Science Video Resources

I recently read about the Periodic Table of Videos (I can't recall the blog or source where I read it so I apologize for not giving proper credit) and it prompted me to go back to my Furl Archive and search through for other science related video sites. I found a few more and thought I would share them all in one post.

Periodic Table of Elements
This site is maintained by the University of Nottingham and contains a great collection of short videos that describe each of the periodic elements. The layout of the site is very clever allowing users to click on any element they want to watch the associated video. The content and vocabulary of the videos are suitable for middle school and high school. These videos are hosted on YouTube so there may be filter issues when trying to watch these at your school.

ScienceHack
ScienceHack is a collection of science related videos categorized by various topics. These videos are pulled from different sites across the net and not produced by ScienceHack. They claim to review each video before it is included in their database to insure that the content is scientifically accurate.

TestToob
TestToob is focused on showcasing student created videos that are scientific in content. They have different contests that students can enter with their own videos and each video that is uploaded to the site is reviewed before going live. It seems like the site is interested in promoting science and video production in equal parts. You have to become a member, which is free, in order to view, post and comment on videos.

If you teach science, or are just interested in getting some ideas for different kinds of videos your students could produce, you may find these sites helpful.

Wildlife Filmmaker

National Geographic has a great new tool called the Wildlife Filmmaker. This web-based tool allows you to use video from the National Geographic library of footage to create your own movies. The video clips don't have any sound and are fairly short but the library includes a nice range of animals. You can enhance your video by selecting sound effects of different animals as well as a musical background. There is also a feature that allows you to add basic captions to each clip and you can even add multiple captions to the same clip if so desired. