As you may know, Oregon has adopted the Next Generation Science Standards and the hope is that all states will too. These standards can be difficult to navigate and we are here to help. This source is here to make it a little easier. National Science Teachers Association has a blog that they hope will connect teachers with helpful lesson plans for these standards. Check it out!
That’s right, Galileo would have been 451 years old today. To celebrate his birthday we thought it would be great to share this article proving his theory true; a heavy item and a light item would reach the ground at the same time in a vacuum. In the video below, they travel to NASA’s space power facility in Cleveland, Ohio to the worlds largest vacuum chamber to prove his point.
We stumbled upon this great activity for middle school science teachers. In this activity students are to learn how to navigate magnetic fields, just like sea turtles do. This great activity only requires a few supplies and is sure to be a hit in the classroom! Check it out by clicking the picture.
The team has expanded upon their awesome project. This week they expanded on their crank. Here is what they had to say about it:
Building on our previous design, we machined an acrylic sheet into an acrylic disc to mount on the generator for easier use (video 1). We then kept building the power generation module so that we could test our other equipment better (photo 1). We disassembled part of the TV to try and test it with our generator, but weren’t generating enough power or had some other issue (photo 2). We managed to cut all of our acrylic for the hydro power module and we tested flame polishing on one of the pieces (photo 3, 4 and video 2). The video game has been further tested and we can successfully use other buttons to play the game! (Although Pac-Man is still really hard) (photo 5). Finally, we made some welding modifications to the base of the generator to make it simpler and more sturdy (video 3). Next, we’ll be building the structures of the modules and finally have something to really show off!
