This online video gallery is from the Museum's Seminars on Science, a series of distance-learning courses designed to help educators meet the new national science standards. Part of the Frontiers in Physical Science seminar, the gallery features two videos, available in broadband and modem formats, and with printable PDF transcripts. Dr. Charles Liu gives a quick look at his research on galaxies and the wide range in galaxy size. Dr. Orsola De Marco provides a brief overview of the "life cycle of stars" and the museum's Scales of the Universe Exhibit.

Students will use knowledge of life cycles to collect evidence of the stages of life a plant goes through.

SSAC Physical Volcanology module. Students build a spreadsheet to examine how magma viscosity varies with temperature, fraction of crystals, and water content using the non-Arrhenian VFT model.

Skipping is a big part of a young studentŐs readiness to move on to other activities, such as reading. This activity will give students opportunities to develop their skipping skills.

SSAC Physical Volcanology module. Students build a spreadsheet to calculate velocity of rising magma in steady-state Plinian eruptions using conservation of mass and momentum.

Students discover the scientific basis for the use of inclined planes. Using a spring scale, a bag of rocks and an inclined plane, student groups explore how dragging objects up a slope is easier than lifting them straight up into the air. Also, students are introduced to the scientific method and basic principles of experimentation. To conclude, students imagine and design their own uses for inclined planes.

Undergraduate Learning Assistants can be used to supplement the instructor and/or Teaching Assistant during recitations. They may help facilitate productive group work on tutorial activities designed to help students develop conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills. In this example, we describe the use of Learning Assistants to support tutorials within recitation in two introductory science courses physics and chemistry.

Overview: In this class challenge, students will be put into teams of two. Each team will be given two sheet of paper, 12” of tape, two rulers, and a two pairs of scissors to construct a creative stand/structure that can hold as many textbooks as possible at least 2” off of the ground.

In this lesson students will identify and describe various feelings, so that they can communicate more effectively.

In this activity, student teams design small-scale physical models of hot and cold planets, (Venus and Mars), and learn that small scale models allow researchers to determine how much larger systems function. There is both a team challenge and competition built into this activity. Experimental findings are then used to support a discussion of human outposts on Mars. The resource includes an experimental design guide for students as well as a handout outlining a method for the design of controlled experiments, and student data sheets. Student questions and an essay assignment are provided as classroom assessments. This is Activity A in the second module, titled "Modeling hot and cold planets," of the resource, "Earth Climate Course: What Determines a Planet's Climate?" The course aims to help students to develop an understanding of our environment as a system of human and natural processes that result in changes that occur over various space and time scales.

During this live chat we discussed the solstice and answered your questions about the Sun.

An overview of the STEM 9 program at Pequea Valley High School in Lancaster County, PA. Most 9th grade learners take this course which teaches Algebra I math concepts via physics concepts and tech ed building.

SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn about the Indigenous first foods of Oregon, discuss the connection between food and climate change, and take action to improve their personal health and the health of the planet.

SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson allows students to explore the history of the Indigenous Peoples of Oregon and how they coped with their food systems under the past and present climate. It also underscores the impact of food production on the climate, how their food choices influence human and environmental health, and proposes strategic measures to mitigate emissions from the food sector and food choices that could improve human and environmental health. All the materials were reviewed, and this lesson has passed our science credibility process.

POSITIVES:
-Students learn about the Indigenous Peoples of Oregon and their food traditions.
-Students feel empowered to make food choices that are better for the planet.

ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES:
-Students should have some awareness of climate change and how it is affecting the Earth. Teacher can show the video Introduction to Climate Change before the lesson.
-Students should be aware that the Indigenous Peoples of Oregon are the original people of Oregon and that European settlers stole land that belonged to the Indigenous Peoples.
-When students fill out the food tracker, teacher may need to explain that “kg” is short for kilogram, that a kilogram is a kind of measurement, and that 1 kg is about 2.2 pounds.
-Keep in mind that students in elementary school often have little to no control over their food choices. Be sensitive to the fact that some students will have less access to more climate-friendly foods, and try to encourage students to make climate-friendly food choices when they have the opportunity to do so.

DIFFERENTIATION:
-The Inquire section offers a variety of ways for students to learn about the Indigenous Peoples of Oregon and Indigenous first foods. Students can research the topic independently using the sources provided, read specific passages from the texts in small groups, or follow along as the texts are read aloud.
-Students can use the bar graph in the Investigate section of the Teacher Slideshow to explore why some foods are worse for the planet than others. Students can pick one food and research the number of resources needed to grow, harvest, or produce the food. Students can work individually or with a partner.
-Students can use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast one Indigenous Oregonian food with a food they eat. For example, students can explore the process of how salmon from the Columbia River and farm-raised salmon from the local grocery store make it to a student’s plate. Alternatively, students can draw the process and use arrows in between each stage.
-Using the Connecting First Foods and Conservation resource from the Inquire section, students can write the origin story for a native food from their own cultural or ethnic background.

This is a calculus-based book meant for the first semester of the type of freshman survey course taken by engineering and physical science majors. A treatment of relativity is interspersed with the Newtonian mechanics, in optional sections. The book is designed so that it can be used as a drop-in replacement for the corresponding part of Simple Nature, for instructors who prefer a traditional order of topics. Simple Nature does energy before force, while Mechanics does force before energy. Simple Nature has its treatment of relativity all in a single chapter, rather than in parallel with the development of Newtonian mechanics.

Move the sun, earth, moon and space station to see how it affects their gravitational forces and orbital paths. Visualize the sizes and distances between different heavenly bodies, and turn off gravity to see what would happen without it!

This is not a typical e-book; it is a free, web-based, open-source “textbook” available to anyone interested in using mapping tools to create maps. This e-text focuses primarily on Geographic Information Systems (GIS)—a geospatial technology that enables you to create spatial databases, analyze spatial patterns, and produce maps that communicate more effectively. While this GIS textbook is principally an introduction to GIS, most of the chapter’s concepts are applicable to other geotechnologies including remote sensing, global positioning systems (GPS), Internet mapping, and virtual globes.

Creating good maps and analyzing spatial data is a time consuming and challenging practice, but recently, a new set of powerful mapping tools has enabled almost anyone with a computer to make maps easily and to perform at least some low-level analyses. The results, however, are not encouraging. Most of the new mapmakers do not have adequate training in mapping concepts and spatial analysis principles, and their maps are often improperly designed and do not communicate easily nor effectively. This e-text—GIS Commons—seeks to help you analyze spatial data and communicate more effectively. In short, GIS education is our goal.

This inquiry will lead students through an investigation of farming and its impact on the environment, culture and people who live in Nebraska. In this inquiry students will research and discover more about the state they live in and how important its natural resources are to them, our country and the world. Resource created by Barbara J Knopik, Centura Public Schools, as part of the Nebraska ESUCC Social Studies Special Projects 2023 - Inquiry Design Model (IDM).

Students learn about geotechnical engineers and their use of physical properties, such as soil density, to determine the ability of various soils to offer support to foundations. In an associated activity, students determine the bulk densities of soil samples, and assess their suitability to support foundations.

This book began as lecture notes for an Oregon State University course in fluid mechanics, designed for beginning graduate students in physical oceanography. Because of its fundamental nature, this course is often taken by students outside physical oceanography, e.g., atmospheric science, civil engineering, physics and mathematics.
In later courses, the student will discover esoteric fluid phenomena such as internal waves that propagate through the sky, water phase changes that govern clouds, and planetary rotation effects that control large-scale winds and ocean currents. In contrast, this course concerns phenomena that we have all been familiar with since childhood: flows you see in sinks and bathtubs, in rivers, and at the beach. In this context, we develop the mathematical techniques and scientific reasoning skills needed for higher-level courses and professional research. Prerequisites are few: basic linear algebra, differential and integral calculus and Newton’s laws of motion. As we go along we discover the need for the more advanced tools of tensor analysis.

This is the second term of a theoretical treatment of the physics of solids. Topics covered include linear response theory; the physics of disorder; superconductivity; the local moment and itinerant magnetism; the Kondo problem and Fermi liquid theory.