The world of polymers is so amazingly integrated into our daily lives that we sometimes forget how amazing they are. Here, Hank talks about how they have developed and the different types of polymers that are common in the world today, including some that may surprise you.
Join the Wild Kratts team as they discover the "sixth sense" that platypus's have: electroreception. The team explains that electroreception allows the platypus to sense electrical charges in the surrounding area and figure out what is in the environment.
Join Chris and Martin as they explore the ability of the Diamondback rattlesnake to detect its prey by seeing their body heat. Viewers learn that the Diamondback uses its pit organs as heat-detectors to find their warm-blooded prey.
Discover just how powerful a dog’s sense of smell can be in this video from NOVA: Inside Animal Minds: Dogs & Super Senses. Fern, a trained sniffer dog, is put to the ultimate test: Can she locate a canister of meat hidden 20 feet underwater? As a passenger on a boat, Fern must determine the exact spot over which the canister was dropped in a lake. After about an hour of crisscrossing the lake, Fern successfully pinpoints the location. Canine smell is so acute because a dog’s nose splits the flow of incoming air into separate streams—with one dedicated solely to smell. A dog’s brain is also specially configured to make sense of the olfactory information it receives.
This resource is part of the NOVA Collection.
Rusty spotted cats are the smallest felines in the world, but these little cats have some extremely powerful senses. In this video from Super Cats: A NATURE Miniseries, students will learn how one tiny cat uses his senses to navigate the world around him. Support materials include discussion questions, vocabulary, and a hands-on activity where students use their sense of touch to help a rusty spotted cat find its way home.
For more resources from NATURE check out the collection page.
A wounded seal swims slowly toward shore, while a shark patrols the water nearby, looking for an easy target. In this interactive feature from NOVA, understanding the six senses sharks use to locate and capture their prey may give you the edge you need to help the seal reach land safely.
In this lesson, students consider how animals solve the problem of finding food, especially under harsh climatic conditions. They explore how a variety of animals use their senses to find food and how bees, in particular, communicate about food to other bees. Finally, student teams create a scavenger hunt for other teams with clues that require using different senses and that give information about the kind and quantity of food and its location.
Get energized! Start an energy club! Using this interactive, students will compare and contrast renewable and nonrenewable energy, make their own windmill, and discover the answer to the burning question, “What on earth is a nutria?”
For hundreds of years, people have harnessed moving air (wind) to do work. The earliest forms of wind-powered machines were sailboats. Wind pushing against the sails of a boat provided the energy to move the boat across the water, saving people the trouble of rowing. Later, people discovered that if they attached sail-like panels to a wheel at the top of a stationary tower, wind blowing against the panels would cause the wheel and the central shaft to which it was attached to turn. The shaft drove mechanisms inside the tower that were used to mill, or grind, grain into flour. These wind-driven mills were called, simply, windmills. And even though wind-driven machines are now also used to pump water from wells and to generate electricity, the name windmill has stuck.
In this activity, students review the engineering design process and discuss how wind can be used to help get work done. They look at a variety of windmills, focusing on the different materials used in the construction of windmills and the type of work each windmill is designed to do. Finally, they use simple materials to build their own windmills to do work.
This DragonflyTV segment introduces renewable energy engineer Sandra Begay-Campbell, who works to bring alternative energy to remote parts of the Navajo Nation. A Navajo herself, Begay-Campbell works with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Navajo Nation to find energy solutions. This video is also available in Spanish.
This video segment from IdahoPTV's Science Trek defines green energy, renewable and non-renewable energy sources. The pros and cons of each type of energy are discussed. Suggestions about how you can help conserve energy are presented.
In this video from NOVA’s Energy Lab, learn about renewable energy sources and renewable energy technologies. A renewable source of energy is so plentiful that it can be considered limitless. Scientists and engineers are working on alternative energy technologies that make use of renewable energy sources (such as solar, geothermal, and tidal energy) and have less impact on the environment. The sun is our greatest energy resource; solar technologies use its energy directly in the form of light or heat, while other technologies use its energy after it has been converted into another form.
This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions.
Learn why it is important to be careful when using non-renewable resources in this video from CYBERCHASE. Students discover that most electricity currently comes from burning gas, oil, and coal, which are all resources that cannot be replaced once they are consumed. Refer to the accompanying discussion questions, renewable energy coloring book from Solar1, and teaching tips for ideas on using this video with students and to help them consider ways to use electricity wisely. Discussion questions and vocabulary terms are available in Spanish in the Support Materials.
For more environmental education resources, visit the Human Impact on the Environment collection.
Roots do more than just draw water and nutrients into a plant. They also anchor it to the ground. Stems help distribute water and nutrients all over the plant and also support the plant’s leaves and flowers.
This resource presents a short slide show about the function of roots and stems in plants. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Gymnosperms are the oldest seed-bearing plants. There are four types of gymnosperms: gnetophytes, cycads, conifers, and ginkgos. Learn about gymnosperms’ distinctive appearance and unique life cycle here.
