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Free Social Science Videos From PBS NOVA

June 5th, 2008

Recommended Website:
Free Social Science Videos From PBS NOVA

On this website, you can watch 39 different PBS NOVA videos for free online.

When you get to the site you’ll see a brief introduction and the most recently added programs are featured on the page. Look on the right side of the screen to see a menu of topics covered by these films including:

  • Anthropology – Watch films about Israel’s Cave of Letters, Ape Genius, and the Lost Treasures of Tibet.
  • Disasters – Learn about doomsday Asteroids and Mass Extinction, and the devastating floods of Hurricane Katrina.
  • Earth – Explore Sand Dunes, Glaciers, Hurricanes, Lightning, etc.
  • Exploration – Crack the Maya Code and find out if MARS is Dead or Alive.
  • Flight – Discover the remains of Four-Winged Dinosaurs and find out what’s Missing in MiG Alley.
  • Health – Get information about the Flu, Aging, Animal Hospitals, Cancer, the Human Genome, Eating Disorders, Epigenetics, Life’s Greatest Miracle, Marathon Running, RNAi, Sleep, Stem Cells, and more.
  • History – Enjoy the story behind Absolute Zero, Papyrus from ancient Egypt, the Parthenon, and Sputnik.
  • Investigations – Meet an archeologist who is helping to rewrite the history of the Old West.
  • Nature – Learn about Fish Surgery, Frozen Frogs, Ants, and T.Rex.
  • Physics and Math – Watch films about robot swarms, a particle accelerator, coded sculpture, string theory and more.
  • Space – Find out about Hollywood aliens, the Monster of the Milky Way, and the 10th Planet.
  • Technology – View films about Artificial Life, Cars of the Future, Fuel Cells, Robots, Lab Meat, Solar Energy and more.

Click on any film of interest and a new page opens. The films are divided into chapters or segments for ease of viewing. Some of the video pages link to further resources, teacher’s guides, transcripts of the films, and more.

This is a terrific resource to enhance learning – bookmark it to return often.

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Singing Science!

April 15th, 2008

Recommended Website:
Singing Science Records

Age Range: 5-10 (The songs are geared for early elementary school-age children, however, there are aspects that the whole family can enjoy.)

What fun! ClickSchooling subscriber Cie Buschle recommended today’s website that offers free science songs!

As the website owner explains,

“As a kid my parents got this six-LP set of science-themed songs for my sister and me. They were produced in the late 1950s / early 1960s by Hy Zaret and Lou Singer. We played them incessantly. In February 1998, I found the LPs in my parents’ basement. I cleaned them up…burned them onto a CD…and encoded them into MP3, so now you can hear them on the web.”

When you get to the website you will see a menu of about 80 songs divided into subject categories that include:

  • Space Songs – Learn about The Milky Way, the Sun, Shooting Starts, Longitude and Latitude, the Ballad of Sir Isaac Newton, Friction, Gravity and more!
  • Energy and Motion Songs – Find out about Energy, Electricity, Engines, Kinetic and Potential Energy, Chemical Energy, and Atomic Energy.
  • Experiment Songs – Listen to songs that provide instructions on how to conduct experiments that teach about Magnets, Air, Shadows, Rock, Gems, Minerals, and more.
  • Weather Songs – Discover information about the Stratosphere, Wind, Clouds, Warm and Cold Fronts, Humidity, Hurricanes, Tides, Snowflakes, and other weather marvels.
  • Nature Songs – Learn about Leaves, Trees, Insects, Mammals, Fish, Birds, Silk Worms, and other natural wonders.
  • More Nature Songs – Sing along to songs that teach about Metamorphosis, How a Frog Becomes a Frog, Fossils, Why the Sky is Blue, Parts of a Flower and more.

Simply click on the version of the tune you want to download, wait a minute, and the song will begin to play. The lyrics are not included, but the performers annunciate very clearly. After just a listen or two – you’ll be able to sing along!

You’ll recognize some of the tunes as classics set with new lyrics. I sampled a few of the songs and was surprised at how much science language is included.

For example, in “Why Does The Sun Shine” the lyrics include these lines:

The sun is a mass Of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees.

And in “How Does a Frog Become a Frog?” the lyrics include this:

How does a frog become a frog
Squatting on a bump of a log
How does a frog become a frog
Instead of a big pollywog?

In the spring the frogs have mated
The females eggs were expelled
Then the male frog fertilized the eggs
and said farewell.

Soon the eggs were tiny embryos
The embryos became pollywogs…

The songs are typical of the 1950s-1960s era and are sure to bring a wave of nostalgia to those familiar with the innocence of those times – even though it was the “Atomic Age.” :) Parents, as always, should preview the songs to determine the suitability of the content for their own children.

Cie wrote:

“I listened to some and found them fun and hilarious. They are definitely dated, but I still think young kids will enjoy them and older kids will laugh at them while still learning. They can be listened to directly on the site, or downloaded if you are more ‘techno-savvy’.”

This is great stuff! Enjoy!

DID YOU MISPLACE A ClickSchooling Review? Do you need to find an educational website – fast! Visit the ClickSchooling archives at: http://www.homefires.com/clickschool/archive.asp.

