International School of Central Switzerland's List: An inquiry into: How the world works

"… he pointed out the materials they could choose from to design the blades for the windmills – wooden skewers like you would use for shish-ka-bob, and various materials for blades (paper plates, cups, cardboard, plastic sheets and more). It was explained that once engineered and constructed the windmills would be tested to see how much work they could do. A cup would be attached with string and marbles would be lifted by the wind power. Data would be collected on how many marbles could be lifted and then redesign would be encouraged to lift more marbles."

Circuits.io is a free website on which you can design and test electrical circuits. You can design your circuits using the virtual version of components that you could purchase and place on a circuit board. As you design your circuits, Circuits.io will tell you if your circuits will work or not. 

"Portland, Maine-based photographer Caleb Charland (whom we featured before) has a fascinating new series of science-based photos that show various alternative batteries created using things like apple trees and stacked coins. The photo above shows an experiment in which he powered a lamp using 300 apples in a Newburgh, Maine-orchard."

"A smart kid with a smart phone and our new Periodic Table can learn the fundamentals of chemistry.  My design includes 131 embedded QR links to applicable Wikipedia entries, directly connecting the ‘real-world’ version of the Periodic Table to a digital world of additional information – presented in what I hope is a clear, intuitive, and FUN design and interface!”"

"Wood is a hygroscopic material, i.e. it exchanges moisture with its surrounding environment. As a piece of wood losses moisture it shrinks and as wood gains moisture back it swells."

"In this page you will find detailed instructions on how to build an Automata :

Automata: how to build some basic boxes
Automata: the basic mechanisms
Automata: the tablet, a tool to simulate the basic mechanisms
Automata: building materials
Automata: how to move the parts"

The app features an interactive periodic table and a game that you can play afterward to help you recall what you're learned. The best part about this free app is that it features the two-hour NOVA program on elements, so you can watch the episode, then delve deeper afterward.

Dr. Robert Lindberg, President and Executive Director of the National Institute of Aerospace, envisions a new way to introduce Engineering into the K-12 curriculum by exploring the distinctions between Science and Engineering; between the Natural World and the Designed World; and between the Scientific Method and the Engineering Design Process.

The book contains a songwriting guide and 8 lessons and original songs as well as a video. She would love if you would download the book and ideally use them with your students. The topics will obviously span a range of grade levels as well as the songwriting guide would be useful for many ages

The Nine Months That Made You

I happened to be writing an inquiry lesson that has students look at inventions throughout time and thought: the catapult-that is an invention that has technology and concepts that are used even today.  Here is the embedded learning that I came up with

Welcome to the Squishy Circuits Project Page

Squishy circuits are a project from the Thomas Lab at the University of St. Thomas.  The goal of the project is to design tools and activities which allow kids of all ages to create circuits and explore electronics using play dough. 

Seasonal change is all around us. Children see it in the length of a day, in the appearance of a flower, in the flight of a butterfly. Journey North is a free, Internet-based program that explores the interrelated aspects of seasonal change. Through interrelated investigations, students discover that sunlight drives all living systems and they learn about the dynamic ecosystem that surrounds and connects them.

"UMapper makes it easy to create, manage, distribute and monetize online maps."

The Tree of Life Web Project (ToL) is a collaborative effort of biologists and nature enthusiasts from around the world. On more than 10,000 World Wide Web pages, the project provides information about biodiversity, the characteristics of different groups of organisms, and their evolutionary history (phylogeny).

Each page contains information about a particular group, e.g., salamanders, segmented worms, phlox flowers, tyrannosaurs, euglenids, Heliconius butterflies, club fungi, or the vampire squid. ToL pages are linked one to another hierarchically, in the form of the evolutionary tree of life. Starting with the root of all Life on Earth and moving out along diverging branches to individual species, the structure of the ToL project thus illustrates the genetic connections between all living things.

Explore the evolutionary links between living things with the Wellcome Trust's Tree of Life, developed as part of our Darwin 200 activities, which celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth.

This six-minute Tree of Life video also appeared on the BBC One programme 'Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life' narrated by David Attenborough.

In addition to the video, an interactive version of the 'Tree of Life' here (http://www.wellcometreeoflife.org) has been created to allow you to explore evolutionary links even further.

The Tree of Life Web Project (ToL) is a collaborative effort of biologists from around the world. On more than 9000 World Wide Web pages, the project provides information about the diversity of organisms on Earth, their evolutionary history (phylogeny), and characteristics. See: http://www.tolweb.org/

games and activities from National Geographic for young learners. (Not all activities are USA-centered.)

n today's episode, Dr. Dan Davis of Boston's Museum of Science explains to Adam why lightning is shaped in jagged, forked lines. Just like water alters its course as it encounters rocks and dips in the physical terrain, it turns out that lightning must adjust to irregularities in the air's electrical patterns. Join Adam as he learns about the science behind this phenomenon and the museum's giant lightning machine. [3m 55s]

The Energy Literacy Series contains an introduction to energy and ten energy sources. Start here to learn about the different energy sources - how they are harnessed, converted, and used. (A Canadian site swf file works best on a PC)