Annenberg Learner Search Results

Episode 25: Chemistry – Challenges and Solutions

…hydrogen and the chlorine can coexist without reacting for a very long time. The way to get them to react is by giving them enough energy to get started and that energy is called activation energy. I have a dark cloth over this test tube because for this reaction, light can provide the activation energy….

Episode 18: 2022 Teacher of the Year with Michelle Stradford

…Stradford [10:08] No, I think I understand you. I think that I read something on Twitter recently, and one of the things that this person was talking about is that in teaching, there is a really big energy imbalance. Teachers give so much energy to the kids because that is our job, and that is…

Episode 22: Games for Change with Luis Saltos

…in the game, a player can go and get rid of coal plants and dirty energy resources and transport them into clean energy. At the end of the game, if the player was able to accomplish these tasks, then the player will get a self-sustaining house. I’ve also used Scratch. Scratch is very popular and…

Episode 7: Communities In Schools Los Angeles with Elmer Roldan

…all the paper towels, and then fights also jumped up a lot, where you saw that student aggression was really being observed on campuses and really what it was is kids were bottled up for two years and now as they were going out in the world and rightfully so, a lot of that energy…

Episode 10: Griffin Education with Tim Griffin

…real hobbies besides math and science were, I played Dungeons and Dragons and played video games. I had a very lucky break. I went to a boarding school that was quite small, and there was a very high-energy music teacher there who insisted on doing a voice test for everybody. He checked my voice and…

Episode 3: High-Impact Tutoring with Susanna Loeb

…already a bit different than before. There’s this opening that helps us move against some of the forces that keep big change from happening. Nati [45:09] What happens when that money runs out and where do you see the momentum around tutoring going once, we’re past this period of opportunity and momentum and energy around…

Episode 19: 2022 Superintendent of the Year with Dr. Vivian Ekchian

…in the most positive way. I love to start the school day at a school; seeing students interacting, playing, learning together generates the energy necessary for me to go all day long. Usually after the visit to the school site, for a particular observation of a program or just classrooms or discussions with students, I’m…

Episode 15: Florida Principal of the Year, Adam Lane

…of. We feel safe there. We feel a sense of pride. We feel confidence. We have common ground. It’s just like a connection that explodes and makes your energy go crazy. Nati Rodriguez [15:09] I love it. I think it’s very telling that it took awhile for us to even talk about curriculum and testing…

Episode 6: Haydee Rodriguez – CA State Board of Education Member  

…from the private sector where I would work 12 to 15 hours a day, sometimes. I had a lot of energy and just wanted to do so much. I think that what I would tell myself is, well, I was going to say don’t do so much. When I look back, I’m happy [that I…

Episode 9: When Schools Work with Bruce Fuller

…The point is these new pluralists, this more pluralistic politics in LA, generated a fresh set of energy that has really lasted through the pandemic over the last quarter-century. These folks now are rising up in positions of power after challenging the status quo. That was the driving spark behind these reforms that resulted in…

Episode 33: ExpandLA’s Work to Increase Access to Quality Out-of-School Time Programs for Youth

…up the quality of programs as well. So, there’s so much that can happen; but those are some of the things that in five years, if I’ve done my job, all those things would be moving already, and we’ll start seeing some real energy around the sector and possibilities. Nati Rodriguez [23:50] Love all the…

Episode 39: Helping Kids Navigate Global Conflicts from Pediatric Psychologist Dr. Parker Huston

…that’s probably the number one thing is to find an organization. And if you’re not comfortable doing it yourself, perhaps donating to an organization or being involved in another way. But I think anybody can donate their time and emotional energy to a kid who might otherwise not have somebody in their corner all the…

video: The Energy in Chemical Reactions: Thermodynamics and Enthalpy

The phrase “chemical reaction” conjures up images of explosions, bubbling gases, flames, and smoke. So many chemical reactions have visible results because energy is being transferred from one form to another—the realm of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics provides rules for predicting the progress of a reaction and for harnessing the energy released. It is key to solving…

program: Energy: Capture, Storage, and Transformation

…that images of food, gasoline, and sunlight represent energy, but they might not know how humans have, for millennia, engineered ways to store energy and use energy transformation to do work. Some of the photographs in this collection illustrate the impact of energy as movement, light, or heat; others show mechanisms engineered to capture, store,…

lesson: Energy Flow in Communities: A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Energy and Life Communities Photosynthesis Energy Pyramids Scientist at Work Curriculum Resources Cell Respiration…

video: Energy Flow in Communities

Learning Goals The sun, source of energy for life on Earth During this session, you will have an opportunity to build understandings to help you: Distinguish between energy and matter as they relate to the living world Distinguish between producers, consumers, and decomposers with regard to energy flow in a community Describe what happens to…

Conservation of Energy: Chain Reaction

HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS – EDUCATOR CURRICULUM The conservation of energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but changes from one form to another. Build a chain reaction machine to show how energy changes from one form to another. In this series you will find a set of lessons that guide students through learning…

unit: Dark Energy

…microscopic properties of space itself. Even very simple questions about dark energy, like “has there always been the same amount?” are very difficult to answer. Observers are inventing programs to provide fresh clues to the nature of dark energy. Theorists hope to come up with a good new idea about gravity that will help us…

lesson: Children’s Ideas

…change forms. When a plant makes food through photosynthesis, it changes light energy to chemical energy. When an animal eats a plant, chemical energy is transferred to the animal. In this way, energy flows. It doesn’t spontaneously appear. Energy is an abstract concept. Children can’t see energy, yet they may understand that objects, like food,…

section: Interview with Kerry Emanuel

…mechanical energy, the mechanical energy being the energy of the wind. And the heat energy is derived from the ocean, and specifically from the evaporation of ocean water. Now, it’s not always clear to people that when you evaporate water, this actually corresponds to a transfer of energy. And yet we all have that experience….

section: Interview with Featured Scientist Ayana T. Arce

…energy level arbitrary because of budget? Or, are physicists hoping to find something specific at that level? AYANA: The energy of the LHC is nearly ten times the energy of the next most energetic machine. And this leap in energy should open up a new world of physics at what we call the Terrascale. There…

section: Interview with John Holdren

…part of that is doing it without wrecking the environment, without aggravating that huge array of environmental problems already associated with energy supply. Within the array of environmental problems connected with energy, the most challenging by far is energy’s impact on global climate. The reason that that is the most challenging environmental problem of energy…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist David Spergel

…Constant, how fast the universe is expanding today, and combine that with our measurements of the geometry of the universe. Those two pieces alone are enough to imply dark energy. So, we have many different ways of combining data that all point to the same thing, the existence of dark energy, with that dark energy…

section: Interview with Andy Aden

…better capacities to be more energy efficient with these feedstocks whether it to make fuels, whether it be to make power or whether it be to even make renewable chemicals. Interviewer: What is renewable energy? ANDY: There are a lot of different renewable energy technologies out there. Solar cells or what are called photovoltaics, wind…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Robert P. Kirshner

…the expansion history is the one you predict, given a constant dark energy, or whether it’s doing something different. Interviewer: What is: “Dark Energy”? ROBERT: Well, there are a lot of ideas about what the dark energy might be. Maybe the most popular one, or the best-founded one is the oldest one. Einstein, it turns…

unit: Energy Challenges

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Doug Finkbeiner

…work out its trajectory and then hits the calorimeter, which measures the total amount of energy in it. And so, by getting this direction and amount of energy, you can figure out their rival direction and energy of the original photon. Interviewer: What are gamma rays? DOUG: Gamma rays are just high energy photons. So,…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist David J. Wineland

…state. And then we apply radiation at these roughly thousand billion cycles per second. And when the radiation is tuned to a particular value, it causes the energy state of the mercury ion to go from a lower energy state to a higher energy state. And that occurs with maximum probability when this incoming radiation…

section: Online Textbook

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Rick Gaitskell

…of a typical atom. It interacts with the nucleus of our one of the target nuclei in our detector and causes a nucleus to recoil. The amount of energy that is imparted during this recoil is a small amount of energy. It’s a relatively modest amount of energy but because it’s imparting directly to the…

unit: Featured Scientist Paul Kwiat

…has. It is the same thing with particle two. It doesn’t have a definite energy or direction or polarization. But if these are entangled, as soon as I know the energy of one particle, I know the energy of the other one. As soon as I know the direction of one particle, I know the…

lesson: Online Textbook

Online Text by David Kaplan The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

video: Atoms and Light: Exploring Atomic and Electronic Structure

…atomic spectra—the light given off by atoms at definite wavelengths—led to the Bohr model of the atom, where electrons exist at distinct energy levels and move between these levels by absorbing and emitting discrete quanta of energy. The measurement of atomic spectra has applications in astrophysics as well as forensic chemistry. Hosted by Michael McCarthy….

section: Interview with Featured Scientist Srini Rajagopalan

…first level of trigger, the level one, would look for two clusters of energy, So we would relax that condition at the first level and we would look for two clusters of energy say at 10 GeV each. The level one finds it and says, aha, I found two clusters of energy, one here, one…

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by Shamit Kachru The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

section: Interview with Pieter Tans

…have to deal with globally in a very constructive manner, not by ignoring them. We have to really reform our energy system. We have to get energy to run our society in such a way that it does not involve emitting carbon dioxide. That’s a tough job because ninety percent of our energy production now…

lesson: Children’s Ideas About Material Cycles in Ecosystems

…not connect nutrients to the material that makes up their bodies. Children can be encouraged to consider the dual role of food as they are introduced to the differences between matter and energy. 6. Food is converted entirely into energy. Food is matter that stores energy in chemical bonds. This energy can be released from…

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by Robert Kirshner The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by Shamit Kachru The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Jenny Hoffman

…form of energy. So, for example, if you send electricity from a power plant to your home the typical loss of energy is about 10 percent. So, one property of a superconductor is that it’s a material that can conduct electricity without loss of energy. The second property of a superconductor is that it expels…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Harald Paganetti

