Simple and easy, but great, Physics Demo's for the classroom

Wired has an article that includes some great, easy, simple Physics demos, with descriptions and videos, that can be used by any teacher to demonstrate some Physics concepts. While the demo's are simple, they really show the concept well and can get students more engaged in the topic.

Demo topics include inertia and momentum, light and color, center of mass and friction, acceleration, fluids, circular motion and more. Each demo has a description, the concept behind it, and how to do it.

Wired is also a great site to follow, with technology, science, gadgets, and more among the topics it covers.




Related:

Great Physics Resources for Students and Teachers
Awesome Livebinder of Physics Resources

PowerPoint Palooza - over 220 PowerPoints on History/Social Studies

PowerPoint Palooza is a site that has over 220 PowerPoint presentations from teachers and students on History and Social Studies topics, that you can download and edit and use in your classroom (just give credit to the original creator).

This is a great resource for teachers and students to find some presentations on different topics in history. While I don't advocate teaches do lots of lecture, they can be used effectively in a classroom.

The Science Muse - free resources for teaching science

The Science Muse is a great site for finding science resources to use in class. The resources are organized by grade (K-5 and 6-8), topic (Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science), searchable, lesson of the day, and much more.

There are lesson ideas and resources, lesson plans from other teachers, and much more.

This is a great resource if you teach science in any way in your classroom.

My GCSE Science - science resources for teachers and students

My GCSE Science is a site that has video lessons and resources on Biology, Chemistry and Physics. They were developed for a specific curriculum and program, but can be used by anyone for these topics.

The videos are good and there are notes pages that go with them. The notes pages have images from the video along with space to write your own notes. The video listing has the length of the video also.

They are organized by subject and topic and the videos are hosted on YouTube.

This is good for students to use for review, missed work, and help, and for teachers to use in class or for absent students.

Here's some of the Chemistry and Physics videos. Click on the video or "Learn" to get to the video. "Notes" brings you to the PDF notes for the video.

Notes page example:

Lessonopoly - free lesson resources, connect with other teachers

Lessonopoly is a great, free educational resource cite created to help teachers, with input from teachers. The site has lesson plans and lesson resources from around the web and from teachers, education news, a social media component where you can connect with other educators, and a classroom planner to help you organize your lessons and the materials you use from Lessonopoly. You do have to create a free account to use the planner,

I had previously featured a great resource from Lessonopoly, the Science of NFL Football, and have been going through the site more since then and found some great lesson resources.

This is a great resource to find some great lesson plans and lesson resources for your classes.



Related:

10 Essential Educational Resources for Teachers - my list

BetterLesson - free K-12 lesson plans, materials and resources

Learnboost-online gradebook and lesson planner - announces lesson plan sharing

Teacher Planet - lots of great lesson resources for teachers

25 Free Resources from Discovery Education - including lots of lesson plans and lesson resources. 

Mr. Energy visits my classes and shares some great info

Mr. Energy, aka Gerard Katz, is a former physics teacher who has over 32 years of experience in energy education. He does all kinds of school energy education programs around the country and visited my class last week.

He had contacted me because he was going to be at another school in my district and wanted to come and talk to my physics students. He presented to two of my classes and the students loved him. He's dynamic, energetic, entertaining and highly educational and informative. He even sings to them.

His presentations use live demonstrations, PowerPoint and lots of analogies and relates energy to things the students know. He has different programs, from 45 minutes up to full day programs. He did a great 45 minute presentation for my classes, explaining the concepts of energy, physics behind energy, energy sources, and the future of energy in our world. It is a really great presentation.

The presentation cost us nothing, as Mr. Energy gets his own funding from sources.

His website is The Great American Energy Debate. The site has more information on educational programs, funding, and contact information.

The National Foundation for Energy Education (NFEE) is committed to changing the current energy eduation scene and quadrupling the national level of energy knowledge.  To that end it has developed a unique and entertaining program grounded in science and hinges on student leadership.  The program is The Great American Energy Debate.   Student leaders conduct energy education activities either during the entire school year, or during a month, week, or day.

