salem6sci

A great VSauce video that introduces colors and how they work. It also addresses why the sky is blue.

A neat ASAP video that explains why people lose their hearing over time. Also does a nice job showing the connection between frequency and pitch.

Hank does his best to convince us that chemistry is not torture, but is instead the amazing and beautiful science of stuff. Chemistry can tell us how three tiny particles - the proton, neutron and electron - come together in trillions of combinations to form ... everything. In this inaugural episode of Crash Course Chemistry, we start out with one of the biggest ideas in chemistry ever - stuff is made from atoms. More specifically, we learn about the properties of the nucleus and why they are important to defining what an atom actually is.

Huw James took a trek up Mount Etna and decided to show us what actually happens when a volcano erupts!

With a little bit of help from Dr Suze Kundu and using a simple demonstration heating a glass beaker of wax, stone, sand and water we can see what happens when a volcano erupts.

We can actually tell a lot about a volcano looking at the lava that comes out. If the lava is quite dense and thick we know it contains a lot of the compound silica. If it is less dense it has less silica and spreads out a lot more.

Thick lava will generally erupt from one vent and follow one flow down the side of the volcano. Thinner lava, lava that is less dense, generally erupts from the surrounding magma chambers and flows in many different channels.

Have you ever found yourself in the path of molten lava? Has the volcano you're climbing suddenly erupted and you don't know what to do? Well keep watching because Huw James has all you need to know.

The earth is built on tectonic plates that move around on the mantle. Sometimes these plates move around and come together to form mountain chains like the Himalayas, some rub together and set off earthquakes, and some like Mount Etna, interact and one plate goes underneath the other.

A Dropbox folder being used to store content for the science department at Salem Middle School.

The New York State Science Regents Test.

A page from the DPI website that includes released forms of the MSL tests for science

On this page you will find the essential standards organized by quarters. Each quater has a variety of pdf files and online quizzes. Students that utilize these resources will be well prepared for the quarterly benchmarks and the end of year MSL exam. (Some pdf files are larger than others and may take a while to download. You can save the pdf files to your computer for faster access in the future.)

A collection of science assessment questions from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

To understand how we hear, and how some common problems occur, it helps to understand ear anatomy. ...

'Motile' (or moving) cilia are found in the lungs, respiratory tract and middle ear. These cilia have a rhythmic waving or beating motion (see right). They work, for instance, to keep the airways clear of mucus and dirt, allowing us to breathe easily and without irritation. They also help propel sperm.

A collection of parts of the ear worksheets from the American Audiology Association.

A decent diagram of the parts of the ear that can be used with students. Includes vocabulary and a labeled and unlabeled diagram.

Found this sound quiz online. Might be worth mining for questions at some point.

Toward the end of his EPA career, Hudnell led a nine-agency effort to address fresh-water algal blooms, he said. The Interagency Symposium on Cyanobacteria Harmful Algal Blooms printed an 885-page report, now hosted at EPA.gov. The report linked algae growth to an increase in nutrient pollution and temperatures and the decline of algae-eating organisms.

In 2007, "that's when I decided, 'The agency's not going to do anything about this,' and I decided I could do better without the agency," he said. "At the time, I decided the best thing out there was the solar-powered circulators."

Circulation technology, he believes, is the most promising idea among the "in-lake" approaches. By cycling water up from the depths, he said, many municipalities have managed to kill off algae blooms, even in heavily affected sewage ponds.

The tactic may work by confusing the algae about its depth in the water, Hudnell said, or by making them more vulnerable to algae-attacking viruses. In either case, he said, he has seen results.

What does it mean for a galaxy to be the most distant galaxy disovered? The numbers are staggering. Here's what you need to know.

For the first time in the history of humankind, economical participation in space exploration is a reality. With Mars One's recent launch of a crowdfunding campaign, it's now possible to send a personal item to distances far beyond your wildest dreams. For many, the Mars One mission is the gateway to a new era in man's historic reach for the stars.

For about 50 years, government organizations have been funding and managing space exploration across the globe. Government run exploration, funded by public monies, has provided limited access to most citizens of those countries. In the last few years, private organizations such as Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Eric Anderson's Space Adventures have made space exploration possible for the mega-rich. A flight with Virgin Galactic 68 miles above Earth goes for a cool $250,000 while the potential 2017 flight to the moon from Space Adventures is rumored to cost an astronomical $150 million. There are others in between, but none as accessible as Mars One. Bas Lansdorp, co-founder of Mars One, has set his sights on involving the everyday man and woman in space exploration

Mars One will establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. Crews of four will depart every two years, starting in 2024. Our first unmanned mission will be launched in 2018. Participate in this mission to Mars through our crowdfunding campaign.

Mars One will establish a human settlement on Mars. You can participate in the first major step: a private Mars Lander and Satellite mission in 2018.