…cell, what basically happens is the same as if a particle hits any other material. So, you’re doing ionizations. You’re kicking out electrons—and these electrons deposit energy in tissue—and it is this energy being deposited that can, for example, damage the DNA. And that’s how you get radiation effects either of mutation or even cell…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Deborah S. Jin

…form of energy. So, for example, if you send electricity from a power plant to your home the typical loss of energy is about 10 percent. So, one property of a superconductor is that it’s a material that can conduct electricity without loss of energy. The second property of a superconductor is that it expels…

section: Interview with Featured Scientist Eric Adelberger

…energy. Quantum mechanics says there’s still energy there. And, that energy turns out acts like a negative pressure also. And so you say, great. We’ve observed a negative pressure. And, quantum mechanics tell us there ought to be such things there. The only problem is the magnitude. The one we observe is depending how you…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Martin Zwierlein

…the same quantum state. So, let’s take electrons. Electrons have half integer spin. So, that means we cannot stack them into the same quantum state. Electrons always have to find a way around each other, always take on different energy states, and we see that most clearly and most dramatically in the structure of our…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Bonnie Fleming

Interviewer: What is Fermilab? BONNIE: Fermilab is the high-energy physics laboratory in the United States. It is up until very recently home to the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the Tevatron, which collides protons and anti-protons at near the speed of light to produce all sorts of things that we’ve learned about over…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Piers Coleman

…of probing matter. They measured these fluctuations as a function of energy. What they were able to do was to measure the amount of neutrons that were scattered for a given amount of energy transferred to the material. And from the energy transferred, you can convert that to the frequency of the magnetic fluctuations. Interviewer:…

unit: Melting Wax Molecular Model

MIDDLE SCHOOL – LEVEL 3 Candle wax drips onto a cake because the flame at the top adds thermal energy to the solid wax. The added thermal energy between the molecules gives the molecules more energy and causes them to move quickly and further apart. This added distance between the molecules causes a weakened force…

lesson: The EcoColumn

…an aquatic habitat. We built ours by establishing a TerrAqua Column first and then adding to it—you can build yours the same way or as a complete system from the start. The Life Science EcoColumn is designed as a study system for concepts addressed in the videos for Session 7 (Energy Flow in Communities) and…

video: Kinetics and Nuclear Chemistry – Rates of Reaction

From an instantaneous explosion to the slow rusting of iron, the rates at which different chemical reactions proceed can vary tremendously depending on several factors, including temperature and concentration. Sometimes, like with the rotting of food, chemists want to slow down reaction rates. But often, the goal is to speed them up—and one way to…

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by William P. Reinhardt The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge…

video: Equilibrium and Advanced Thermodynamics: Balance in Chemical Reactions

Light a match and chemical change happens in a one-way process: Reactants are transformed into products. But there are many chemical reactions called “equilibrium reactions” that operate in both directions: with reactants and products always present. The Unit 9 video will show how chemical equilibrium works, the essential role it plays in the function of…

section: Interview with Lonnie Thompson

…remaining supplies of fossil fuels. We have to go to these alternative energy sources. The question is just when are we going to do that? Having been to several energy conferences, it’s very clear that you have to make the investment, and then it’s usually 20 years before these things become commercially available. We should…

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by David Pines The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by Robert Austin The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

unit: Coupled Resonant Pendulums

…to the same length, this will keep the resonant frequency the same on both of the nuts. OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to construct arguments and models to describe the potential and kinetic energy in various systems. ESSENTIAL QUESTION(S): How does a pendulum work? What is potential and kinetic energy and how are they related?…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Vinothan N. Manoharan

…occurs a factor of 24 times as often as this one—much more often. So the question is why? And the answer must not have anything to do with energy because they both have the same energy. And so the only answer that seems to work is that it depends on entropy. Interviewer: Would you say…

section: Interview with Paul Hoffman

Interviewer: What regulates the average temperature of the Earth over billions of years? PAUL: This only really became a question in the middle of the 20th century when people realized that the sun is a normal star, and in its main sequence, which lasts for 10 billion years or so, the radiant energy that’s emitted…

video: Dark Energy – Video

video: Energy Challenges Video

   …

section: Interview with Edward O. Wilson

…live only on the leaves on what are called epiphylls, little miniature woodlands of moss and lichens. In those are other creatures or small insects and mites and so on, found only in those epiphylls. You get stacked, one upon the other, different levels of energy in the energy flow, and niche differentiation so that…

video: Online Textbook and Video

This online textbook chapter supports and extends the content of the Microbial Diversity video. The chapter covers microbial energy sources, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and the role of microbes in nutrient cycling. Click on the Go button to begin reading, or skip to a sub-section of the chapter in the list below….

unit: Photosynthesis

…float to the top as oxygen is generated during photosynthesis. OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to construct scientific explanations of photosynthesis and its role in cycling matter and energy. ESSENTIAL QUESTION(S): How might plants cycle energy and matter? What role to plants play in converting energy? What is photosynthesis and how does it work?  …

section: Online Textbook

video: Organizing Atoms and Electrons: The Periodic Table

For centuries, chemists tried different methods to organize elements around patterns of chemical and physical trends, or regularities, eventually leading to the modern periodic table. Electron configuration is a powerful predictive tool, a simple extension from the periodic table. Physical characteristics, including atomic radius and reactivity, all depend on electron configuration and can be teased…

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by Natalie Roe The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

unit: Ultimate Recycling Machine

…machine that knocks a water bottle into a recycling bin, with three points of contact where energy is transferred from one object to another along the way. Give the students paper and pencil and ask them to plan their construction. Once they have a plan and have gotten approval from the teacher, time to build….

section: Interview with Pam Matson

…We have di-nitrogen in through the microorganisms, all other organisms use it, it’s stored in soils and water systems, and ultimately bacteria de-nitrify it back out to the atmosphere. That’s the natural nitrogen cycle. That’s how the world worked until about 50 years ago when people started fixing nitrogen out of the atmosphere using energy…

lesson: A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Mass-Energy Conservation Evaporation vs. Boiling  …

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by Lene Hau The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

8th Grade Forces & Motion – Overview

Educator Curriculum Related Materials include: Lesson Objectives Performance Expectations Activity Overview Graphic Organizer Balloon Racers activity handout Mass Transit Proposal activity handout Road Testing activity handout Final Test Course activity handout Write-up activity instructions Rubric for Write-up activity Lesson Overviews: Lesson 1 – Zipline Lesson 2 – Car Design Lesson 3 – Investigation: Speed Lesson…

unit: Motorized Marker Car

…of craft paper and let it rip! OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to use their toy car to construct an argument that change in kinetic energy is caused by energy transferring into or out of the object. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS: What causes the car to start moving or to stop? Speed up? Slow down? What factors…

section: Online Textbook

unit: The Fundamental Interactions

This unit takes the story of the basic constituents of matter beyond the fundamental particles that we encountered in unit 1. It focuses on the interactions that hold those particles together or tear them asunder. Many of the forces responsible for those interactions are basically the same even though they manifest themselves in different ways….

unit: Straw Roller Coaster

…up with? There are no wrong answers and so many ways to make a better build. OBJECTIVE: Kids will be able to design simple roller coasters as means of converting one form of energy to another and its relationship to the speed of an object. ESSENTIAL QUESTION(S): How does an object’s energy affect its speed?…

section: Online Textbook

section: Online Textbook

section: Interview with Penny Chisholm

…oceans because they supply all of the organic carbon or sugars, if you think of it that way, for everything else that lives in the oceans. The phytoplankton take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using solar energy and convert it to organic carbon, sugars, proteins, all of the material that life is made out…

unit: Water Desalination

…condenses on the tinfoil and rains back down into the mug. OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to construct scientific explanations of photosynthesis and its role in cycling matter and energy. ESSENTIAL QUESTION(S): How might plants cycle energy and matter? What role do plants play in converting energy? What is photosynthesis and how does it work?…

lesson: Children’s Ideas About Heat and Temperature

…of heat that many eighteenth-century scientists (like Lavoisier) had. In the Science Studio, Lydia rethought her idea that heat is matter when she was asked if it had weight and took up space. As stated in the video, heat is the transfer of energy between different temperatures of matter. 2. Cold, like heat, is a…

unit: Water Electrolysis

…it works well and is a great way to learn. FUN FACTS Word Origin: Electro refers to energy and electricity and -lysis refers to splitting apart. Real World Science: Water electrolysis can be used as a form of renewable energy to provide many benefits. Hydrogen produced in this reaction can be stored in fuel cells…

lesson: Plant Life Cycles: Children’s Ideas

…the characteristics of life: they’re made of cells, they have a life span, they use matter and energy, they respond to their environment, and they carry DNA. 4. Seeds contain a tiny adult plant already formed inside. Children may hold this idea because they do not readily observe developmental differences between a sprout and an…

section: Interview with Featured Scientist S.-H. Henry Tye

…big difficulty in merging quantum mechanics and Einstein”s general relativity is the problem that Einstein’s general relativity is really describing point particles. And, in this case, the point particle is a graviton. And, if you try to treat the graviton as a point particle there is no limit to how high energy can go. And…

section: Interview with Peter Kenmore

…Degree in Evolutionary Biology and go to AG School was an interesting contrast. Interviewer: Why study agriculture? Should we be more concerned about climate change and energy resources? PETER: In this U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the definition of agriculture includes crops, but also includes rangelands. It includes managed forests. It includes managed fisheries, which…

section: Interview with Neeraj Gupta

…project managers at the Department of Energy (DOE) were aware of that research and they approached us to see if they could use my PhD work to look at the process of CO2 sequestration. That was back in the mid-1990s when this program was just starting at DOE and since then we have been fortunate…

section: Interview with Mark Cane

…it. Why we think technology will come along and enable us to solve this problem, but we don’t think that technology will keep us from perhaps losing a little bit of our wealth while we give up our SUV’s and our other energy intensive or energy wasteful activities. Why we don’t think there won’t be…

video: Pollution and the Environment (Microeconomics)

