aspects of this world that are eyes cannot perceive. Using time lapse and slow motion film making techniques, things that are too fast or slow for our eyes to see are made visible, like the wings of a dragonfly in flight or the growth of a vine climbing up a tree. 

The film also delves into the microscopic world as it shows some of the tiny creatures invisible to us or the makeup of spider silk that can only be seen under powerful magnification. Data and computer modeling are also used to create amazing visualizations of the patterns of planes and ships as they travel the world, in addition to ocean and weather patterns that can also be displayed. The short clips displayed in this video are truly amazing and make one want to see the entire movie.



TED Talk with Louie Schwartzberg - Nature. Beauty. Gratitude. 

In Schwartberg's "Happiness Revealed" project, he explores the world through time lapse photography and shares the thoughts of a young girl and an old man on the subject of exploring and appreciating the world around them. The images of weather and the beauty of nature reinforce the message of the video that everyday is to be enjoyed and used to explore and learn about the world around us.





TED Talk with Louie Schwartzberg - The Hidden Beauty of Pollination 

In this TED Talk Mr. Schwartzberg talks about his over 20 years of experience using time lapse photography to capture images of the motion of flowers, but also of his fascination with the process of pollination which makes life possible on this planet. There are some truly amazing images of insects, hummingbirds, bats, and flowers as they interact in this life giving process.

All three of these talks contain information and imagery that can be used to help teach just about any subject.

Kayakers Film Sea Monsters!

Does anyone remember the strange creatures that beach goers had found washed up on beaches in California last year? Some stumbled across long, serpentine creatures that resembles sea serpents from legends and tales. (See the CNN story here.)

Well it turned out that these creatures were the extremely rare Oar Fist, that has seldom been seen alive. They remain a mystery due to the fact that they are usually found washed up on shore and almost never photographed or filmed in the wild. The only known live video was actually taken by an underwater submersible... that is until now. (Here is that video.)

Recently some people kayaking came across a pair of live Oar Fish as they seemed to be trying to beach themselves. The humans then helped them back in the water and were able to get some pretty amazing footage of them from both above and below the water.

Here is the article I originally read about the siting and found the link to the video. I embedded the video below.

Cleaner Water with Sticks... Xylem Water Filtration Experiment

Have you ever seen how expensive water filters are? Who would have thought that one of the best ones is available for free? It even grows on trees!

I came across this article about an MIT scientist that was experimenting with the xylem of plants to filter out impurities in water. Here in the United States, clean drinking water is something that is everywhere, but in many parts of the world it is in short supply. Impure water still causes disease in millions of people every year, and the options to filter water can be expensive and hard to get. 

The scientist peeled back the bark of a protion of pine tree and affixed the cross section to a tube and began pumping water that was contaminated with tiny imputities through it. According to the research the xylem filtered out 99% of the impurities and bacteria!

Now a person does not want to risk drinking water that is not 100% pure, but it is an available and affordable method of filtration that has the potential to lead to even better filtration methods. There is a link to the video of the experiment below.

http://video.mit.edu/watch/water-filtration-using-plant-xylem-27183/

TED Talk with Hugh Herr: The Bionics that Let Us Run, Climb, and Dance

This amazing TED Talk by Hugh Herr explores how far the design of artificial limbs and prosthetic devices has come, and where it is heading. Mr. Herr is an MIT professor as well as a double amputee who lost both of his legs in a mountain climbing accident. He had sustained extreme tissue damage due to frostbite, and his legs had to be amputated. He never let himself think of himself as being "broken" and instead focused on the belief that it was the available technology to help him get back to normal that was broken.

This drove him to seek out better prosthetic devices that would allow him to get back to climbing and living his life. He created his own devices that not only allowed him to get back to what he loved, they actually were better than his original legs at certain tasks! Specially designed feet allowed him to find purchase in crevices and on ice that a regular foot would be unable to.

His talk goes through the mathematics, science, and design principles behind the amazing prosthetic technology they are creating to help people. The amazing part is not just that they have been able to allow people to get on their feel and walk, they actually are able to walk almost as naturally as they did before their injuries.

One of the most powerful parts of the video was his closing. Adrianne Haslet-Davis was a ballroom dancer, who lost one of her legs in the Boston Marathon Bombings. In seconds she was robbed of her ability to dance and express herself through the art form that she loved. Mr. Herr took it upon himself to put his team to work on a prosthesis that would return her to the dance floor. In 200 days they had researched and designed her a new leg... this video ends with her first performance using it.

Here is a copy of the TED Video:

Evernote Tutorial

Evernote is a powerful tool that allows you to grab content form the internet and save it in the cloud. This content can then be accessed on any device you have installed Evernote on. Smartphones and tablets can access content that you clip from the browser on your computer and vise-versa.

