Book Review: Howtoons

I've decided to do some reviews of books that I think are great and should be used by science teachers. Here's the first one.

Howtoonsby Saul Griffith and Joost Bonsen, Illustrated by Nick Dragotta

Howtoonsis a great book of projects for kids of all ages. Everyone I've bought a copy for has been instantly hooked. Think of it as Make for kids. In fact if you read Make Magazine,you've already seen at least one Howtoon in each issue. The projects in the book are given more pages and so are more detailed than those that appear in the magazine.

Anyway, the projects are presented in comic book form, illustrating the adventures of two kids. There's a little back story and then the project. The plans are well illustrated and detailed enough that my son was able to grasp them even at the age of 7 (when we made our first marshmallow shooters). More importantly, they actually work and most don't have any really fiddly bits that need to be tweaked just right.

My son's favorite projects include:

• Marshmallow Shooter
• Duct Tape Body Armor
• Safety Goggles (which he modded into a face shield to go with his body armor)
• Bottle Rocket Launcher

To see some examples you should surf on over to the Howtoons Website. They have some example projects (that aren't in the book) and lots of other good info.

This is the perfect gift for kids (or their Geekdads). Personally, I like to have extra copies of Howtoonslaying around that I can use as ready made gifts for nieces and nephews.

Never Lecture in Class Again

I have a plan to never lecture in my class again!!! What I plan on doing is lecturing at night while my students are in the comfort of their own homes or maybe while they're waiting for football practice.

I've started recording some of my physics lectures and putting them on the web and in iTunes. They will also be put in an accessible folder on our school's server so that students who have a thumb drive can take them home using the Sneakernet. I'll probably also burn some DVDs for the small number of students I'll have who don't have reliable computers at home.

So far I have my early calculator lectures done and the first two sections of Chapter 2 in our text book (constant motion). For the motion sections I used the Presentation tool in Google Docs and a Wacom tablet I borrowed from one of our art teachers to write on the screen. I really need to buy one of these. I'll probably buy the Wacom Bamboo (Small)because I can get it for around $60. If I want to pay $100 more I can get a bigger one.What I really want is the Wacom Graphire Bluetooth Tablet.Then I could use it while I walk around the classroom.

Science Friday

If you can't manage to catch Ira Flatow every Friday on the radio you can get it as a podcast. They break up the 2 hour program into individual stories and remove all the station identifications and local news. Good stuff for your own knowledge even if you don't share it with your students.

You may also be interested in the Science Friday Videos. These are videos by or about guests or videos related to the stories covered. The more I look the more good stuff I find here.

Cool Science Videos on the Net

There is lots of great content out there just waiting to be found. Here's a list of some cool science videos you might find useful.

Secret Life of Machines - Was a series created in the late 80's to the early 90's. The main premise was to show how modern devices came to be. In order to get there they show everything form how life was prior to the invention and every incarnation of a machine. There is a lot of really good science in these. The only unfortunate bit is that they are a bit dated. So, whenever I show one I talk about advances that have taken place since the video was produced. The videos can be streamed from the net or downloaded in iPod format.

Why is it so? A "best of" from experiments from the series. Great videos!!!

The ground-breaking TV series with the enigmatic Professor Julius Sumner Miller - ran on the ABC from 1963 to 1986. Professor Miller's infectious enthusiasm for physics delighted, educated and entertained generations of Australians, most of whom have at some point asked each other 'Why is it so?' in the characteristic Julius Sumner Miller voice.

scitalks.com Great science videos collected from around the net. These come from academic speakers and broadcast TV. Search for topics/speakers of interest or browse by subject or audience type.

The Annenberg/CPB site has a lot of great streaming videos that could be used across the curriculum in just about every subject. The site requires you to register, but registration is free. The list of hosted videos includes some relatively famous educational series (including Mechanical Universe and The World of Chemistry)

The American Field Guide has many great environmental videos that can be used in any life science curriculum. There are also some geology, earth science, and archeology videos available.

The Vega Science Trust hosts videos of lectures, round-table discussions, and workshops that present the cutting edge of science. Some would be appropriate for students while others just provide great education for teachers. The site also has some educational resources to go along with some of the videos.

101Science.com has lots of great links for science videos. Some of the above links came from there. This site hosts a lot of other really good stuff as well, but I haven't had a chance to surf through it all yet.

