Teaching ScienceIdeas and help for trainee Science teachers

If the Earth were the size of a basketball and the moon a tennis ball, how far apart would they be? Diagrams that are not to scale make us think that they’re closer than they really are.

Have a guess first. Then watch this video…

Surprised?

Now try it with your class.

Update – Awesome high-res moon image here, from Bad Astronomer.

Here are two videos that show the famous Hammer vs Feather experiment:

Apollo 15 On The Moon

Mythbusters Vacuum Chamber

This is the core of Comet Tempel 1 as Seen by NASA’s Stardust Probe yesterday.

NASA’s Stardust-NExT mission took this image of comet Tempel 1 at 8:39 p.m. PST
(11:39 p.m. EST) on Feb 14, 2011.

Stardust-NExT is a low-cost mission that will expand the investigation of comet Tempel 1 initiated by NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft. On 14th Feb 2011 it flew right past the comet and took some fantastic images of the nucleus of the coment.

Thr0ugh the course of today it gradually beamed those images back to earth.

This is real space science, happening right now. If you are teaching a Space topic right now, it would be great to be able to work the Stardust probe into the lesson.

For more images as they come in, check out this gallery

For more information about Stardust-NExT, visit http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov.

Ah go on then. It is Darwin Day after all….

Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

February 12th is Darwin Day to celebrate the birthday of the great man himself, Mr Charles Darwin. Evolution has been under attack since the day Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species in 1859.

The amount of evidence which supports Evolution is overwhelming, but there is still a movement of people who advocate Intelligent Design (creationism) who try and discredit the evidence. This is a real bugbear for myself and for many other teachers of Science. Imagine if you are a maths teacher and a group of people who believed Pythagoras was wrong tried to make you teach “both sides of the hypotenuse argument”. Or that you are a geography teacher and the flat earth society tried to force you to teach “both sides of the Globe argument”.

For a comprehensive roundup of the wealth of evidence which supports evolution, you can’t beat the Talk Origins website.

Some guidance on the teaching of Evolution in the classroom can be found here on Teachernet:

If questions or issues about creationism and intelligent design arise during science lessons they can be used to illustrate a number of aspects of how science works. Such aspects include: ‘how interpretation of data, using creative thought, provides evidence to test ideas and develop theories’; ‘that there are some questions that science cannot currently answer, and some that science cannot address’; ‘how uncertainties in scientific knowledge and scientific ideas change over time and about the role of the scientific community in validating these changes’.

Here are some websites that will be of use to teachers to help teach Evolution in the classroom:

Here’s an audio guide to the life and times of Charles Darwin and more excellent resources from The Guardian here.

Here’s an amazing interactive Tree of Life from the Wellcome Trust.

This Evolution website, tied in with a PBS television series, contains lots of resources about Darwin and Evolution : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ Plus links to guidance for teachers (in the US, but valid elsewhere) on teaching Evolution in the face of Intelligent Design claims.

Understanding Evolution is a non-commercial, education website, teaching the science and history of evolutionary biology. This site is here to help you understand what evolution is, how it works, how it factors into your life, how research in evolutionary biology is performed, and how ideas in this area have changed over time.

They also have a special site for K-12 Teachers: Understanding Evolution for Teachers.

Another useful website, when faced with statements such as “Evolution is Just a Theory” is this one: http://notjustatheory.com/

Also check out this blog post from Snapshot Science, which has some other useful links and ideas for teaching about Evolution.

Happy Birthday Darwin!

A presentation from last year. Blogs and Wikis in Science teaching… most of the links should still work (hopefully!)

Primary Science teachers might be interested in this wonderful PowerPoint file produced in association with the rather talented Bev Evans. I produced the scenarios, and Bev produced all the eye catching graphics. It’s based on some numeracy resources Bev produced and linked on Twitter the other day. Bev calls them Discussion Strips.

There are three slides, each of which can be used to spark a discussion about what makes something alive, plus a summary slide which explains MRS GREN. Display the slide on the IWB and ask the children what they think. See what ideas they have.

You can download the Science “Living Things” Discussion Strip powerpoint presentation here

I thoroughly recommend that you follow Bev on Twitter for her “free clip art of the day” – and more ideas like this. Plus check out her Technostories Blog and her Communication for All website!

On similar lines – also check out this “Choose 1 out” idea from NGFL Cymru. Again a good discussion starter.

Border Crossings is designed to explore the opportunities for science and mathematics teachers to cross their traditional subject borders and explore the potential for outdoor learning. It builds on the success of earlier projects such as Let’s Think Through Science (aimed at teachers of science at KS2), London Outdoor Science, Thinking Beyond the Urban Classroom and Trailblazers.

Border Crossings is funded by the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust.

Border Crossings have produced a pack of 8 teaching resources incorporating best practice in terms of assessment for learning and cognitive acceleration which can be used by both mathematics and science teachers in ways which promote cross-curricular work.

You can download all the lesson ideas from the Border Crossings website here:

http://www.field-studies-council.org/projects/bordercrossings/index.aspx

A question I get asked a lot. Maybe this video will help:

For those who don’t already know Bad Science is a book, a a guardian newspaper column and a website by Ben Goldacre, an award-winning writer and broadcaster who specialises in unpicking dodgy scientific claims made by scaremongering journalists, dodgy government reports, evil pharmaceutical corporations, PR companies and quacks. It promotes a healthy scepticism as a way of detecting powerful and effective uses of science and misuses and abuses.

Ed Walsh, Science Advisor for Cornwall Learning, has taken eight of the case studies from the book and turned them into lessons aimed at GCSE students. The lessons are designed to engage and excite students and encourage them to think for themselves.

The “Bad Science is good for school science” project is a partnership between Bad Science author Ben Goldacre, publishers Harper Collins and Cornwall Learning.

Three lesson plans are available on the website now, with more to follow, along with video resources.

Visit the Bad Science For Schools website now: http://www.collinsnewgcsescience.co.uk/badscience