You can also use Evernote on mobile devices to not only capture things from the internet, you can also capture audio you record using your device. These audio notes can be stored, organized, and shared like any other content. You can even access pictures you have on your device to be added to notes.

The content you gather in Evernote can be organized into notebooks that can be shared to individuals or via internet link. You can create a collection of content that can be shared with your students, almost like an online textbook that can be updated at any time.

Below is a tutorial playlist I have created to help anyone interested in learning how to get started using Evernote.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?action_edit=1&list=PLGI5tV-TCvIkiDLs_d8wseEg3NlSTZnqu

The Great Barrier Reef: An Obituary

I was reading Ed Yong's blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science, and came across a post he made of a number of links he was sharing. 


One of them was to a great resource on the Great Barrier Reef, titled... The Great Barrier Reef: An Obituary.

The interactive web page combines amazing photos with informational text as well as video clips from experts and people that live in this area talking about the reef, its history, and its future.

The project goes over the reef's discovery as well talking about the people that have made the reef home for hundreds of years. The resource also talks about how tourism and development have effected the area, and changed it over the years.

This is a great example of human impact on an ecosystem. The piece goes into how tourism, agriculture, and climate change are damaging the reef and threatening its future. It is a great site to use with students exploring human impact on biomes and the environment.

Can changing your font save you money?

You would think this would have been something we had heard about long ago, but apparently there is a huge savings to be had by using more efficient fonts when we print. This savings is small, but when applied to printing budgets as large as the US governments it can add up.

This idea was pursued by Suvir Mirchandani as a topic for his science fair project. He enlarged and printed of examples of different fonts on card stock and weighed them to find the difference in ink they required. His findings were that the Garamond font used about 24% less ink and if his school district switched to it, they could save up to $21,000 dollars annually!

He was encouraged by his teacher to get his findings published in the Journal for Emerging Investigators (JEI), which is a publication founded by Harvard grad students. They were so impressed that they challenged Savir to see if he could calculate the potential savings on a larger scale.

He repeated his experiment using sample documents from state and federal websites. The federal government has a 1.8 million dollar annual printing budget, and of that sum, $467 million is spent on ink. He calculated that switching all printing to the Garamond font could result in a 30% savings or about $136 million a year. An additional $234 million could be saved if state governments got on board the project as well.

I find it amazing that this much money could be saved simply by switching the font used for printing. Even more amazing that this experiments was thought up and executed by a 14 year old for a science fair project!

It makes me wonder how much of a savings we could all make by switching fonts at work and at home. It will definitely make me think twice the next time I format something in bold text...


Here is a link to the CNN article I originally found this story:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/living/student-money-saving-typeface-garamond-schools/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

14-year-old Suvir Mirchandani began studying fonts as part of a science fair project.

Eat, PREY, Love... Tales of Parasites and Mind Control

Ok... I apologize for the pun in the title. It is from a great TED Talk from science writer Ed Yong titled "Suicidal crickets, zombie roaches, and other parasite tales." In this talk he discusses the ways that parasites control the behavior of their hosts in order to further their own agendas.




One example is the toxoplasmosis microbe, affectionately referred to as "Toxo". Not only does this parasite cause expectant fathers around the world to get stuck changing the litter box, but it can change the brain of a mouse so that it removes its instinctual fear of its predator, the cat.




 Instead of fearing cats and fleeing to safety, the rodent is attracted to the cat and if it comes across any sign of one, it seeks it out. The reason for this is that, while "Toxo" can live inside any mammal, it can only reproduce inside of a feline host. So... Toxo hijacks the mouse and tries to get him eaten, so it can get inside of a cat to mate. Eat, Prey, Love... get it? ;-)

The talk describes some other parasitic horror stories that exist in nature and introduces the idea of whether or not the behavior of humans could possibly be affected like many other creatures.

To be on the safe side... I would probably hold off on watching this until some time has passed since your last meal.

If you enjoyed Mr. Yong's talk here is his blog, Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Google Add-Ons! (NEW)

I have to give credit to Leah Grady at QHS for turning me on to the Google Add-Ons that have just recently been added to Google Docs and Sheets. I had not noticed them until she showed them to me, and I am glad she did!

They are pretty awesome! The Add-on allows you to connect a number of web based tools directly into your Google Doc. By clicking on the Add-ons menu you can open a tool palette to a number of useful tools like EasyBib, LucidChart, and many more. There are tools that can give you pre-made templates to use, help you with making labels or a mail merge, and even add an official digital signature to documents you make and share online.