Google Earth

Google Earth allows for the creation of custom content by users. The easiest way is to create a kml or kmz file. kml and kmz files are fairly easy to create (or modify). It is just a mark-up language. If you can code html you can code kml files (they're not the same, but are similar). KML Tutorial. For those who don't want to delve into the code you can create these files within Google Earth itself. I mention kml amd kmz because this is the format you will save Google Earth files in if you want to make them available for others.

A kml file is simply a small text file with instructions for Google Earth to interpret. KMZ files are compressed archives of files. A KMZ file includes the KML file and any other files (like pictures) the KML refers to. I was playing around the other day and created a KMZ file from a nature walk (crosswinds marsh.kmz) my son and I took. I plotted our path (using my GPS) and took pictures along the way. I placed pins in Google Earth and edited their descriptions, to include the pictures. You can use html code in the description to change text style, include links to the web, bring in pictures, or even some web videos. I put the path and the pins in a folder in GE and saved the folder as a KMZ file.

I created the path using GPS Visualizer, a web application that converts GPS files to other formats, including KML or KMZ files. This allows me to use my GPS unit with the free version of Google Earth. Normally, you can only use a GPS unit with Google Earth Plus.

In the newest version of Google Earth Beta 4 they took some of the premium features from the paid version and brought them over to the free version, including the ability to create paths and polygons. So, if you don't have access to a GPS unit it would be easy enough to draw a nature walk and incorporate pictures from the walk as pins. Or have a student studying the Tundra biome outline the tundra and have pins marking points of interest with pictures and information. This would be a lot more fun than having the exact same information in a report or powerpoint presentation.

HTML Primer for Google Earth: This shows some very basic html code you can use in your placemarks within Google Earth. A quick search of the internet will yield a lot more.

Google Earth in Physics



For more go to the Google Earth Page on FLOSScience.com

Physics is PHUN

I love physics simulations. I've recently found a free cross platform physics simulator. It is 2D only and is a little limited, but it's still fun. The program is called Phun. There are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's definitely worth a look.



cross posted from falconphysics.blogspot.com

More Calculator Tutorials (TI-83 & TI-84)

I got a little ambitious yesterday. I created and uploaded five more calculator tutorials. They vary in length from around 3 to 6 minutes each. I think I've managed to create appropriate feeds for these videos if you want to get automatic updates:

iTunes: itpc://blip.tv/bookmarks/rss/166678/itunes
rss: http://blip.tv/rss/bookmarks/166678

Here's the complete list of tutorials I've created so far. I think this is enough to get me started for the school year. At some point I'll also create a video or two showing how to write some simple programs on the graphing calculator.

• Calculator Intro 0 - Some Basics (3:20) - Just some basics everyone should know.
  
• Calculator Intro 1 - Name and Graphing (5:44) - This video shows you how to put your name in you calculator and how to graph some simple data.
• Calculator Intro 2 - Math with Lists (4:13) - Do you have a lot of repetitive calculations to do? Then you need to know how to do this.
• Calculator Intro 3 - Equation of a Line (3:47) - How to do regression to find the relationship in your data (i.e. the equation of a line)
• Common Graphing Errors (4:01) - Some common graphing errors, what they look like and how to resolve them.
• Enter Equations the Easy Way (2:56) - You've found the equation that explains your data, now you need to get it into "Y=". You can write out the equation and then enter it, or you can enter it directly.
• Interpolation and Extrapolation (2:47) - Quickly solve for Y for a given X.
  

Graphing Calculator Tutorials (TI-83 & TI-84)

I rely on my students knowing how to use their graphing calculators in my Physics class. Consequently, I spend a bit of time at the beginning of the school year teaching them how to use them. Unfortunately, they often loose skills they once had as we go along. So, this year I've decided to handle things differently. I will spend less time in class teaching them and more time at home. I'm in the process of creating some videos to help teach the skills they need. Don't expect high production values on these. My goal will be to do them in one take and to simply upload when done (no post editing).

Why am I doing this? Two reasons really. The first is so I don't have to spend too much class time covering it. The second is that the videos will stay on the internet, so if they need to review later in the semester they can.

Here's The first video in the series:

To see more calculator videos as I create them just surf over to the FLOSScience site.