ScienceMan! – Page 3

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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Teaching Idea – Owl Pellet Dissection

January 3, 2014 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

It’s always a fun activity to dissect owl pellets – if you’ve never done it before, you really should give it a try, you can learn a lot about owls and what they eat. Here’s a few pictures from a ScienceMan grade 7 owl pellet lab: As long as you are using owl pellets from biological supply companies, this activity is perfectly safe – the owl pellets are fumigated so as to eliminate any chance of disease. The pellets are…

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Cutting the Cable

November 24, 2013 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

You don’t have to do much research to learn that people are dropping their pay TV services in record numbers. It’s not hard to imagine why. Personally, I finally got sick of paying $100/month cable bills for a bunch of junk channels that I never watch. It’s only due to laziness that I never cut my cable a long time ago – I was afraid of the hassle, but ironically, it’s been a lot of fun switching to alternate sources…

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Project Adult Literacy Society – A Very Noble Cause!

October 21, 2013 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

When people think about English as a Second Language (ESL), we often don’t consider the full implications of needing to get proper language training. It’s often a lot more serious than just being able to participate in everyday conversation. Consider that many immigrants may want to qualify for colleges or training programs. For example, how do you pass an entrance exam for a science program, when you don’t know science vocabulary in the English language? Thankfully, there are some wonderful…

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Plastic Pump Bottles – An Environmental Scourge!

October 7, 2013 ScienceMan Comments 3 comments

OK, I admit it, I’m a bit of a “tree-hugger”, and that means I re-use and recycle pretty religiously. So take my following comments with a grain of salt! One consumer product item that gets my goat a bit is pump bottles. Have you ever taken these things apart? It’s surprising how many plastic, metal, and rubber parts contribute to these pump mechanisms: Now for some products, it might be a net benefit – for example, the liquid soap dispenser…

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Solar Panels Dangerous? Or Power Industry Propaganda?

October 6, 2013 ScienceMan Comments 2 comments

I recently had a good look at the shingles on my house, and unfortunately, it looks like they need replacing. But then I got to thinking, perhaps, since I have to do work on the roof anyway, this might be a good time to investigate solar energy. What’s really neat is there is a great source of solar panel and off-grid information right in my backyard – SolarPanel.ca is located in Wabamun, AB, very close to where I live. I…

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Are Gas Ranges a Potential Carbon Monoxide Danger?

October 2, 2013 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

Most of us have carbon monoxide detectors in our homes, but don’t give them a second thought. That was the case for me as well, at least until yesterday. While hacking away at the computer, I was startled by a repeating series of deafening beeps – once my slow brain figured out that it was not the smoke detector, I noticed that display on the CO detector was flashing with a reading of 357 ppm. It turns out the flashing…

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Scientific Explorer Series on the Sun

October 1, 2013 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

A stunning series on the Sun from Scientific Explorer has recently been published – this is an 8-part gem you really need to read. Here are the links to every excellent entry in the series: The Sun Part 1: Evidence of A Violent Star The Sun Part 2: From Gas Cloud To Nuclear Fusion The Sun Part 3: The Sun Is Full Of Plasma The Sun Part 4: Helium Eventually Seals The Sun’s Fate The Sun Part 5: How The Inner Layers…

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Surviving Teaching

October 1, 2013 ScienceMan Comments 0 Comment

It’s natural that as education theory progresses, teachers have to learn, adapt, and make changes to their instruction. Just one example – as curriculum and resources implement principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), teachers obviously need to adjust their lessons and teaching techniques accordingly. Most teachers know this comes with the territory, and happily exercise their professionalism in putting in the extra time that is needed to make sure their students are getting the best instruction possible. However, teacher-time…

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