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the function of seeds in seed-bearing plants. After utilizing this resources, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Flowering plants have many parts that are required for reproduction. These parts, including the stamen, pistil, and ovary, work together to make seeds through the process of fertilization.
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the process of reproduction in flowering plants. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Mosses and ferns fall into two types: vascular and non-vascular. Vascular means they have tubes running throughout that can carry water and nutrients. Non-vascular plants, like liverworts, do not have tubes, so they are much smaller.
This resource presents a short slide show about the reproduction of mosses and ferns, which use spores to reproduce. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Scientists group organisms, or living things, with similar traits together. Kingdoms are the largest group, and there are five of them: plant, animal, fungus, protist, and bacteria. Grouping organisms into kingdoms helps scientists understand similarities among living things.
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the classification of living things. In addition, there is a sing-along video that students can perform karaoke-style that will help them remember the classification hierarchy. Lyrics for the karaoke song are available to be printed. After utilizing these two resources, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
The cells of plants include several parts, such as the cell body, cytoplasm, mitochondria, nucleus, vacuole, cell membrane, cell wall, and chloroplasts. Only plant cells have plant walls and chloroplasts.
The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe the structures of a plant cell. In addition, there is a sing-along video that students can perform karaoke-style that will help them remember the different structures. After utilizing these two resources, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Plants produce seeds in order to reproduce. Gymnosperm seeds develop in cones, and angiosperm seeds develop in fruit. When a seed is fertilized, in the right conditions, it will germinate, starting the life of a new plant!
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the process of reproduction in plants with seeds. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Angiosperm plants reproduce by producing seeds inside a flower. There are two kinds of angiosperms: monocotyledons and dicotyledons.
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the process of reproduction of flowering plants. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Plants that reproduce without seeds use several different methods, like budding, plant runners, and spores.
This resource presents a short slide show about the process of reproduction in plants that do not have seeds. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Light is energy and color is a part of the light. In this video, students will learn more about how light behaves and why we see red.
In this media-rich lesson, students conduct simple experiments to investigate how light travels. They examine the paths that light takes with different materials and observe shadows, reflection, and refraction.
In this interactive, students will play the role of a lighting designer to understand that the lighting designer creates stage lighting for performances and that one needs to understand how the electrical components are connected. This animated interactive job exploration experience connects schoolwork with real work and familiarizes students with skills needed to become a lighting designer for the theater.
The Sun is a natural source of visible light waves. Our eyes see the reflection of the sunlight off the objects around us. Check out the simulation to learn more about scattering light.
When you flip a light switch on and off, you are closing and opening a circuit. A circuit is a path that electricity follows. This interactive helps students learn more about circuits.
The speed at which sound travels from one place to another depends upon the medium and how closely packed the molecules are in the matter. Learn more about how sound travels from this simulation.
This resource shows an example of a convergent boundary plate. At a convergent plate boundary, lithospheric plates move toward each other. The west margin of the South American continent, where the oceanic Nazca Plate is pushed toward and beneath the continental portion of the South American Plate, is an example of a convergent plate boundary. This resource shows an example of a convergent boundary plate.
This resource shows an example of a divergent boundary plate. At a divergent plate boundary, lithospheric plates move away from each other. As the two sides move away from each other, magma wells up from the Earth's interior. It then solidifies into the rock as it is cooled by the sea, creating a new ocean floor. The mid-Atlantic ridge, a topographically high area near the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, is an example of a divergent plate boundary.
This resource shows an example of a lateral boundary plate. At a lateral plate boundary, plates slide past each other. The San Andreas fault in California is an example of a transform plate boundary, where the Pacific Plate slides past the North American Plate.
Invertebrates do not have backbones or vertebrae. Examples include jellyfish, sponges, worms, clams, snails, and octopuses.
This resource presents a short slideshow about different invertebrates and their characteristics. The slideshow could be used to introduce students to the classification of organisms as living things, even if the organism does not have a skeleton! After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Vertebrates have backbones that support their bodies and protect their inner organs. There are five main groups of vertebrates: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
This resource presents a short slideshow about different vertebrates and their characteristics. The slideshow could be used to introduce students to the classification of organisms as living things that possess different characteristics. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Arthropods make up 75% of invertebrates. Arthropods have several qualities in common: jointed legs, bodies divided into sections, and an exoskeleton, or shell. Some of the arthropods you might know are lobsters, millipedes, spiders, ants, and butterflies.
This resource presents a short slideshow about different invertebrates and their characteristics. The slideshow could be used to introduce students to the classification of organisms as living things, even if the organism does not have a skeleton! After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Animal cells have many functions that support the life of the animal. Animal cells also have lots of different parts, including the cell body, cytoplasm, mitochondria, nucleus, vacuole, and cell membrane.
The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe the structures of an animal cell. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
