I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

There are a ton of great songs out there that classroom teachers can use to help bolster their science lessons. Research has shown that students learn better when seeing material presented in a variety of formats, so music is just one more way to get the message across. Plus, a catchy jingle can really help cement something in a student’s mind (hear the “mass divided by the volume” song in our podcast, below!).

One of my Science Teaching Tips podcasts “Sing a Song of Science” plays you some of our favorites and talks about how you can use them in the classroom.

The Science Songwriters Association has some good stuff on their website, and links to individual artists

There is also a very good website called Songs for Teaching that has music for all sorts of subjects (not just science)

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

I’ve posted a new episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast: Private theories. TI Director Linda Shore was one of the people originally involved in the Private Universe video (from Annenburg Media), which showed surprisingly persistent misconceptions in students. In the famous opening scene, they interview students as they graduate from Harvard and ask them why there are seasons. Almost all of them said that it’s because the earth gets closer to the sun during 1/2 of its orbit, despite the fact that this doesn’t explain why the southern hemisphere has summer while the northern hemisphere has winter. [The real answer is that the planet is tipped on its axis, so 1/2 of it is closer to the sun during part of the year].

In this podcast, Linda Shore explains how she probes student thinking to find out about their private theories about the universe. Without understanding what students are thinking, it’s very difficult to help them form new conceptions of the world.

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Happy Valentine’s Day! Are you a science geek too? Searching for your true life’s companion? Make sure he or she can grok your geeky little brain by sending them a card with this message. This is the mathematical equation for a cardioid in polar coordinates, which is a heart-shape.

You can find the full activity and description at Paul Doherty’s website. According to him, sending this Valentine’s Day card makes you a member of the Mathematics Mafia (defined as “an organization that makes you an offer that you can’t understand.”)

Or an even more satisfying heart can be made with a more complicated cardioid equation (from Mathematische Basteleien)

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I’ve posted a new episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast, Size Does Matter. Dr. Thomas Humphrey is a physicist who’s been at the Exploratorium for a looong time. He works a lot with the teachers who come to workshops in the Teacher Institute, particularly to get at the connection between math and science. He’s a brilliant guy, with ideas that have both amazed me and confused me, often both at once. In this podcast he talks a bit about how size matters, physically, and how things scale up (or down). Give him a listen!

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This is a great little activity from Eric Muller’s While You’re Waiting for the Food to Come.

Get a plastic drinking straw, in its wrapper. Unwrap one end, so the straw is still wrapped in the paper, and then slide the wrapper quickly up and down over the straw, until the straw and wrapper feel a little warm.

Take off the wrapper and the straw will stick to the palm of your hand!

For extra fun, do this with a friend. Ask them first if they’re attracted to you or repulsed by you! Then both do the straw-thing, and hold the straws near one another (you’ll find that your friend is repulsed by you).

You can find a writeup of this activity on Eric Muller’s website.

Why does this work? The straw ends up negatively charged (it’s got just about 40 nanocoulombs of charge) after being rubbed with the paper. Since like charges repel, it will repel the other straw. And charged objects attract neutral objects, so it sticks to your hand.

This is the same principle as the old rub-the-balloon-on-your-head-and-stick-it-to-the-wall trick.

Here is a simulation you can play with that shows you the physics of this sort of trick.

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I just posted a new episode of my Science Teaching Tips podcast — Episode: 27. Why We Teach

This is a story about a young teacher’s first year of teaching. It’s hard, yes, but her story is an inspiring one. She ends in tears and so did many of us who were listening. If you’re a teacher, this is worth a listen.

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.

There’s actually quite a bit of science in Second Life (the online virtual “massive multiplayer online role-playing game”). Second Life is a pretty popular place (42,967 online at the writing of this post), so in today’s age where it’s best to bring science to the people (because the people ain’t coming to science), having cool, fun science stuff in this world is pretty powerful stuff. Besides, you can do stuff in Second Life that you can’t do in real life (First Life) — shrink to the size of an atom, fly to Saturn, or visit a museum across the country.

The Exploratorium has a very fun museum online, check it out at EastLandTwo (175,75,25).  Lots of visual illusions and silly (and not so silly) science.  (You must be logged into SecondLife to visit this location).  See also my old boss Paul Doherty’s website, where he explains everythig you might want to know about museums in Second Life (written for other museum folk).

You can get swept away by a tsunami or just talk about the weather at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s home in Second Life — learn more about it here.

You can explore the moon, too, and walk along a moon rover, as NASA has also launched a SL island, read more about it here.
Other science destinations in Second Life:

Fly to Saturn at The International Spaceflight Museum, a museum of spacecraft and rocketry.
Spaceport Alpha 48, 78, 24

The Sci-Fi Museum displays items in a Holodeck, Indigo 75, 213, 22

The Planetarium, Midnight City 93, 78, 27

The Infinite Mind Museum The Infinite Mind 132, 201,37

I am a science education and communications consultant -- view my website for my full range of services.