Teaching ScienceIdeas and help for trainee Science teachers

Here’s an interesting animation that will help to illustrate Night and Day as well as phases of the Moon on your interactive whiteboard.

http://www.ictgames.com/dayNight/index.html

I’ve also put together a quick animation that demonstrates how the moon rotates around the Earth. The Moon always keeps the same face facing towards the Earth (and so the same face pointing away). This down to two important facts.

1. The moon rotates on its on axis, it takes approximately 28 days to make one full rotation

2. The moon orbits around the earth. It takes approximately 28 days to make one full orbit.

In the animation below, I have coloured the moon to make it clearer. This is the view from above as it rotates.

View Full Screen

As the moon rotates, it is also travelling around the Earth. The Moon has become locked into a pattern – the time it takes to orbit the Earth is the same as the time it takes to make one full rotation – approximately 28 days.

View Full Screen

As you can see, as the moon travels around the Earth, it is also rotating. The Red/Yellow face is always kept facing towards the Earth. If we were standing on the Earth looking at the Moon we would only see the Red/Yellow face. We would never be able to see the Blue/Green face.

Another animation that may be useful can be found here: http://www.edumedia-sciences.com/en/a213-earth-moon-system-1

The collapse of honeybee colonies has been widely reported, but in fact most of the UK’s 250 bee species appear to be in decline.

This loss of bees has serious consequences for crop pollination, so Bee Part Of It will be helping all of our bees by creating 40,000 new bee-friendly wildflower rich spaces.

From 17 May, with help from the National Trust, local BBC radio stations are adopting a local bee hive in their area and following the plight of a new colony of our favourite pollen collectors over their busiest months

This would be a great idea for a class or school project. You could make a bumblebee home, or grow a bumblebee friendly garden area.

The BBC website has some other interesting ideas for things your pupils can do to help wildlife in your school environment : http://www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces/things_to_do/