Now it is very easy to access things you make in another tool and directly add it to your document. For instance if you created a cool diagram or organizer in Lucidchart, you can open the Add-on and easily add it to your document. There is even an icon to click to take you right to the editing mode of Lucidchart if you want to make changes to your organizer before adding it.

The EasyBib Add-on is also really cool. It can allow you to search for your resurces, choose the citation format and have it add the citation right into your documnet. Here is Richard Byrne on his FreeTech4Teachers Blog as we demonstrates how to create a bibliography in a Google Doc using the EasyBib Add-On.

There is a quick video below from Google outlining the new Add-on tool.

Paper Microscopes - TED Talk with Manu Prakash on Foldscopes

Manu Prakash and some of his students have come up with a great idea to help make microscopes more accessible to students and people in developing countries. Their origami based microscope is estimated to cost about 50 cents each, and can be assembled by anyone and easily carried into the field where a normal microscope cannot easily go.

This idea was inspired by the fact that there are still 1 million people that are killed every year by microorganisms and a billion people at risk of this happening as well. All because they either do not have access to a microscope or the skills needed to operate one. Without them, they are unable to see the microorganisms that might be making them sick.

This fact inspired them to create the Foldscope which is incredibly durable and can be carried anywhere. Multiple scopes can be carried that have different viewing strengths and are designed for viewing different things.

The goal of the Foldscope is to educate people all around the world about the use of microscopes and how they can help them explore the world that is too small for the eye to see.

While these microscopes are not being marketed and sold yet, there is a program being offered that is looking for 10,000 people to try them out. Here is the link: 10,000 Micrsoscope Beta Tester Sign Up

Here is the link to the website: Foldscope Website


TED Talk with Manu Prakash: A 50 Cent Microscope that Folds Like Origami

Hunting the Elements

This is one of my favorite science videos I have ever seen. As PBS's NOVA goes, I am a big Neil DeGrasse
Tyson fan, but David Pogue does a great job exploring the periodic table and how it describes the different things that make up our world.

He goes over how microscopic amounts of gold are gathered from the earth, as well as exploring how the Periodic Table works and why different elements are placed on it the way they are.

The link below takes you to the entire episode which is about two hours long, but it is broken into segments you can use to watch it in smaller chunks. It is well worht the time and a great resource to share with students of almost all ages.

NOVA: Hunting the Elements

I have also embedded the introduction to the episode below in case you want to check it out. Enjoy!

Zombie Science...

OK... so this has got to be one of my more outlandish blog topics, and here is how I got here.

So I was looking up videos on using smartphones to record video for projects on Rob Nelson's YouTube channel and this video (Biology of Zombies) popped up. It was on the side mixed in with all of the other videos YouTube thought I should check out. It turns out it was about the biology of zombies and their origins and I had to check it out.  It was about how the stories of Zombies popped up in Haiti as a result of stories that told of witch doctors using certain chemicals to create near death and trance states. The real power though, was in the fact that the people in Haiti believed so strongly in these tales of zombies.

That video, led me to this one by a scientist named Dr. Stephen Schlozman who has always loved the old Zombie movies and stories. This led him to write a book, called The Zombie Autopsies,  about what he thought he might find if he autopsied the brain of one. The book is meant for entertainment purposes, but does tie in sceince to the zombie legend. This book has made Dr. Schlozman a sort of expert in the zombie fan community, which he has used to introduce science into this genre of scary stories. Here is a video of some of his use of brain science to break down Zombie behavior: The Zombie Brain.

The thing I thought was interesting was that he broke down the behavior of zombies on most of the movies and shows people love, and pinpointed what part of the brain must be damaged or affected to result in the behaviors we see.

I thought it might capture the interest of students that are fans of The Walking Dead and Zombie

genre that seems to be so popular now, and apparently I was not alone. From Dr, Schotman's video I found a link to a video from Texas Instruments that showed an overview to a lesson they used to tie in science to what we see in Hollywood. There site STEM - Behind Hollywood has a number of lessons using their technology to create lessons to engage students using the topics made popular in movies.  I am just thankful this teenage vampire romance stuff seems to be on the way out!

One of these lesson was on Zombie movies and how the virus spreads. The Zombie Activity goes over models of how contagions spread and use math to graph and show rates of infection. Though the topic is fictional, the science is the same as what is used today to predict the spread of infections. Here is a video outlining the lesson: 

The goal of this post and sharing these resources is not to convince anyone that the whole Zombie Apocalypse is real or anything. It is to merely point out there are some educational resources out there to capitalize on the interest many people have in this fictional topic, that can be used to introduce some science topics that are useful in the real world.

Now I am a Shawn of the Dead and Walking Dead fan, and enjoy this particular genre of scary movies as much as the next person, but we all know zombies are make believe, of course that is what they believe at the beginning of every movie right before someone gets eaten...