…known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which both economists and energy providers could support. Pollution is a “negative externality,” which, as these stories show, can have serious consequences for economic efficiency. All Video on Demand files are protected by copyright law and are free for this streaming purpose only. Downloading, in whole…

section: Scientists

…of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and co-chair of the independent, bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy. His work has focused on the causes and consequences of global environmental change, analysis of energy technologies and policies, ways to reduce the dangers from nuclear weapons and materials, and the interaction…

interactive: Energy Lab

section: Online Textbook

Online Text by Peter Fisher The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

unit: The Quantum World

This unit covers a field of physics that is simultaneously one of the most powerful, transformational, and precise tools for exploring nature and yet for non-physicists one of the most mysterious and misunderstood aspects of all science. Developed early in the 20th century to solve a crisis in understanding the nature of the atom, quantum…

video: Quantifying Chemical Reactions: Stoichiometry and Moles

…calculating the amount of each reactant, and figuring out which reactant will run out first are all fundamental principles when designing any chemical reaction. These principles are applied when splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen for energy, manufacturing sodium iodide for radiation detectors, and producing common chemicals from renewable resources. Hosted by David Song.  …

unit: Paper Circuits

…OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to design and construct simple circuits. This can be used to illuminate carnival-themed toys and games should the school decide to hold a STEAM Carnival. Video: Watch this Project in Action ESSENTIAL QUESTION(S): How might we use energy transfer in simple circuits to design and construct carnival-themed toys and games?…

unit: The Basic Building Blocks of Matter

In this unit, we shall explore particle physics, the study of the fundamental constituents of matter. These basic building blocks lay the foundation for all of the ambitious projects detailed throughout this course. Dramatic discoveries over the last century have completely changed our view of the structure of matter, as physicists have delved into the…

lesson: Interactive Activity: 5-Question Survey

…water. C. the person’s warm body absorbs cold from the water. D. heat energy flows from the person’s body to the water. E. water is swallowed by the person. Survey Question 3 A bicycle is left in the shade on a warm summer day. When its owner goes to get it, she notices the metal…

section: Online Textbook

Online Text By Blayne Heckel The videos and online textbook units can be used independently. When using both, it is possible to start with either one. Watching the video first, and then reading the unit from the online textbook is recommended. Each unit was written by a prominent physicist who describes the cutting edge advances…

video: The Metallic World: Electrochemistry and Coordination Compounds

Metals allow the transfer of electrons through a process called oxidation-reduction, or “redox,” when one species gains electrons while another loses them. Chemists take advantage of this process by using electron transfers to power the batteries in our flashlights, phones, or cars. In biochemistry, trace metals, such as cobalt in Vitamin B12, often drive chemical…

unit: String Theory and Extra Dimensions

This unit continues our movement from an experimentally proven understanding of nature’s four fundamental forces to the theoretical effort to develop a “theory of everything” that brings all four forces under the same conceptual umbrella. The most prominent aspect of that effort is the family of string theories that envision the basic units of matter…

video: Material Cycles in Ecosystems

…regard to material cycling in an ecosystem Describe examples of material cycling through an ecosystem Contrast energy flow with material cycling Video Overview Our final session looks at life at one of the highest levels of organization: the ecosystem. Shifting from Session 7’s focus on energy, Session 8 explores matter and its connection to life….

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Mark C. Kruse

…is the maximum energy produced in the particle collisions? MARK: The protons and anti-protons are accelerated to energies of about one TeV, which is one thousand times the rest mass of a proton or an anti-proton. Interviewer: Why is it so difficult to detect a Higgs Boson? MARK: It’s difficult because these collisions occurring forty…

lesson: Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

[3143] Robert Feke, Benjamin Franklin (c. 1746), courtesy of Harvard University Benjamin Franklin’s extraordinary energy and varied talents made him successful as a writer, humorist, statesman, diplomat, businessman, and scientist. The tale of his rise from humble beginnings through hard work and virtue has become a familiar lesson in the American dream. So exemplary is…

section: Interview with Featured Scientist Nergis Mavalvala

…Now, there’s an equivalent Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle that arises from energy and time, which are also two quantities that you can’t measure perfectly well simultaneously. If you think about this in terms of light, what it basically says is that the energy that a laser beam carries is proportional to the number of photons and…

section: Interview with Robert Crabtree

…again, complex, no less complex than the ecosystem itself. We think of things as consumers at the top of that food pyramid, for example, the wolf. And the wolf eats the elk; the next trophic level down, elk eats grass. The next trophic level down, grass lives off of energy from the sun and the…

Putt Putt Boat

HIGH SCHOOL THERMODYNAMICS – EDUCATOR CURRICULUM Energy comes in many forms and can be usable in many ways. Explore a way to turn heat into usable kinetic energy by creating a heat engine. OBJECTIVE: Learners will explore Thermodynamics and build a heat engine to propel a boat. LESSON SEQUENCE Lesson overview for each activity Here…

unit: Interview with Luisa T. Molina

…of the emissions from a mega-city on a regional and global scale. We wanted to not just study the emissions in the city, but we wanted to look at the export of the fumes. The National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and NASA are able to participate because this is not just looking at local…

section: Interview with Wendy Graham

…energy, that depletes oil or requires other energy sources. It’s definitely a balancing act, and if we don’t start thinking about it now earth may not be such a pleasant place to be. I think if we control the population we’ll be in good shape. It cleanses itself. It’s just that when you overload it…

video: Heat and Temperature

Learning Goals During this session you will have an opportunity to build understandings of the following concepts: Weather balloon. Heat is the transfer of energy between two objects with different temperatures. Temperature is a measure of the average energy of motion of particles. Heat is added when solids change state into liquids and when liquids…

lesson: Children’s Ideas

…life spans, require matter and energy, respond to their environment, and carry the hereditary material DNA. Children who consider movement a requirement for life may hold this idea. In this case they may consider animals to be the only things that are alive. 9. Plants have a different kind of life than animals. Plants and…

Extra: The Cyclotron

Extra #1: The Cyclotron Jay Flanz describes the cyclotron accelerator, which accelerates protons up to an energy that is required for treatment. Video Transcript…

lesson: Bottle Biology

Bottle Biology Spotlight The Bottle system that has been designed to accompany Session 7 – Energy Flow in Communities – and Session 8 – Material Cycles in Ecosystems – is called the “EcoColumn.” In this system, an aquatic and terrestrial community are linked together in one bottle system. The organisms within include producers, consumers, and…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Paul Chaikin

…I think, first, in condensed matter—in something like the formation of crystals or in magnetism. The magnetization picks out a direction in space rather than being pointed everywhere with no magnetization. And that fundamental breaking of symmetry occurs in nature and is used in high energy physics and string theory, everywhere. And that’s an emergent…

unit: Control Towers

Objective: Child will design a marble run for multiple marbles at various stages to see how force impacts the movement of the marbles. Essential Question(s): How might the speed of an object relate to the energy transferred to another object? Special Materials: Toilet paper tubes and marbles, Newton’s cradle (if possible; video would do) Bricks…

unit: Biophysics

Following the example set in the previous unit, we now attempt to bring principles of physics to bear on the most complex systems of all: biological systems. Is it possible to describe living systems, or even small pieces of living systems, with the same concepts developed elsewhere in our ramble through physics? We begin with…

unit: Interview with Charles Kolb

…sun provides a lot of energy to the atmosphere in the form of photons. And these photons can start chemical reactions, initiate chains of chemical reactions that can turn relatively benign chemicals into chemicals that are significantly less benign. It can also turn gas-based chemicals into small particles which we now know can have a…

lesson: Material Cycles in Ecosystems: A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. What is an Ecosystem? Matter and Life The SPONCH CaFe Building Bodies Material Cycles Scientist at Work Curriculum Resources…

video: The Wave-Particle Duality of Light (animation)

Light is best described as having “wave-particle duality.” However it is called, wave-like electromagnetic radiation or particle-like photons, light results from the same phenomenon: energy can be detected when electrons drop down to a lower energy state….

section: Classifying Living Things | A Closer Look

Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Classifying Living Things CO2 and O2 Taxonomic Classification Teaching Tips Scientist at Work Curriculum Resources…

section: Public Policy and the Federal Budget — Student Perspectives

Leslie Martin’s Students At the time these students were interviewed, they were ninth-graders at West Forsyth High School in Clemmons, North Carolina, which is a suburb of Winston-Salem. They were near the end of an honors-level two-semester course on U.S. government, civics, and economics, taught by Leslie Martin. The students discuss their experience creating a…

section: Art: Early Spring

…employed the same kinds of brush strokes that calligraphers used to inscribe scrolls. The resultant lines suggest dormant energy swirling beneath the surface of the picture. The natural forces that these lines evoke are maintained in harmonious equilibrium by a composition that carefully balances mountain and water; one could not exist without the other. Guo…

section: Expert Interview Transcripts: Anna-Louise Reysenbach, PhD

Microbial Ecologist Reysenbach is a microbial ecologist with special interests in the ecology of terrestrial and deep-sea hydrothermal vents, and in the evolution of biogeochemical cycles. She teaches the core microbiology course at Portland State University, as well as courses in Microbial Ecology and Microbial Diversity….

video: Modern Materials and the Solid State: Crystals, Polymers, and Alloys

While chemical reactions in gases and liquids are essential to the understanding of chemistry, the chemistry of solid-state materials characterizes most of the interactions we have with matter on a daily basis. Chemists take advantage of the complexity of solids to engineer new materials, including nanoparticles, polymers, and advanced metal alloys. These new materials have…

video: The Behavior of Atoms: Phases of Matter and the Properties of Gases

This program explores the phases of matter—solids, liquids, and gases—and how particles in a given phase interact with each other. Phase diagrams explain at what temperature and pressure a given substance will be in a solid, liquid, or gas phase. Practical problems, like how to safely store enough hydrogen gas to power an automobile, are…

lesson: Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)

…reforms separated her from many members of the Transcendentalists, who tended to focus most of their energy on abstract theories or personal experience. Fuller carried her interest in reform to Europe in 1846, when the Tribune sent her there as one of America’s first foreign correspondents. Traveling through England, France, and Italy, Fuller met important…

lesson: Interactive Activity: 5-Question Survey

…B. The particles of sugar spread out in the water. C. The sugar was destroyed; only the taste is left. D. The solid sugar particles turned into a liquid. E. The sugar particles were torn apart by energy released by the water molecules. Survey Question 2 A person claims that diamonds and the graphite in…

section: Art: Shiva Vinadhara (Holder of the Lute)