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Free Storm, Oceanic and Atmosphere Science Activities

February 26th, 2008

Recommended Website:
NOAA Research

Age Range: 10-14 (Designed for middle school students, but aspects of the site will appeal to students of all ages.)

ClickSchooling list member Cie recommended this website provided by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. The goal of the site is to provide middle school science students and teachers with research and investigation experiences using on-line resources. You can also download FREE Student Activity Books and teaching materials for each of the topics that include:

  • El Niño — Find out about El Niño, how it forms, and its effects on the weather of the world.
  • Storms — Investigate hurricanes, tornadoes, and lightning by tracking their courses and measuring their strength. Learn how weather is forecast.
  • Atmosphere — Investigate the origins and effects of global warming and the effects solar events have on the Earth.
  • Fisheries — Manage various species of fish after learning about what overfishing and the environment can do to commercial fishing
  • Great Lakes — Interpret maps of winds, waves, and temperature. Learn about zebra mussels and how to control them.
  • Oceans — Take real measurements such as temperature and wave height and graph the changes. Also, find out about ocean currents.

Have fun!

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Family Disaster Plan for Any Emergency

March 16th, 2006

Recommended Website:
Ready Kids

My thanks to Deanna Germany for recommending today’s website when she wrote, “This website helps your family prepare a disaster plan for just about any emergency. Having gone through Hurricane Katrina, my boys really were interested in this one.”

Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, this website (designed with kids in mind) helps families plan and make a kit that will help them in any kind of disaster including tornadoes, earthquakes, fire emergencies, flooding, tsunami, hurricanes, and terrorism. Through the use of multi-media technology this website not only informs, it offers easy-to-follow emergency preparation plans. Just follow the steps and in no time at all, your whole family will be well-prepared for any disaster situation.

The unique aspect about this site is that it includes online, interactive games, puzzles, word searches and other suggested activities that will help kids (and parents) remember what to do in any given emergency. It includes really helpful downloadable/printable supply lists, safety guidelines, and more.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urges all Americans to: get a kit of emergency supplies; make a plan for what you will do in an emergency; and be informed about what might happen. Preparing for the unexpected makes sense — and this website will help you do just that.

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Science Songs!

January 24th, 2006

Recommended Website:
Singing Science

Gather the kids around the computer for a fun science sing-along! List member Dora Moreland recommended today’s website. She wrote, “There are about 80 science songs that you can listen to or download. They are old and some are corny (but my kids love them!) and I think they are a real treasure for those of us who would hate to memorize what longitude is!”

Everything is easier to memorize when it’s set to music and that includes science facts and concepts. As the website owner explains in the introduction at the site, his parents bought these songs on records (circa 1950′s) and he and his sister listened to them incessantly. He has painstakingly loaded them to his website where you can listen online or download them onto CD.

When you get to the site you’ll see the brief intro followed by a menu of song titles sorted into subject categories that include:

  • Space Songs — Learn about the Milky Way, find out about shooting stars, hear the “Ballad of Sir Isaac Newton” and learn some physics laws along the way.
  • Energy & Motion Songs — Listen to songs about electricity, kinetic and potential energy, motion, and atomic energy.
  • Experiment Songs — Not only do these songs explain scientific concepts, they include experiments you can try at home. Learn about magnets, rocks, gems, minerals, rain, thunder, rainbows and more!
  • Weather Songs — You’ll sing about the stratosphere, how clouds are formed, the water cycle, hurricanes, and snowflakes.
  • Nature Songs — These ditties explain mammals, insects, plant parts, fish, rocks, birds, fossils, and even how a cow makes milk!

The only drawback of this site is that the song lyrics are unavailable. HOWEVER, the songs are sung so cleanly and crisply that you can hear and understand the lyrics with little effort. Because you can download the songs onto CD, you can take them anywhere — a great resource for carschooling! :)

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Tramline Educational Field Trips

September 24th, 2004

Recommended Website:
Tramline Virtual Field Trips

Tramline Website features FREE Virtual Field Trips created for students in grades K-12 by educators using a software program that provides a host of navigation and orientation aids absent in other field trip formats. It helps to organize the chaos of the Web and saves the student and teacher hours of Internet research time.

When you get to the website you will see an introduction. Scroll down a little to see a menu of field trips that are divided into three sections:

  • Science Field Trips — Includes virtual field trips to learn about Antartica, Dinosaurs, Oceans, Insects, Sharks, Hurricanes, Volanoes, and more.
  • Other Field Trips — Includes virtual field trips to learn about the American Presidency, The Dark Ages, Filmmaking, Flight, Leonardo da Vinci, The Oregon Trail, Shakespeare, Women’s History, Pi and more!
  • Teachers Resource Field Trips — Some information for teachers about using the Field Trips at this site with resources for other complementary teaching tools as well.

Under any of the above sections, click on the title of the field trip that interests you and a new page opens with specific instructions on how to navigate the site to get the most out of the tour. Although it may seem a little awkward at first, once you try it with one virtual field trip — the format is the same for every
field trip archived at the site — making navigation much easier in the long run.

This is a fantastic educational tool, so bookmark it and return to take the many field trips offered — and explore new trips as they are added to the site.

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