ScienceMan! – Page 2

Scientific Explorer Series on Dark Energy

January 5, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

A stunning series on the Dark Matter from Scientific Explorer has recently been published – this is a 14-part tour-de-force of physics that you really MUST read. Here are the links to every excellent entry in the series: Part 1: How Dark Energy Fits Into the Evolution of the Universe Part 2: What Expansion of Space Means Part 3: Two NASA Pie Charts Tell Us a Great Deal – And Bring Up Many Questions Part 4: What happened to the matter in the universe? Part 5: The…

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Tutorial – Yenka Chemistry – Alkali Metal Reactions

January 4, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 1 comment

Welcome to the Yenka Tutorial Series ScienceMan’s having a such blast playing and learning with Yenka, I thought, why not put some Yenka ideas online for teachers and students to check out? So without further any further blabbing, here’s today’s tutorial: Yenka Chemistry – Alkali Metal Reactions One of the great things about Yenka is its ability to simulate chemical reactions in a realistic way. This is becoming more and more important as jurisdictions move to ban more and more…

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Tutorial – Yenka Light and Sound – Eye Problems

January 4, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

Welcome to the Yenka Tutorial Series ScienceMan’s having a such blast playing and learning with Yenka, I thought, why not put some Yenka ideas online for teachers and students to check out? So without further any further blabbing, here’s today’s tutorial: Yenka Light and Sound – Eye Problems One of the great things about Yenka is its ability to bring static phenomenon to life. I’m sure you’ve all seen eye cross-section diagrams showing near-sightedness and farsightedness. But without the ability…

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Tutorial – Yenka Light and Sound – Ray Diagrams

January 4, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

Welcome to the Yenka Tutorial Series ScienceMan’s having a such blast playing and learning with Yenka, I thought, why not put some Yenka ideas online for teachers and students to check out? So without further any further blabbing, here’s today’s tutorial: Yenka Light and Sound – Ray Diagrams One of the great things about Yenka is its ability to simplify complex demonstrations. A good example of this is the optics bench, which for teachers can be a real hassle to…

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Tutorial – Yenka – Working With Objects

January 4, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

Welcome to the Yenka Tutorial Series ScienceMan’s having a such blast playing and learning with Yenka, I thought, why not put some Yenka ideas online for teachers and students to check out? So without further any further blabbing, here’s today’s tutorial: Working with Objects Yenka’s greatest strength is making it ridiculously easy to create simulations. In the past, complicated programming languages and skills would be necessary to make objects interact on your computer screen. Not any more! Yenka makes simulation…

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Tutorial – Yenka – Getting Started

January 4, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

Welcome to the Yenka Tutorial Series Yenka’s ability to do so much at a very affordable price has the ScienceMan very excited. And in today’s changing classroom where interactive whiteboard technologies are becoming more and more important, Yenka fits in wonderfully with its custom whiteboard features. Yenka Tutorial – Learning the Yenka Interface The first thing you need to explore with Yenka is it’s interface – thankfully, it is very intuitive and easy to use. When you start up Yenka, you will…

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Teaching Idea – Forcing Bulbs

January 3, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

Over Christmas, I had the pleasure of lounging around in a house that is loaded with plants… including blooming ones. Usually I just keep my mouth shut and leave anything associated with plant material to the very capable care of my wife. But I couldn’t resist asking about the hyacinths she had made bloom during the holiday season. I thought that the growing bulbs might be of use to science teachers who want a novel way of studying root systems,…

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Teaching Idea – CO2 Powered Cars

January 3, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 4 comments

There’s nothing more fun than racing things at high speed! But how to do it in a safe, semi-controlled, educational manner? One great idea is using CO2 cartridges to propel balsa-wood based vehicles. Here’s some of the the details! First of all, let’s look at a few of the creative cars. These babies are about a foot long, and the bodies are carved out of raw chunks of balsa. In order for the racing to be fair, wheels and axles can…

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Teaching Idea – Toy Car Speed

January 3, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

To introduce (or review) the concept of average speed for physics students, there’s nothing more fun than measuring the speed of toy cars! Students are provided with a selection of toy cars and then asked to assess average speed of the vehicle. I highly recommend buying a few toys from your nearby “dollar store” – these toys often have strange behaviours and idiosyncrasies that make the task just a little more challenging! Students are allowed to use any technique they…

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Teaching Idea – Cutting a Dry Cell in Half

January 3, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

Ever wonder what’s inside a dry cell? Apologies to the Energizer bunny, but here is a cell that has been chopped in half; The parts are a little different from the old zinc-carbon cells; A – combination zinc powder/alkaline electrolyte paste where electrons are released (anode). B – brass conducting rod where the released electrons are collected. C – hard to see in the above diagram, but this is a fabric that separates anode from cathode. D – mixture of…

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