…festivals and other public ceremonies. While not considered gods themselves, the figures were believed to be capable of embodying divine energy. Through puja, the enactment of certain rituals and prayers, the spirit of the deity was invoked to enter the statue. In this way, the sculpture facilitated darshan, direct visual communication between viewer and deity….

video: What Is Matter?: Properties and Classification of Matter

…not matter? Matter is one of the big ideas in science. Most areas in physical science can be discussed and explained in terms of matter or energy, and matter is a subject that naturally bridges to the other sciences (chemistry, life, earth science, etc.). In this session, we’ll build a working definition of matter, learn…

section: Online Textbook

unit: Earth’s Changing Climate

unit: Emergent Behavior in Quantum Matter

This unit takes an approach to physics that differs markedly from much of what we have encountered in previous units. Rather than cataloging the elementary components of matter, we look at what happens at the macroscopic scale when the interactions of these components with one another and their environment lead to entirely new—emergent—behavior. After introducing…

lesson: Booker T. Washington (c. 1856-1915)

…in 1915, Washington devoted much of his considerable energy and talent to establishing and maintaining Tuskegee as a prestigious black-run institution. Working with little money and few resources, he managed to transform the school from a small college of thirty students into a respected institution with an endowment of $2 million, a staff of two…

section: Scientists

…Spengler’s objective is to construct the framework for linking zoning, purchases and practices, construction and appliance specifications, and pricing and tax strategies to energy and pollution consequences. He believes that the concepts of pollution prevention, environmental cost accounting, risk-reducing based decision making and life-cycle analysis have to mature from academic concerns to functional activities within…

section: Art: St. Peter’s Basilica and St. Peter’s Square

…had fallen further into a state of ruin and disrepair. In 1417, the Great Schism came to an end with the election of Martin V (r. 1417–31). Martin and his successors to the papal crown invested great energy and resources in attempts to restore power to the Church and glory to the city of Rome….

unit: Build a Solar Oven

Grade 3-5 learners will be guided through a series of challenges that follow the engineering design cycle. Join NASA on an adventure through solving an engineering challenge to create an oven using the energy from the sun. DESIGN CHALLENGE To design and build a solar box cooker, and test it to see if it works…

lesson: Animal Life Cycles: Children’s Ideas

…matter and energy, it responds to its environment, and it carries DNA. 8. “Nature” makes offspring resemble parents. Offspring resemble their parents because each parent contributes hereditary information – DNA – that is used to create that offspring. Before children understand that parents transfer hereditary information via a physical structure – the molecule DNA –…

section: Civic Engagement — Other Lessons

…the community has been defined, students choose a problem on which to focus their energy. One way to begin this part of the process is to add to the list the students created from the Draw Your Community lesson. Encourage them to expand their list by brainstorming responses to the question, “What are significant problems…

section: Extend Your Knowledge | Building Comprehension

…word or group of words. Excerpted from Soalt, J. “Bringing Together Fictional and Informational Texts to Improve Comprehension.” The Reading Teacher 58, no. 7 (2005): 680-681. If there are too many words that a reader does not know, he or she will have to spend too much mental energy figuring out the unknown word(s) and…

lesson: Children’s Ideas

…current. In everyday language, electricity is a loosely used, catch-all term for both. In the more precise language of science, it might be defined as a form of energy generated by friction, induction, or chemical change that is caused by the presence of forces between the charged particles of which matter is composed. In static…

section: Art: The Creation of Adam

…robust. Whether or not this is evidence of a learning curve on the part of the artist as some scholars suggest, the increasingly dynamic energy of these figures activates the space, culminating when it reaches the altar, where the most sacred rite of Christianity, the Eucharist, was performed. The figures on the Sistine ceiling reflect…

video: How a Spark Plug Functions in an Engine (animation)

Spark plugs control the timing of the chemical reaction inside an engine. If the spark plug ignites too soon, heat from the reaction will be lost to the cylinder walls before it can move the piston. If the spark happens too late, not all of the energy is extracted, resulting in hotter exhaust gas and…

unit: Scientists

…Studies in Energy and the Environment (MCE2) in La Jolla, California and principal research scientist at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Molina’s research interests include molecular spectroscopy, chemical kinetics, and atmospheric chemistry. She has been involved in particular with the chemistry of stratospheric ozone depletion…

section: Art: The City Rises

…of Modern Art, Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY When F.T. Marinetti founded the Futurist movement in 1909, it was largely literary in nature. The following year, however, Umberto Boccioni was a central figure in articulating the ideas underpinning the visual arts component. Futurist painters were interested in technological progress and the energy of the urban…

unit: Interview with Featured Scientist Lene Hau

…There are very non-intuitive phenomena in quantum mechanics that are just like weird. It’s like does nature really behave like this? Then there was also that I had this interest in mathematics and the fact that you can sort of use very mathematical tools to figure out what the allowed energy levels for an electron…

section: Art: The New York City Waterfalls

…projects that might impact the cultural life of New York. Like Eliasson, most of these artists create site-specific pieces that respond and bring new energy to the existing environment. In this way, public art projects such as the Waterfalls prompt inhabitants of the city to look at the urban landscape in new, different, and thought-provoking…

lesson: Henry James (1843-1916)

…his familial and social ties, James spent much of his time alone at his writing desk. He never married, and he poured most of his emotional energy into his work. Scholars traditionally have divided James’s career into three phases: a lengthy apprenticeship (1864-81), the middle years (1882-95), and his major phase (1896-16). James first achieved…

section: Compare: How Can Art Facilitate Communication With the Divine?

…W: 6 1/2 in (16.5 cm.), D: 4 in. (10.2 cm.) Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, New York, NY Credit: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art How can art facilitate communication with the divine? In many religions, art and architecture have been used to concentrate spiritual energy or force in one…

section: #2573 Generating Power

#2573 A woman sits in profile on a stationary bicycle in the foreground of the image. Her profile orientation and placement indicate she is the focus of the image….

unit: Build a Solar Oven

Middle school learners will be guided through a series of challenges that follow the engineering design cycle. Join NASA on an adventure through solving an engineering challenge to create an oven using the energy from the sun. OBJECTIVE To demonstrate an understanding of the Engineering Design Process while utilizing each stage to successfully complete a…

unit: Build a Solar Oven

K-2 Learners will be guided through a series of challenges that follow the engineering design cycle. Join NASA on an adventure through solving an engineering challenge to create an oven using the energy from the sun. OBJECTIVE To demonstrate an understanding of the Engineering Design Process while utilizing each stage to successfully complete a team…

section: Focus in on this Photo: Generating Power

#2573 A woman sits in profile on a stationary bicycle in the foreground of the image. Her profile orientation and placement indicate she is the focus of the image….

section: Interview with Chris Field

…They use the energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrates into plant. We also know that on an annual basis plant growth and plant decomposition are approximately balanced. Under the conditions that we impose, there are lots of reasons to think that this balance – between uptake through photosynthesis and loss through decomposition…

section: Art: The Scream

…reduced down to the essence of acute anguish. The two smaller figures in the back left are sketched quite loosely, but still appear more completely human. The artist’s active and dynamic use of curving lines and strong colors give the composition an intense energy. What The Scream portrays is not a dream, but a nightmare….

lesson: Bottle Biology

Bottle Biology Spotlight The Bottle system that has been designed to accompany Session 7 – Energy Flow in Communities – and Session 8 – Material Cycles in Ecosystems – is called the “EcoColumn.” In this system, an aquatic and terrestrial community are linked together in one bottle system. The organisms within include producers, consumers, and…

section: Art: Royal Crown (adènlà)

…help seal in spiritual forces. Thus, wrapping the physical head—the container of a person’s “inner head,” seat of their áse or “essence”—in a beaded crown serves to intensify that individual’s spiritual energy. Because of their mediatory properties—their ability to refract and reflect light—beads are considered especially appropriate decorations for figures such as rulers, diviners, and…

List of Recent Series Discontinuations

…in Science Reactions in Chemistry Science in Focus: Energy Science in Focus: Force and Motion Seasons of Life Surprises in Mind The World if Chemistry (check out our newer series Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions) STUDENT INTERACTIVES Math in Daily Life Metric Conversions Statistics Historical and Cultural Contexts Literature Cinema Collapse DNA Garbage Volcanoes Weather The…

section: Art: Barong Mask

…items among foreign collectors, to the Balinese they are much more than objects of aesthetic merit. Every Balinese village has a Barong that it considers its guardian. The Barong mask is a means of both giving the spirit tangible form and harnessing its energy. Stored in the village temple, the mask is brought out on…

lesson: Interactive Activity: 5-Question Survey

…because a new substance was formed. B. less than before because some matter was destroyed. C. less than before because some matter was turned into energy. D. the same as before. Survey Question 4 4. Forty-five grams of vinegar and five grams of baking soda are combined in a cup on a scale. After 10…

video: The Chemistry of Highlighting Hair (animation)

Hair has a small molecule called “melanin,” which is responsible for its color. Changing the oxidation state of melanin will change its light absorption properties. After the melanin molecules in hair are oxidized through bleaching, they only absorb the highest energy visible light, mainly violet. The rest of the light is reflected, which gives a…

section: Part B: Data Measurement and Variation (65 minutes)

…permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Problem B8 1. Ask a Question Should nuclear power be developed as an energy source? 2. Collect Data Twenty-five people completed the following questionnaire:             The responses were as follows:                       a. For Questions 1,…

section: Art: Gela Mask (The Ancient One)

…the bush. The Wee are known as healers for their skilled used of forest plants with medicinal value. These same plants provide leaves that are pounded, mixed with water, and applied to the gela mask in a ritual of activation. The mask is, thus, invested with the spiritual power and vital energy of the forest….

