2010 Year 8 Science

The aim of this presentation is to gather examples of blended learning in one place, providing an indication for educators (teachers, managers, ed techs, librarians, etc) of what is possible. And what others are already doing...

" December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse. Canon DLSR on tripod with remote timer taking a photo once every five minutes. "

Amazing weather photography.

"A US photographer has captured incredible photographs of a storm as it unleashed a torrent of rain on a Montana field. The images were taken by Montana photographer Sean Heavey earlier this year during a storm chasing expedition. "I just felt that if you could stand in the middle and looked up you would have been looking into the eye of God,"

Awesome storm photograph

Whiling away the hours in roadwork-induced stoppages, you might find yourself cursing the traffic engineers and highway designers responsible for your misery. You might praise them for finally doing something about that particularly sticky wicket of an interchange. And you might wonder to yourself, "If there was a perfect highway, what would it be like?" At least that's what we wondered. So we found some of America's worst examples of highway design, and talked to experts in the field to find out what it takes to build good roads.

"This is really cool. LEGO fan Dave Kaleta has constructed a dissected frog completely out of LEGO bricks. The frog is splayed open and its innards and outards are all made out of the little plastic bricks. It took quite a vision and a keen recollection of what a frog looks like on the inside to pull this off."

Wow, a LEGO frog for dissection!

"Radcliffe sang Lehrer's song "The Elements"-which, since it was written in 1959, doesn't include EVERY known element, stopping at number 102, nobelium. But whether or not you care much about about elements, the clip below is still worth watching, simply because Radcliffe's surprisingly nervous during the performance, which turns out to be quite cute and endearing."

More reasons to learn science. You can sing like this :-)

The Kepler Mission, NASA Discovery mission #10, is specifically designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover dozens of Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets. Results from this mission will allow us to place our solar system within the continuum of planetary systems in the Galaxy.

This stunning portrait of the sun spread like hot plasma all over the internet yesterday. Wired.com spoke with artist and astrophotographer Alan Friedman to find out how he made it. Friedman shoots the sky from his backyard in downtown Buffalo, New York. That means the usual celestial candidates - galaxies, nebulae, distant star clusters - are washed out by the glow of the city. But the sun is fair game, as long as the sky is clear and turbulence-free.

"A junior science class is used here to demonstrate a lesson about multicelular organisms using glove puppets with a constructivist approach to problem solving and blended learning model. It has even been adapted by the teacher Roland Gesthuizen to help explore complex topics including technology issues such as cyberbullying, privacy, programming, copyright, freedom and ethical behaviour whilst improving their literacy and social skills. This is a very engaging way to quickly assess student understanding using some simple technology and computer skills without the need for sophisticated digital equipment."

This is us :-)

Awesome interactive tool that illustrates the different sizes and scales.

Check this out, a great tool for exploring the different scales and spaces in our world.

Saturn was already the solar system's undisputed lord of the rings. Now newly processed images from the Cassini spacecraft are revealing previously unseen halos of infrared auroral light above the planet's poles.

The goal of the Great Melbourne Telescope project is to restore the telescope to working order so that it may be used for educational and public viewing.The Great Melbourne Telescope was one of the largest telescopes in the world in the 19th century, and the largest in the southern hemisphere.

"The Big Sleep Survey 2010 is a real citizen science research project. Australian sleep scientists want to find out how much sleep we're getting, whether mobiles and laptops in the bedroom are affecting our sleep, and how many of us experience parasomnias, such as sleep walking! The scientists need as many people as possible to volunteer to do the Big Sleep Survey this August. "

Intersting research project you can participate in.

"A Jupiter-like world orbiting a star 150 light-years away has searing temperatures and winds blasting at speeds up to 10,000 kilometres per hour, according to astronomers. The storm stems from the planet's blindingly close and rotationally synched orbit around its parent star."

Amazing to think of a storm, even on this distant star! All those currents, all those clouds, wow!

"Rock-paper-scissors isn't just a silly game kids play or a way to decide who has to be the designated driver at parties. This is serious stuff. It's psychological warfare. ChaCha Answers explains."

Interesting science behind this game.

"The Exploratorium isn't just a museum, it's an ongoing exploration of science, art, and human perception-a vast collection of online interactives, web features, activities, programs and events that feed your curiosity."

Interesting online and interactive museum

A British Apollo 11 fan has painstakingly united the mission control footage with audio recorded during the moon landing When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon on 20 July 1969, Nasa used two film cameramen at mission control in Houston to capture the moment back on Earth. The footage has been regularly seen in the decades since but it has always lacked a synchronised soundtrack, which never made it into the archive with the film.

BREMEN, Germany - In three years, the European Space Agency will become the owner of what is possibly the most dangerous piece of space debris circling the Earth for the next 150 years: the 17,636-pound Envisat Earth observation satellite.