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!
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...
ScreenCastify is a great new extension I read about on Richard Byrne's FreeTech4TeachersBlog. It is a tool that installs an icon in your browser that will allow you to easily capture a screencast of what is happening in one of the windows of Chrome. It will even work with Chromebooks! (Note: Your version of Chrome must be at least version 32 or higher.)
I played around with the tool a little bit and the video it grabbed was pretty good. The sound was a little soft, but if I talked a bit louder it would not be a problem. It offers an option to download the video, which was in a strange format I did not have a player for, but it does also offer an easy YouTube export feature. If you are logged into Chrome it will send the video to your YouTube account, which you can then use to share the video with a link or embed it onto your website. There is a quick video below that shows you how it works.
So over the last few years there has been a difference of opinion between Bill Nye (the famous Science Guy) and Ken Ham (one of the foremost voices of the Creationist Movement). Mr. Nye comes down on the side of a field of science that is governed by observing the world around us and using that information to explore our past and form theories and conclusions to explain it. Mr. Ham on the other hand does believe in many of the scientific principles accepted by the scientific community about exploring the worlds around us, but his ideas differ when it comes to explaining the history of the Earth. Mr. Ham posits that there is no way we can determine what exactly happened in the past, because we were not there to witness it. His main witness, is the narrative that is in the Bible, and uses the events described to determine that the Earth cannot be older than 6000 years old. He defends this position basically by arguing that none of the techniques used to gauge the age of the earth are reliable, and that the words of the Bible are witness enough to explain this. Mr. Nye on the other hand, believes that using science to explore our world around us will provide us with information and rules that help us understand our present, which then can be used to explore and explain our past. He cites evidence in the fossil record, carbon dating, study of the stars, layering in ice cores, and the variations in the strata of rocks we find all over, as evidence to the world being 4.5 billion years old. He relies on information gathered through the scientific method to explain these questions to himself. One of the best things about this debate is the fact that these two men got up on stage and presented their different sides to the audience. They then responded to each others views and even took turns answering these questions. Both men were respectful the entire time, despite the fact that they clearly did not agree with each other. It was what a true debate is supposed to be... two people trying to make their points with respect, and letting the audience judge their points of view. It seems today we see politicians and people with different opinions going for quick jabs or talking points to degrade their opposition. Gone is any sort of respectful exchange of ideas and respect for each other. The attitude is that if someone does not agree with you, they are wrong and to then portray them as a fool for their ideas being different. At no point in this debate did either speaker show any disrespect. They questioned each other, and did their best to make their point. Mr. Nye never made light of Mr. Ham's religious beliefs, and showed a great deal of respect for everyone's faith. Mr. Ham also did not ridicule or disrespect the beliefs held by his opponent, he just did his best to refute them as someone in a debate should. Since this is my blog and I get an opinion. I have to go with Bill Nye as the winner of this debate. Both men had ideas and explanations for their points of view, but Nye's was rooted in multiple examples from different areas of science. Mr. Ham's main response to everything was that the Bible said something happened a certain way, and since there was not a scientist from today there to witness it that must have been the way that it happened. Judge for yourself... the video is posted below.
A while back I shared a musical info graphic (100 Years of Rock: From Gospel to Grunge) that showed the evolution of music and how it had branched out into so many different types of genres. This is one I found on Peter Vogel's Google+ page. It is a timeline that shows when different types of music hit the scene and showed which types were most popular at each time.
By clicking on the types of music on the timeline, you will see examples of the music that makes up that genre. I thought is was pretty cool, but was a bit disapointed to see that my beloved Ska music is apparently not as cool as I think it is... ;-)
I came across this link: National Science Foundation: Science and Engineering of the Winter Olympic Games 2014 while checking out Richard Byrne's FreeTech4Teachers blog this morning. It is a collection of 10 videos that explore some of the events in the 2014 Winter Olympics and the physics and science behind these sports. The video covers a number of different topics. Some of the videos cover the physics of certain events and how the understanding of the science behind them allow the athletes to perform better and designers to create equipment that is more efficient as well. There are some videos covering the science behind the healing of injuries to help athletes recover and get back to peak performance levels. There are even some videos on the science of snow and how it affects athletes and events. Here is the video on the science of snow.
For anyone who loves the Olympics this is a very exciting time of year. These videos can be some great resources to interest students in the science behind why Shaun While is awesome!
This is one of my favorite science videos I have ever seen. As PBS's NOVA goes, I am a big Neil DeGrasse 