unit: Put Put Boat

MIDDLE SCHOOL – LEVEL 3 Steam engines are external combustion engines that perform mechanical functions, using steam as their working fluid. The Put-Put boat is a an experiment in steam power. Using simple materials that are easily sourced, you can build a miniature steam boat that will propel itself around a body of water. MATERIALS…

video: Journey to the West

This video introduces you to the Stone Monkey King, a whirlwind of willful energy, egomaniacal pride, and zany humor who is forced by Buddha himself to pair up with a humble, peaceful Buddhist monk and get him safely to India. The wide range of art that Monkey’s story has inspired is on display in this…

video: Markets (Microeconomics)

The return of U.S. troops from overseas following World War II created a massive demand for cheap housing. Rising labor and energy costs in the United States in the ’60s and ’70s forced domestic steel manufacturer NUCOR to find ways to lower production costs. In 2009, rookie pitcher phenomenon Stephen Strasburg signed the largest rookie…

lesson: Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

…the advent of literary voices that were powerful, new, and strange. In the years before the outbreak of World War I, Pound moved from one short-lived literary movement to another, sometimes as a leader, sometimes as an appropriator of ideas originated by others. Imagism and vorticism especially felt the impact of his presence, energy, and…

video: Ketoacidosis (animation)

Ketoacidosis occurs when the cells in the body cannot take up glucose efficiently. To stay alive, the cells look for energy from other sources such as fats and amino acids. When these break down, the products produce a large amount of acid that has to be eliminated from the body. When somebody comes into the…

section: Art: Saint George and the Dragon

…curving lines of leafy branches and dappled sunlight, the forest exudes anxious energy. A primeval testing ground for the saint, it is at once a sinister and dangerous world of monsters and an untainted source of purity and strength. Altdorfer, thus, approaches the idea that the forest itself might be a character worthy of representation…

lesson: Children’s Ideas About Matter

…of energy. Its scientific meaning is probably closest in meaning to the familiar words “stuff” or “material.” Until they learn this meaning in school or elsewhere, younger children may have everyday connotations for the term matter. Some examples are synonyms such as “issue, ” as in “a matter of…” or the verb form “to matter,”…

Waves: Sound

A series of activities for elementary age students to explore the world of sound, energy, and waves through fun games, and experimentation. Related Materials include: Objectives Lesson Matrix Modified Template for “Hearing Sound” Modified Template for Amplitude POE…

section: Art: Ruins of the White Temple and Ziggurat

…bounty to expend energy on non-essential activities, the civilization at Uruk established specialized fields of labor and introduced major cultural innovations, including the pictographs from which cuneiform writing later developed. Monumental architecture decorated with mosaics of painted clay cones also began to appear at this time. Like other early cities, Uruk was associated with a…

lesson: John Woolman (1720-1772)

…tailoring, dealing in retail goods, managing a farm, and writing legal documents. The success of his commercial ventures eventually gave Woolman cause for concern; he worried that the time and energy he devoted to his business was interfering with his faithfulness to the callings of God. True to his conscience, he deliberately scaled back his…

video: Productivity (Macroeconomics)

In the 1970s, businesses struggled with rising energy costs, newly imposed environmental regulations, and inflation that contributed to the slowing of productivity. By 1980, a new group of economists called “supply-siders” were calling for government deregulation to spur productivity, amidst great objections from Democrats and some economic experts. Some thought that productivity was at an…

video: Spontaneous vs Nonspontaneous Reactions (animation)

In an oxidation-reduction reaction, sometimes the process by which one element gives off an electron and another one takes happens spontaneously. Other times, it’s nonspontaneous. In this case, when reactants are mixed together, they don’t really want to transfer electrons to each other and energy needs to be applied to drive the reaction forward….

video: How the Battery Works (animation)

The batteries provide energy through a spontaneous chemical reaction called oxidation-reduction, or redox, which involves a transfer of electrons. During this process, one substance must gain electrons, which we call reduction, while another loses electrons, which we call oxidation. This movement of electrons creates an electric current which can power a device.

section: Online Textbooks

program: Garbage: The Science and Problem of What We Throw Away

Introduction Each person in the United States generates five or more pounds (2.3 kilograms) of waste a day: about the weight of a medium bag of sugar. More than half of that garbage is buried and stored in landfills. Increasingly, however, cities are promoting recycling programs, often getting schools involved so students can learn about…

unit: Macroscopic Quantum Mechanics

The fundamentals of quantum mechanics that we met in Unit 5 characteristically appear on microscopic scales. Macroscopic quantum systems in which liquids, or electric currents, flow without friction or resistance have been known since the early part of the previous century: these are the superfluids and superconductors of traditional condensed matter physics that are discussed…

section: Online Textbook

unit: Looking Forward: Our Global Experiment

unit: Online Textbook

section: Session Author and Literary Works: Mourning Dove

Mourning Dove Photo courtesy of Jay Miller Author Bio Mourning Dove is the literary name of Christine Quintasket, an Okanogan from the Colville Reservation in eastern Washington state. Born between 1882 and 1888, she is considered one of the first female Native American novelists for her work Cogewea, the Half-Blood (1927). An activist for Indian…

video: Contemporary History

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Stuart B. Levy, M.D.

Scientist, Environmental Defense Dr. Levy is a professor of Molecular and Microbiology and a professor of Medicine at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts where he researches the Tetracycline Efflux Protein. He is also the President of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, which is an organization that aims to promote responsible and appropriate…

section: Online Textbook

lesson: A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Three Scales of Temperature Why do We Need Heated Towel Racks?…

section: Online Textbook

unit: Atmosphere

section: Scientists

Content Developer Daniel P. Schrag Daniel Schrag is professor of Earth and planetary sciences and environmental engineering at Harvard University and the director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment. Schrag studies climate and climate change over the broadest range of Earth history. Schrag received a B.S. from Yale in 1988. He majored in…

video: Expectations for Success: Motivation and Learning

“A lot of times people think about motivation as something that the student has – she’s either motivated or un-motivated. But we actually know that motivation is a function of what happens in classrooms. The way teachers construct tasks, the way they let students know about their competence, the way they scaffold and support developing…

video: Learning As We Grow: Development and Learning

“As children develop, the ways in which they learn change. If teachers are tuned to those sequences of development, then they can be more thoughtful about how they design their lessons, how they pace instruction, how they move kids along from one concept to the next. Doing these things will build students’ ability to think…

unit: Manipulating Light

This unit continues to develop the theme of the practical and foundational effects of quantum mechanics. It focuses on the experimental achievements in reducing the speed of light by factors of tens of millions and covers some of the implications of that research. The first section emphasizes the critical role that the speed of light…

video: Organizing Ideas from Multiple Sources

Lynn Gilbert helps students create a graphic organizer for multiple resources and various types of texts; her ultimate goal is to support students as they write an argumentation essay using claim, evidence, and warrant. Teacher: Lynn Gilbert School: Conrad Ball Middle School, Loveland, CO Grade: 7 Discipline: Science Lesson Topic: Using a graphic organizer to…

unit: Design a Lunar Thermos

Grade 3-5 learners will be guided through a series of challenges that follow the engineering design cycle. Join NASA on an adventure through solving an engineering challenge to design a thermos to keep water warm in space. Each step of the engineering design cycle will be performed by the learner. OBJECTIVE To demonstrate an understanding…

lesson: Journey to the Earth’s Interior | A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Igneous Rocks Mapping Earth’s Interior…

unit: Introduction

Introduction To Online Text By Christopher Stubbs  …

video: Human Population Dynamics Video

     …

section: Online Textbook

section: Civic Engagement — Lesson Plan

The Lesson Plan section contains everything you will need to fully understand the featured lesson. It has the following sections: Context presents background information on the teacher, the school, and the course in which the lesson was taught; Lesson-Specific Standards identifies the national standards from the Center for Civic Education and the National Council for…

unit: Baking Soda Bottle Rocket

MIDDLE SCHOOL – LEVEL 2 A rocket is a missile or craft that is propelled by the thrust from a rocket engine. Rocket engines work by action and reaction and propel rockets forward by releasing exhaust in the opposite direction at high velocity. Harnessing the gas from the reaction of baking soda and vinegar, we…

lesson: Featured Classroom: Paula Proctor; Worcester, MA

Paula Proctor; Worcester, MA “I want there to be a dialogue of science in this school. From my point of view as a facilitator that means that I am constantly looking for new ways to interact with teachers and students about science”   School at a Glance: Roosevelt School Worcester, MA Grades: PreK-6 Enrollment: 661…

unit: Human Population Dynamics

unit: Gravity

Although by far the weakest of the known forces in nature, gravity pervades the universe and played an essential role in the evolution of the universe to its current state. Newton’s law of universal gravitation and its elegant successor, Einstein’s theory of general relativity, represent milestones in the history of science and provide the best…

unit: Dark Matter

Most of the mass in galaxies like our own Milky Way does not reside in the stars and gas that can be directly observed with telescopes. Rather, around 90 percent of the mass in a typical galaxy is “dark matter,” a substance that has so far evaded direct detection. How can scientists make this astonishing…

video: Teaching Content Through Literacy

Lynn Gilbert helps students discern fiction from nonfiction text and to determine which is easier to read in the context of science literacy. Teacher: Lynn Gilbert School: Conrad Ball Middle School, Loveland, CO Grade: 7 Discipline: Science Lesson Topic: Using a graphic organizer to explore nonfiction text; the connection between photosynthesis and deforestation Lesson Month:…

unit: Magnetic Train

MIDDLE SCHOOL – LEVEL 3 “Maglev” trains, short for “magnetic levitation,” are a type of train being used in some places that replace traditional steel rails and wheels with magnetic propulsion. These trains use two sets of magnets, one to repel the train off the track making it levitate, and the other to propel it…

section: Native Voices – Activities

video: Tackling a Scientific Text

Tracy Tran discusses the importance of encouraging students not to shy away from dense scientific text. Teacher: Tracy Tran School: The Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, New York, NY Grade: 12 Discipline: Science (Environmental Science) Lesson Topic: What is an abstract? Lesson Month: March Number of Students: 28 Other: This is a college-preparatory…

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Kari Stefansson, M.D.