Awesome Livebinder of Physics Resources

I recently found this Livebinder of Physics Resources. It has resources, lesson materials and activities, links, and more, all organized by Physics units and topics.

It is well organized with some great resources including video clips from the Mythbusters and other fun resources, simulations, and virtual labs.

It is a great resource for teachers or students, especially for a beginning teacher looking for some help getting their lessons organized and finding resources.

Related:

Livebinders - organize materials in online binders

Great Physics Resources for Students and Teachers

Science Scene - collection of resources for physical science and environmental

ScienceScene is a site with some great resources for Physical Science and Environment Science classes.

There are links, useful software to use in the class, news, virtual museums, references and much more.

It is a good place to go for some great ideas to use in these classes.

Pearltree - Ben's Guide to US Government - great resource for K12

Pearltrees is a great, free site I wrote about in January that lets you organize web content in a visual pattern. There is a Chrome browser extension that makes it easy to add sites to your tree. Trees can be shared and even worked on collaboratively.

A member of my PLN (sorry, can't remember who now and I forgot to make a note of it) just shared a great Pearltree: "Ben's Guide to the U.S. Government for Kids."

The resources are sorted by grades: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 and there is a page about Ben and a Parent and Educator section. Each section has information, links and resources about the US Government. This is a great resource for anyone teaching, or learning, about the US Government and how it works. 

Here's the main page for 9-12:

This is a great example of how a tool like Pearltrees can be used to create educational resources for students (or even have students create them as a project)

Real World Math - ideas for using Google Earth in math class

Real World Math is a site with lessons and ideas for using Google Earth in the math classroom. There are lesson ideas, examples, and downloads for math that are based on active learning and project based learning, including analysis and creativity.

The Lessons page has lessons grouped into five categories: Concept Lessons, Project-Based Learning, Exploratory, Measurement and Space.  There is a Community page for teachers to collaborate and share lesson ideas. There is also a Resource page with links to other sites, blogs, or materials that users of Real World Math should find helpful. This will include links to tutorials on Google Earth and SketchUp.

This is a fun and interesting way to teach, and learn, math.






Related:

Yummy Math - making math relevant to the world

British Broadcasting Company - Education Resources

The BBC web site has clips from some of their shows, news, history and tons of resources for educators and students.

BBC Learning - information and resources for adult learners and children.

BBC School - games, video clips, classroom resources and lessons and much more. I very quickly found some great resources to use in my physics classes.

The BBC also has a site with pictures, videos, and more about Mammals.

Interactivate - free activities and lesson resources for Math and Science

 

Interactivate is a collection of free math and science resources, including assessments, lessons, discussions, and activities.

Resources are aligned to NCTM standards and grade levels 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The activities are interactive and there is also a dictionary of science and math terms for students. The activities are well designed and fun and educational.

This is a great resource for educators to use as part of their lessons in class, for students to use as review or self study or to include as part of an online course.

PBS Teachers Activity Packs - free lesson resources for educators

PBS Teachers has some great activity packs for teachers to use with their classes.

They have packs in arts, health and fitness, reading and language arts, science and technology, and social studies.

The activity packs have PBS resources, such as videos of PBS shows like NOVA, web links, and lesson plans for each topic. There are activities for different grade levels also.

These packs are great ways to have a multimedia, project based lesson for your class.

Curriki - social network and resources for educators

Curriki is a social network and resource site for educators. It is a free platform where educators can share resources and teaching ideas. There are over 250,000 members (free to sign up) and over 40,000 learning resources available. 

You can connect with other educators to collaborate and share feedback on teaching practices, curricula, lesson ideas, and more. 

Resources are searchable by subject, search term, and standards. Resources include links, lesson plans, animations, activities, and much more. 

It's another great free resource for educators. 

