This is a fantastic clip from an American version of “Dragon’s Den” which I think would make an excellent starting point for a discussion on “how science works”. It’s so good it could have been made for this very purpose: Some obvious questions to get the discussion going: Are the Dragons right or are they just being rude by refusing to allow the guy to show them more of his “research”? (He claims to have lots more he can show them) What, if anything, is wrong with the salesman’s research?… Read more Selling Snake Oil →
Sorry for the awful title to this post – but I have been inspired by “John Travoltage”, the most fun Physics interactive I have ever encountered. I should warn you… Read more Simulate to Stimulate →
October is Black History Month in the UK. I’d bet most science teachers would struggle to name a single black scientist from history. Whilst it may be important to make students aware of the historical contributions of black scientists, I think it’s perhaps more important to make children aware of the work that black scientists are doing today, particularly in Africa. The film below is one I made back in 2006. It is a portrait of the winner of the 2006 Royal Society Pfizer Award – for “an outstanding, innovative… Read more Black History Month →
There are some great science films out there which are well worth showing to your classes. Unfortunately there’s not enough time to show more than one or two such films during the school year, so it would be really useful to have more short films to give a bit of background and history to the topics we need to teach – a kind of video version of those boxes you get in text books, which tell you a little bit of history or provide some biographical detail of a scientist.… Read more Penicillin →
A brief summary of the Dolly story, including an explanation of the science. The voiceover is a little annoying and it might be a little too brief, but definitely useful for teaching about cloning if the only other resource you have is a textbook. Watch Dolly the Sheep at EncycloMedia.com
This short film, narrated by Sir David Attenborough, features a stunning animation that should be useful for teaching evolution at KS4. You’ll still need to show your students a diagram of the Tree of Life at some point, but this film does a great job of bringing such diagrams to life. You can download a high definition version of the film at the Wellcome Trust’s dedicated “Tree of Life” website where you’ll also find a bunch of other resources to help teach evolution, including worksheets and the transcript of the… Read more The Tree of Life →
I love teaching about acids and alkalis at KS3 because there’s quite a bit of fun practical work you can do – making an indicator out of red cabbage is an activity that Year 7 always seem to love. The textbook way of starting this topic is to talk about about acids and alkalis around the house… but this might be far more dramatic / interesting way to introduce the subject: The clip is from Smalltalk Diaries, a series of ten short shows about the lives of minibeasts.