CEO and Chairman of the Board, DeCode Genetics CEO and the Chairman of the Board of DeCode Genetics in Iceland. The company takes advantage of 1,000 years of genealogical records kept by the Icelandic people, and of the willingness of Icelanders to make their DNA available to the company for study of genetic patterns in…

unit: Design a Lunar Thermos

K-2 Learners will be guided through a series of challenges that follow the engineering design cycle. Join NASA on an adeventure through solving an engineering challenge to design a thermos to keep water warm in space. Each step of the engineering design cycle will be performed by the learner. OBJECTIVE To demonstrate an understanding of…

section: Electoral Politics — Student Perspectives

The students whose interview comments are excerpted below were enrolled in Jose Velazquez’s Law in Action course at University High School in Newark, New Jersey, when this program was videotaped. Here they discuss their experiences participating in the Student Voices Project, in which they identified and researched issues of importance to youth, studied the positions…

unit: Microbial Diversity

Microbial diversity far surpasses that of other organisms on Earthmovers. This unit examines recent studies of microbes including extremophiles, the comparisons of Bacteria and Archaea, the formation and life cycle of biofilms, and the myriad ways that microbes impact our lives and our planet. ONLINE TEXTBOOK The online textbook chapters support and extend the content…

lesson: Animal Life Cycles: A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Body Cell Reproduction Sex Cell Production Cloning The Incredible Egg Teaching Tips: DNA Extraction Scientist at Work Curriculum Resources…

unit: Reading In Science

video: Reading and Writing Scientific Abstracts

Tracy Tran leads students in learning how to write a scientific abstract by reading and annotating a model and then having students try one on their own. Teacher: Tracy Tran School: The Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, New York, NY Grade: 12 Discipline: Science (Environmental Science) Lesson Topic: What is an abstract? Lesson…

section: Expert Interview Transcript: G. David Tilman, PhD

G. David Tilman, PhD Professor of Ecology; Director, Cedar Creek Natural History Area Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota, and Director of the Cedar Creek Natural History Area. Tilman studies patterns in the biological diversity, structure and dynamics of plant (and sometimes insect) communities, as well as the effects of…

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Peter H. Raven, PhD

Peter H. Raven, PhD Director, Missouri Botanical Garden Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and one of the world’s leading botanists and advocates of conservation and biodiversity. He is a past president and chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a recipient of the esteemed National Medal of…

lesson: A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Chemical Vs. Physical Change Chemical Reactions in the Video Are All Atoms the Same? Where Does the “Weight” Go?…

video: Making Molecules: Lewis Structures and Molecular Geometries

Molecules can form when atoms bond together by sharing electrons and can be represented by a useful shorthand called Lewis Structures. These visual representations provide information to predict the three-dimensional shapes of molecules using valence shell electron pair repulsion (“VSEPR”) theory. Understanding how atoms bond within molecules provides insight into cell replication. Building on this…

video: Living With Earth, Part II

video: Teaching Dance

Second-graders at P.S. 156 in Brooklyn, New York, learn a West African dance called “Sunu.” Two teachers with contrasting training and teaching approaches bring rich dance experiences to students at their arts-based schools: At Lusher Alternative Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, lifelong dancer and dance educator Kathy DeJean works with an auditioned troupe of…

video: The New City

lesson: What Is Life? | A Closer Look

Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the on-screen icon. Cells Organic Molecules Extremophiles Teaching Tips Scientist at Work Curriculum Resources  …

video: Music and Technology

section: Additional Photograph Resources

Here you will find a list of links to common digitized photograph and photographic ephemera collections for both humanities and science-based topics, primarily from the United States. Local libraries and historical societies are also a great place to access photographs that connect to both local and national history. Local science museums may also have digitized…

video: The Transformative Power of Music

unit: Design a Lunar Thermos

Middle school learners will be guided through a series of challenges that follow the engineering design cycle. Join NASA on an adventure through solving an engineering challenge to design a thermos to keep water warm in space. Each step of the engineering design cycle will be performed by the learner. OBJECTIVE To demonstrate an understanding…

lesson: Featured Classroom: Melissa Minnick, Walkersville, MD

Melissa Minnick, Walkersville, MD “I think that when we teach life science with a hands-on constructivist method, we will bring these children’s world to them. Then they start to make the connections that we want them to make. Then they start to do that investigative thinking and that scientific thinking, and make the connections from…

section: Public Policy and the Federal Budget — Teacher Perspectives

Teacher Perspectives: Leslie Martin Leslie Martin teaches a two-semester course on economic, legal, and political systems to ninth-grade students at West Forsyth High School in Clemmons, North Carolina. The course is called a freshman seminar in recognition of the fact that more than half of these students are considered gifted. These interview excerpts relate to…

section: #2554

section: Online Textbook

section: #2594

section: #2593

section: #2548

section: #2511

section: #2506

video: Pulling It All Together: Creating Classrooms and Schools That Support Learning

“As our standards go up, as we aim to educate all kids effectively, we need to put together all of the pieces of learning theory that we’ve acquired over this last century into settings where kids are supported – where they’re scaffolded, where they’re challenged, where they’re motivated, where they have the opportunity to learn…

video: Discussion Strategies

“The genuine foundation is a love and passion for story and the knowing that story brings about a place for kids to find their way in, a way of expressing themselves… So I read good books and share them, and I listen to kids tell me about them. That’s the natural element for a good…

Extra: Pencil Beam Scanning

Extra #2: Pencil Beam Scanning Ethan Cascio and Harald Paganetti describe pencil beam scanning—their proton therapy research, which will change the way of delivering a therapeutic beam of radiation to the patient. Video Transcript…

section: Civic Engagement — Teacher Perspectives

Bill Mittlefehldt teaches human geography, a social studies elective, to juniors and seniors at Anoka High School in Anoka, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities. During the nine-week course, students work in teams on a service-learning project in which they identify a community issue related to their curriculum, select a community partner whose work…

video: Breathing Life Into Myths

PROGRAM AT A GLANCE School Mineral Springs Middle School Location Winston-Salem, NC Grade 8 Disciplines Visual Art, Language Arts Description Students create ceramic place settings based on literary characters. HELEN SCHELL, 6th-Grade Language Arts Teacher I’m trying to immerse the children in the idea that mythology and Greek culture permeate our day-to-day life. I chose…

lesson: A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Scientific Models Scaling Analogies Microscopic Reasons for Macroscopic Properties…

video: International Trade (International)

The U.S. auto industry lost a lot of mileage in 1973 with the rise of the more efficient Japanese imports. In the 1970s, the “trigger/price mechanism” was developed in order to differentiate between fair and unfair trade practices. Debate over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) included accusations that American jobs would suffer and…

video: Learning From Others: Learning in a Social Context

“Vygotsky understood that all learning is social – that we don’t actually end up doing most of our learning all by ourselves in our own heads; that we work with others, we assist one another to learn. Teachers can help students learn by consciously teaching within their zone of proximal development – right in that…

unit: Agriculture

workshop: Creating a Multi-Arts Performance Piece

Learner Team members MaryFrances Perkins, Lokita Glover, and Thomas Raphael work out the action for their group’s performance. In Program 4, Learner Teams apply knowledge gained in Programs 1–3 to create a multi-arts performance piece based on Quidam. Viewers will use what they have learned to create a similar piece based on Maurice Sendak’s Where…

unit: Ecosystems

video: Starting Out

“My job is to circulate and re-motivate kids when they stall [and] challenge them to take further steps in the discussion. Hopefully…I can keep them discussing and enjoying a poem; it helps push them to a higher level of understanding.” Jonathan Holden, 4th-Grade Teacher Nathan Hale Elementary School Roxbury, Massachusetts Students often don’t know how…

video: Exploring Our Town

PROGRAM AT A GLANCE School Hilltown Cooperative Charter School Location Haydenville, MA Grade 7, 8 Disciplines Theatre Music Visual Art Social Studies Language Arts Description Students delve into Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town. The Integrated Instruction Daniel Klatz, Education Coordinator Arts integration is part of how we conceive of learning in our school. So we…

video: Feelings Count: Emotions and Learning

“How students feel affects whether and how they can learn. If they’re anxious or fearful they’re not going to be able to take in information. Teachers not only can learn to create a safe environment they can learn to develop emotional intelligence. The students actually gain the skills of managing their emotions, solving conflicts, and…

section: Patriotism and Foreign Policy — Student Perspectives

The students whose interview comments are excerpted below were seniors in a one-semester course in U.S. government at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a magnet high school in Washington, D.C. Here they discuss their experiences creating a Museum of Patriotism and Foreign Policy.

unit: Bottle Flute

MIDDLE SCHOOL – LEVEL 1 The flute is a musical instrument in the woodwinds family. It is unique in its category of instruments because it’s reedless and produces sound by the flow of air across an opening. The bottle flute is easy to make, fun to play, and will fit right in with our recycled…

video: Online Textbook and Video

This online textbook chapter supports and extends the content of the Evolution and Phylogenetics video. The chapter covers the evolution of phylogenetics as a field of study.

