Why science is important!

Alom Shaha is my new hero. Although by day he is an ordinary physics teacher, he apparently is a movie-making superhero by night. He has created a fantastic collection of video interviews to answer the question "Why is science important?". They are available on his site as a 30-minute HD movie, and also on Youtube as a collection of 14 clips.

This interviews explore the many facets of the answer to the question, each of the 14 clips focuses on a particular facet. I anticipate using these in the clip form, to spark discussion about the answer to the subject question, and as an introduction to careers in science for students. Go Alom!

Creating Simple Motors

Today I found a few Youtube clips that illustrate simple motors students can construct:

This first video illustrates a classic design and does a nice job of explaining how it works:



This second choice provides a twist on the classic design:



And a third intriguing version:



Essential Questions:

1. What key elements must be present for a motor design to function?
2. How can the design be optimized?
3. Explain how each design exploits the same principles.

I will try this with my students this year... and see what they come up with!

Colliding Particles - Hunting the Higgs

This 2009 series of videos uses work at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to illustrate how science works. The downloadable videos are each about 9 minutes in length, and teacher resources are provided, including Power Point presentations and student activities.

Colliding Particles’ is a series of films following just one of the teams of physicists involved in the research at the LHC. The project documents their work at the frontiers of particle physics, exploring the human stories behind the research and investigating the workings of the scientific process itself." http://www.collidingparticles.com/

I forsee using this at the beginning of the year to illustrate the process of science. There is even an activity (Episode 2, Activity 2) that has students detail the process of becoming an expert at something. I thought this was ingenious! How many of your students complain about having to practice Physics... this addresses that objection right away. I think students will relate well to these videos. The participants are youthful (at least in comparison to most of the physicists I have seen in educational films), the cinematographic techniques are modern, and the clips are all fairly short. The Power Point presentations even have cartoons...

Science 360 Beta

The Science 360 Beta site hosts a variety of videos. The videos are categorized by subject. You can create your own "collections" on the site. I watched two this morning that I will use in my Physics class next year.

1. Yael Maguire - Electrical Engineer
   Yael narrates this clip and describes his job as an electrical engineer and his work with RFID tagging. He also discusses why he likes engineering, what his hobbies are, and volunteer work he works on. (length 5:01)
2. Physics for Presidents
   "Professor Richard Muller, professor of UCB's extremely popular class and book, "Physics for Future Presidents." He shares his thoughts on teaching at UCB and on what President Barack Obama needs to know about physics to succeed in handling the world's most pressing problems." (length 6:20)