Kitzu - Find, Learn, Create digital learning resources

Kitzu is a great resource for finding "Digital Kits" for education. These digital kits are zip files packed with resources on the topic. The kits have PDF files with information, summaries, and resources. The kits also have picture files, musics, video (depending on kit) that can be used. The materials are all copyright-safe.

The resources are sorted by grade, K-12, and subject, English/Language Arts, Math, History/Social Science, Dance, Music, Science, Theatre, and Visual Arts.

You find a kit for the grade level and subject area, research the topic, and then create a video or media project using the resources.

This is a great resource for teachers to find lesson ideas and resources, or for students to use to research different topics.

It was developed by the Orange County Department of Education (CA) and anyone can create and submit kits.

Filamentality - search, find and organize learning resources

Filamentality is a free web tool that lets you pick a topic, search for resources online, gather the resources together and then turn them into online learning activities. 

You can use it just for organizing web research or you can use it to create a web-based activity that your students can complete as an activity or assessment. 

It's free, easy to use, and the help and support are excellent. 

Check it out and create a cool online activity now. 

Quickly find free NASA educational resources

NASA Educational Standards Quilts are a quick and easy way to find free NASA educational resources that align to National Math and Science Standards.

The materials are available online for download and print, or you can order copies.

The site starts with a menu of 5 quilts: Space Science, Mathematics, California Science, Girl Scouts, and More Education Resources. They are available online, text version, and an Excel version. The online version is easier to use and interactive. The text and Excel versions have the resource links in each box.

You click on the quilt you are interested in. The online versions take you to another page where you select the grade level (K-4, 5-8, 9-12), area (Science: Science as Inquiry, Technology Connections, Personal/Social Connections, Nature & History of Science, Unifying Concepts and Processes). The grid then has different concepts across the top. In science they have forces, motion, sky, solar system, etc.

The light blue boxes have resources. Click on the box and the resources show on the bottom left of the screen, with a summary of the resource on the right.

In less than 5 minutes I was able to find 22 resources for one lesson for my physics class. It's a great resource for any Science or Math teacher.

Here are a lot more great, free Educational Resources from NASA

The 16 Best Science Visualizations of 2011 - Use to engage students in Science

"The 16 Best Science Visualizations of 2011" is an article on Wired Science that has some great images that can be used to get students engaged and excited about science. 

The visualizations include mouse eye cells, toxic barbs on a cucumber's skin, self-assembling energy storage and more. 

These were selected by the judges based on visual impact, originality and clarity. There are photographs, illustrations, infographics, videos and interactive video games. 

You can find even more of them at the contest site: http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/vis2011/

These images are fascinating and are a great way to get students excited and engaged about science. 

MentorMob - Learn what you want, teach what you love -

MentorMob is an alpha site I just found out about that allows you to create a "learning playlist". The learning playlist is a way of organizing information and resources from the web into one list.

It is free, and easy, to create a learning playlist. You add resources to your playlist from around the web to create an informational resource, a kind of virtual learning book too. For example, there is a Learning Playlist on "How to Root your Android Phone" that starts with an article from a website about rooting and what it is, then a video on YouTube on how to actually do it, and then a different website that has apps and tools you can now use on your rooted phone.

Learning Playlists are shared on the site, so you can look for already created ones or create your own.

This is a great resource for teachers to use as learning resources, "textbooks" and more with their students. Students could create Learning Playlists as a way of showing that they understand a concept by collecting "good" resources about a topic that explain the topic for others.

Give it a try!

Science of NFL Football - free lesson resources

The Science of NFL Football is a free lesson resource from Lessonopoly (a great site in itself). The lessons include video clips and lesson plans that you can use, organized by science topic (trigonometry, physics, health and nutrition, and more). Most of the lessons are rated for grades 5-9, but can be easily adapted for lower or higher grades. The lessons are really good quality.

This is a great way to make your lessons relevant for your students, especially with the SuperBowl coming up this weekend.