video: Population and Resource Distribution

Video Summary: How are resources divided among the world’s population? Who are the “haves” and the “have nots”? What is life like for each group? What actions can citizens of the world take to rectify inequities? To help her students understand the complex issues surrounding the distribution of resources throughout the world, Becky Forristal uses…

unit: Different Learners, Different Minds

video: Online Textbook and Video

section: Freedom of Religion — Student Perspectives

Kristen Borges’s students The students whose interview comments are excerpted here were enrolled in a ninth-grade civics class at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when this program was videotaped. Here they discuss their experiences role-playing as lawyers and Supreme Court Justices in a mock trial of a Supreme Court case dealing with the First…

section: Freedom of Religion — Teacher Perspectives

Kristen Borges, who majored in political science and has a Master’s degree in social sciences, has been teaching at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for the last six years. In these interview excerpts, which were taped when her class was involved in a simulation of a Supreme Court trial on a First Amendment case,…

lesson: Evolution and the Tree of Life: A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Classifying Reptiles Identifying Species Vertebrate Evolution Building a Tree of Life Scientist at Work Curriculum Resources…

video: Biophysics – Video

section: Controversial Public Policy Issues — Teacher Perspectives

JoEllen Ambrose, who has been teaching social studies for 23 years, teaches law to seniors at Champlin Park High School in Champlin, Minnesota. In these interview excerpts, she talks about her approach to discussing controversial issues in the classroom. The particular issue her class debated was racial profiling. The discussion was governed by a formal…

section: Commentary

video: Encouraging Discussion

Introduction “They [students] need to hear what other kids think and that builds on the layers of what they each are thinking and it makes them ask questions.” Linda Rief 8th Grade Teacher, Oyster River Middle School Durham, New Hampshire We learn best by contemplating and synthesizing new information. By turning over new concepts in…

section: Slavery and Freedom – Activities

section: Poetry of Liberation – Activities

section: Gothic Undercurrents – Activities

video: Online Textbook and Video

This online textbook chapter supports and extends the content of the Cell Biology and Cancer video. The chapter covers cancer causes and treatments, and tumor biology and angiogenesis. Click on the Go button to begin reading, or skip to a sub-section of the chapter in the list below….

video: Poetry of Liberation

For many, the 1960s mark the true end of modern America. Whereas the modernists remained serious about the transcendent nature of art, the artists of the 1960s wanted an art that was relevant. They wanted an art that not only spoke about justice, but also helped create it. This program explores the innovations made in…

section: Civic Engagement — Essential Readings

Standards of Quality for School-Based and Community-Based Service Learning prepared by the Alliance for Service Learning in Education Reform The Alliance for Service Learning in Education Reform is affiliated with the Close-Up Foundation in Alexandria, Virginia. In this article, the Alliance sets out a variety of key principles schools should consider prior to starting a…

section: Civic Engagement — Student Perspectives

The students whose interview comments are excerpted below were juniors and seniors enrolled in a human geography course at Anoka High School in Anoka, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. They each participated in a service learning project in which they were to identify a community problem, select a student partner with a similar interest, identify…

video: Thinking About Thinking: Metacognition

“We can teach children to think about their thinking in ways that help them understand what they know and what they don’t know and what they’d like to learn, and to help them reflect on their learning and to evaluate their work against a continuum that they’re on. All of those kinds of thinking actually…

video: Political Parties: Mobilizing Agents

video: The Body

From painting to sculpture, body art to performance art, the body has figured prominently in the creative expression of nearly all cultures from the beginning of civilization. Through art, the body becomes a site for defining individual identity, constructing sex and gender ideals, negotiating power, and experimenting with the nature of representation itself. All Video…

section: Art: Fa’a fafine: In a Manner of a Woman, Triptych 1

» Shigeyuki Kihara (Japanese-Samoan, b. 1975) Fa’a fafine: In a Manner of a Woman, Triptych 1 Artist / Origin: Shigeyuki Kihara (Japanese-Samoan, b. 1975) Region: Oceania Date: 2004–2005 Period: 1900 CE – 2010 CE Material: Chromogenic print on “Fujicolor Professional Paper” Medium: Prints, Drawings, and Photography Dimensions: H: 23 5/8 in. (60 cm.), W: 31…

video: Transmission: Learning Music

section: The Bhagavad Gita – Getting Started

The Equanimity Called Discipline When you pick up a copy of the Gita, it is encouragingly slim, and the pages are only half-filled with verse. It seems like a quick read, and it can be—but if you really delve into the philosophy of life, death, right and wrong, you’ll find you’re spending a lot more…

video: Death

Death is one of the few experiences common to all people and all societies. But how different people have conceived of death and how those conceptions have shaped their behaviors and practices has varied over time and across cultures. Through art, people have expressed attitudes toward death that are in some respects universal, while in…

unit: Many Planets, One Earth

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Capt. Daniel Carucci, M.D., PhD

Director, NMRC Malaria Program Dr. Carucci is the Director of the Malaria Program at the Naval Medical Research Center where he oversees Navy research efforts on malaria, focusing on vaccine development and novel approaches to protecting individuals from the disease. He is also the Department of Defense coordinator for the Malaria Genome Project, where he…

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Jonathan Eisen, Ph.D.

Assistant Investigator, The Institute for Genomic Research An investigator at the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR). His research interests include DNA repair, extremophiles, and phyogenomics….

unit: Bringing It All Together – Mathematics

Introduction You have now had a number of opportunities to consider what it looks like to incorporate the disciplinary literacy practices of reading, writing, speaking, and listening into mathematics classrooms. As a way to revisit what it means to engage in these disciplinary literacy practices, solve the Harvesting the Field Problem [PDF], drawing on the…

section: Art: Bis Pole

» Asmat artist(s), Omadsep village, New Guinea, Papua (Irian Jaya) Province, Indonesia Bis Pole Artist / Origin: Asmat artist(s), Omadsep village, New Guinea, Papua (Irian Jaya) Province, Indonesia Region: Oceania Date: Late 1950s Period: 1900 CE – 2010 CE Material: Wood, paint, and fiber Medium: Sculpture Dimensions: H: 18 ft. (5.48 m.) Location: The Metropolitan…

video: Teaching Multigenre Writing

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Thomas E. Newberry

Thomas E. Newberry VP, Corp. Communications Mr. Newberry is the Vice President of Corporate Communications at GTC Biotherapeutics in Framingham, MA. He is responsible for GTC’s corporate communication programs – including investor and public relations, media relations, presentations and publications….

lesson: Every Rock Tells a Story | A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more. Sedimentary Rocks Fossils Supercontinents…

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Christopher Wills, Ph.D.

Professor of Biology Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of California at San Diego. He studies intriguing questions about evolution, such as, what is the evolutionary history of sex? Perhaps it originated as the incorporation by cells of exogenous genetic material. He is the author of several books, including Children of Prometheus: the Accelerating…

timeline: Contemporary History – Key Events

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Ajit Varki, M.D.

Director, Glycobiology Research and Training Center Professor of Medicine and Cellular Molecular Medicine and Director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at the University of California at San Diego. He studies the medical and evolutionary applications of glycobiology, the study of glycans, sugar chains that regulate many cellular functions….

video: Making Writing Meaningful

unit: Different Brains

section: Commentary

video: Risk, Reward, Responsibility: Ethics in Business

The numbers are in, and executives at Casablanca Cruise Lines (CCL) discover that the company can save as much as 80 million dollars if asbestos is removed from their ships by a company based in the former Soviet republic of Novastan, rather than by a U.S. company. But the Novastani standards of worker safety are…

section: Search for Identity – Activities

video: Form: The Shape of Music

section: Controversial Public Policy Issues — Student Perspectives

The students whose interview comments are excerpted here were seniors enrolled in a one-semester law course at Champlin Park High School in Champlin, Minnesota. Here they discuss their experience participating in a structured academic controversy on the topic of racial profiling.

video: Science Literacy: Reading and Writing Diagrams

Students use models to explain how the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, and Earth determine Moon phases, eclipses, and tides. They also explore the importance of diagrams in communicating information. Teacher: Mike Viney School: Blevins Middle School, Fort Collins, CO Grade: 8 Discipline: Science Lesson Topic: Moon phases and misleading diagrams Lesson Month: May…

video: Different Kinds of Smart: Multiple Intelligences

“Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, gives us a different framework for teaching and thinking in the classroom, as well as how we think about what people do in life. We rely on lots different abilities to succeed in life. Different people have those abilities differently developed, and using the strengths that we have as…

section: Expert Interview Transcripts: Ned David, Ph.D.

Founder, Syrrx, Inc. Founder of Syrrx, Inc., a proteomics company in San Diego that specializes in x-ray crystallography and determining protein structure for use in drug discovery….

video: Building on What We Know: Cognitive Processing

“We process information, efficiently or inefficiently depending on what the context is, whether we can hook it to what we’ve learned before, whether there’s some advanced organizers that let us know where the information is heading, and we also tend to process differently, some of us more orally, some more visually, some more kinesthetically. If…

video: Monetary Policy (Macroeconomics)

Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker pushed us through two deep recessions using monetary policy and increased interest rates to combat inflation in the 1980s. His successor Alan Greenspan used a different tactic in the early 1990s and 2000s: flood the market with liquidity to prevent freezing. And under Chairman Benjamin Bernanke the Fed has struggled…

video: When Chemicals Meet Water: The Properties of Solutions

The majority of chemical reactions happen in solutions—whether inside an espresso machine or in a human cell. For example, when we breathe, the nitrogen in the air dissolves in our blood. Henry’s Law gives us the power to predict, prevent, and treat “the bends”—a life-threatening condition that can happen to SCUBA divers when nitrogen in…

video: Teaching Theatre

A fifth-grade student’s mask reveals an inner vision of herself, at Barney Ford Elementary School in Denver, Colorado. Two specialist teachers work on basic theatre skills with children of various ages and use theatre education as a gateway to other kinds of learning: At Lusher Alternative Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, theatre teacher Amanda…

video: Waves, Beaches and Coasts

section: #6022 Late Afternoon Shadows at Endeavour Crater on Mars

video: Online Textbook and Video

This online textbook chapter supports and extends the content of the Biodiversity video. The chapter examines our moral responsibilities to catalog and maintain the world’s ecosystems. Click on the Go button to begin reading, or skip to a sub-section in the list below….

unit: The Fundamental Interactions — Video

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section: Authors and Literary Works

video: Earthquakes

video: Stabilization Policy (Macroeconomics)

Between 1982 and 1985, the Fed tightened the money supply to combat inflation, despite rising unemployment. Also in the 1980s, U.S. citizens began to feel the debilitating effects foreign trade would have on job loss. Paul Volker’s monetary policy in the mid-1980s was designed to quell inflation once and for all. However, in the first…

lesson: Interactive Activity: 4-Question Survey

4-Question Survey: Matter The series of questions presented in this activity will help you find out your ideas or your students’ ideas about matter. As highlighted in this video series, when we articulate our misconceptions, we are taking the first step to rectifying them. Surveying is one of many educational strategies that teachers can use…

lesson: Life Span Development

You will learn about some of the biological, cognitive, and psychosocial developments that take place from birth across the life span. As you explore, keep in mind the following questions that are on the forefront of the developmental psychology: How do innate and environmental factors interact? What relationships exist between development in one period of…

video: Public Goods and Responsibility (Microeconomics)

