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Author: ScienceMan

Ecological Footprint

Ecological Footprint

There is no doubt certain parts of the world use way more resources than they should. Unfortunately, this probably won’t change without a way to clearly show how much those parts of the world are abusing/wasting the Earth’s resources. That’s where Ecological Footprint comes in. Please watch the following video on what Ecological Footprint is, and how it works. And after you’ve done that, be sure to measure your own ecological footprint!

New ScienceMan Ecosystem Videos!

New ScienceMan Ecosystem Videos!

ScienceMan has been very busy over the last while creating new science content. Most of the new content deals with ecology and ecosystems, but please watch out for more chemistry and physics content coming soon. So what exactly is new? Let’s take a look! First, we have a new video on how humans damage ecosystems. This video is a general overview of how humans can be very damaging to natural habitat: The next video focusses on ecosystem succession. All the…

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Birdhouse Cleaning

Birdhouse Cleaning

A lot of people don’t realize you need to clean your birdhouses on a regular basis. A good time for doing this is fall when you know migratory birds have left and breeding season is over. Of course this varies geographically, so you should probably do some Googling of the species of birds that you have in your yard to be sure that you won’t be disturbing actively-used houses. There are some rare exceptions where you should NOT clean birdhouses……

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Ripple Rock Trail

Ripple Rock Trail

One of the most enjoyable trail hikes I’ve had in a long time is the Ripple Rock Trail on Vancouver Island – the trail head is about 16 km North of Campbell River. Getting there is easy, there is parking just off HWY 19. We did this hike in the middle of December, so it was pretty cool and wet – but if you dress appropriately, it’s not a problem. Good quality waterproof hiking boots are recommended. It won’t be…

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Beaver Misconceptions – Beaver Lodges

Beaver Misconceptions – Beaver Lodges

The Chickakoo nature area is a wonderful place for wetland ecology studies. Great place for trail running too! The last time I was out for a run, I noticed that the beaver residents had added significantly to their lodge. That reminded me of a presentation I was in recently, where the presenter said “like beavers living in their dams“… now perhaps they just misspoke, but it wasn’t the first time I heard this error. Beavers don’t live in dams, they…

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I love teaching science – and I’m not going anywhere.

I love teaching science – and I’m not going anywhere.

A short story about the Alberta JH Science textbooks. I’m one of the authors of the Science in Action series, and when we completed the first book, I had the idea to create a support website for it. While every textbook has a support website these days, back in the year 2000 this was pretty radical thinking. Anyway, the excellent people at Pearson gave me the thumbs up and I built the Science in Action support website. In those days,…

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What is a Bose-Einstein Condensate?

What is a Bose-Einstein Condensate?

A few weeks ago I watched a great Netflix movie by the name of Spectral. Anything science-fiction-y and scary, I tend to like! But this movie was indeed really cool and had some great special effects involving some other-worldly type creatures that were doing some serious killing. Part of the suspense in these movies is trying to figure out what the weird creatures are, and Spectral didn’t disappoint, it ramped-up some intense suspense, leading to the identity of the killer…

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New ScienceMan Digital Lesson – Force of Friction

New ScienceMan Digital Lesson – Force of Friction

Hello everyone – long time, no chat! Sorry of the long absence, ScienceMan has been pretty busy. But recently I found a bit of time to create a video about the force of friction. This video has a bit of a twist though, I’ve also got a short product review of Kahtoola Nanospikes. A great product if you want to run safely on slippery winter surfaces. Here’s the video, I hope you like it! Speaking of training, the reason I’m…

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Stunning 4K Time-lapse of the Sun

Stunning 4K Time-lapse of the Sun

NASA’s solar dynamics observatory is known for taking spectacular images of the Sun. Someone had the fantastic idea to take the high-resolution images and string them together, resulting in a spectacular animation. What’s more is that this animation was rendered in 4K, so you can view it full-size on even the largest monitors without any loss in quality. So this would be a good video to “view on YouTube“, and then, if you’ve got the bandwidth to support it, choose “4K” (2160p) from…

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