In 1937 the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a government-owned utility company, was created to electrify rural communities and control flooding. 1965 marked the first U.S. attempt at national health insurance in the passage of Medicare and Medicaid. In response to 9/11, the U.S. Transportation and Security Administration replaced private security firms with federal employees. A…

video: Modernist Portraits

Jazz filled the air and wailed against the night. Caught in the sway, American prose writers sought out the forbidden – the slang, the dialects, and the rhythms of the folk and of everyday life. Writers such as Hemingway, Stein, and Fitzgerald forged a new style: one which silhouetted the geometry of language, crisp in…

video: Labor and Management (Microeconomics)

The International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) strike in the early 1900s was inspired by poor working conditions and low wages. In 1984, Congress bailed out the Chrysler Auto company after Chairman Lee Iaccoca and Douglas Fraser, chief of the United Auto Workers, came to an agreement. Why does Walmart choose low prices over high…

unit: Reading: Big Ideas

Introduction Reading is a complex process that involves interactions among the reader, the text, and the context. Meaning does not reside solely on a page of text, with the intent that the reader will extract meaning from that page. Rather, meaning is actively constructed by what the reader brings to the text and how this…

video: Supply and Demand (Microeconomics)

A two-year drought in California in the 1970s motivated areas such as Marin County to conserve by reducing their water consumption by as much as 66 percent. Following the Arab oil embargoes of 1973, the Nixon administration latched onto the world price of “new” oil, encouraging domestic oil suppliers to drill again. Jordache designer jeans…

video: The Firm (Microeconomics)

In 1980, renowned soda company Coca-Cola replaced sugar with high-fructose corn extract in order to lower production costs. In 1963, Studebaker closed its plant, unable to increase sales and take advantage of economies of scale. In the 21st century, printing and publishing company PrintPOD, Inc. avoided increasing domestic labor expenses by tapping into the workforce…

section: Expert Interview Transcript: Richard Huganir, Ph.D.

Professor of Neuroscience; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Richard Huganir, PhD, is a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His laboratory is working to understand the interaction of molecules during long-term potentiation, a neuronal hyperactivity that is thought to underlie learning and memory….

video: One Hundred Years of Solitude

This video introduces the idea of magical realism, of a world where the impossible and the possible are mingled, and people accept the presence of both in their daily lives. How much of the novel is a metaphor for life in Latin America? Decide for yourself as you dive into this novel by the winner…

unit: Telephone Nominal

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – LEVEL 1 “Hello?” Engineer working telephones using the science of sound waves. FUN FACTS This method of communication has been used since 1876, and was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. The record for the longest Telephone-nominal is over 600 feet! About 75 percent of tin cans is recycled each year making it…

lesson: Our Nearest Neighbor: The Moon | A Closer Look

A Closer Look Look for the following topics in the video, indicated by the onscreen icon, and click below to learn more.   Moon Motions Features of the Moon Angular Size Anorthosite…

video: Working With Local Artists

At P.S. 156 in Brooklyn, New York, visiting dance artist Ca This program looks at a successful, ongoing collaboration between P.S. 156, The Waverly School of the Arts, in Brooklyn, New York, and two local organizations — Lotus Music & Dance and the Teachers & Writers Collaborative. Artists from both organizations collaborate with the school’s…

video: Bringing Artists to Your Community

Visiting musician Michael Stanwood works with third-grade teacher Sandi Waitman at Idalia School in Idalia, Colorado. In rural Idalia, Colorado, 150 miles from Denver, two visiting artists work with teachers to enhance learning at tiny Idalia School: Theatre artist Birgitta De Pree involves a kindergarten class in a storytelling activity that engages the imagination while…

video: How People Learn: Introduction to Learning Theory

“Teaching is not simply random, and ad-hock and haphazard; there are some ways to actually shape your work that are likely to be more effective, because they respond to what learners are actually doing, thinking, and experiencing.” Linda Darling-Hammond Key Questions How do people learn? How can learning inform teaching practice? Learning Objectives History of…

video: The Rise of Capitalism

video: Building Community

“One thing I really liked… [was] the fact that all of the groups were working together, and that’s really an important thing when you get in literature discussion groups. [They have to] appreciate and accept other people’s opinions and ideas, and at this age that’s a challenge. It helps us get closer… It builds community…

video: View & Analyze the Video

As you reflect on these questions, write down your responses or discuss them as a group. Before You Watch Respond to the following questions: What is the role of a textbook in your teaching? How do you decide when to supplement or replace textbook activities or content? What opportunities do you give students to practice…

video: Economic Dilemmas and Solutions

Video Summary: How can an exam review bring economic concepts to life? Steve Page’s 12th-grade economics class reviews for an exam by discussing real-life social dilemmas and their effect on the economy, and by developing viable economic solutions to those dilemmas. The class is divided into small groups, and Mr. Page assigns each group a…

video: Psychopathology

Experiment: The Genetics of Schizophrenia Psychopathology is defined as the study of any significant behavioral or psychological syndrome that impairs an individual’s daily functioning in society. The current dialogue among doctors and researchers treating mental disorders explores the intersection of genetics and environment in major mental illnesses. In their study of schizophrenia, a psychotic breakdown…

video: The Natural World

From the earliest times, people have found sustenance and solace, challenge and mystery in the natural world. From representations of animal and vegetable life to landscapes and earthworks, art has been a means by which humans have expressed their awe of, communion with, dependence on, and isolation from nature. Of course, art is never a…

section: Teaching Strategies: Cooperative Learning

Cooperative Learning: The process of cooperative learning involves students working together in small groups on a structured activity. The members of the groups learn to work as a team to accomplish a specific goal, to solve a problem, to complete a project, or to develop a product. Teachers hold students accountable individually, but also assess…

video: Principles of Artful Teaching

In this Program Music A band teacher works with beginning and advanced music students. Visual Art In a visual art foundation class, the teacher takes on different roles in response to varying student needs. Theatre A theatre teacher chooses how active to be as his students explore playwriting, and encourages communication across artistic disciplines. Dance…

video: The Mind Awake and Asleep

Essay: The Anatomy of Dreams “Sleep…knits up the raveled sleave of care.” —William Shakespeare On average, we are asleep for a third of our total life span. In addition to its overall restorative role, sleep also simultaneously engages and restores the brain. Sleep researchers have discovered that the brain is surprisingly active during sleep. Dream…

video: America at Its Centennial

video: Annotating Across Disciplines

Catherine Rohrbaugh teaches students how to take notes and analyze text across different content areas to foster independent learning. Teacher: Catherine Rohrbaugh School: Dillard Drive Middle School, Raleigh, NC Grade: 7 Discipline: Science Lesson Topic: Creating a wet-mount slide Lesson Month: November Number of Students: 28…

video: Online Textbook and Video

This online textbook chapter supports and extends the content of the Genetically Modified Organisms video. The chapter provides details of the procedures used in genetic modification as well as an in-depth analysis of the ethical issues surrounding the issue.

video: Three Leaders at Arts-Based Schools

Assistant Principal Rory Pullens of Smith Renaissance School of the Arts in Denver, Colorado. Administrators of three successful arts-based schools share their insights and practical management strategies: Principal Martha Rodriguez-Torres leveraged her approach to arts-based learning to transform the low-performing P.S. 156 into The Waverly School of the Arts, a source of pride and accomplishment…

video: A New System of Government

section: Art: Meat Joy

» Carolee Schneemann (American, b. 1939) Meat Joy Artist / Origin: Carolee Schneemann (American, b. 1939) Region: North America Date: 1964 Period: 1900 CE – 2010 CE Material: Group performance with raw fish, chickens, sausages, wet paint, plastic, rope, and shredded scrap paper Medium: Video, Installation, and Performance Credit: Courtesy of the artist A pioneering…

unit: Pendulum Painting

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – LEVEL 3 The first scientific experiments on pendulums were conducted around 1602 A.D. by famous scientist Galileo Galilei. Until the 1900s, the pendulum was known as the world’s most reliable timekeeping technology. A pendulum is an object suspended from a point that can swing freely using the force of gravity. By creating…

section: Migrant Struggle – Activities

unit: Conclusion: A Community of Educators

video: Online Textbook and Video

This online textbook chapter supports and extends the content of the Genetics of Development video. The chapter examines how the molecules work to coordinate — or misdirect — the formation of an entire organism. Click on the Go button to begin reading, or skip to a sub-section of the chapter in the list below….

lesson: Brassica & Butterfly System

Brassica & Butterfly System The Brassica & Butterfly System (see building instructions below) will allow you to observe an entire plant life cycle along with an entire animal life cycle over a relatively short time period. The plant, Brassica rapa, is a variety that belongs to the mustard family. It has been selectively bred for…

video: Making Observations Like a Scientist

Catherine Rohrbaugh teaches students how to take notes and analyze text across different content areas to foster independent learning. Teacher: Catherine Rohrbaugh School: Dillard Drive Middle School, Raleigh, NC Grade: 7 Discipline: Science Lesson Topic: Creating a wet-mount slide Lesson Month: November Number of Students: 28…

video: The Professional Teacher

“The conferences I go to, the workshops I attend, and the professional books I read are the greatest part of my learning and after twenty-seven years give me the boost to keep on teaching.” -Rich Thompson, 4th-Grade Teacher Canyon Elementary School, Hungry Horse, Montana Every profession has practitioners and professionals. While practitioners may be skillful…

unit: Man The Catapult!

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL – LEVEL 1 The castle is under siege! Experimenting with up-cycled materials, students will be launching cotton balls at their enemies in no time. Catapults use a lever with tension. A fulcrum is the leverage point for the launching beam of the catapult. By changing the position of the fulcrum, students can alter…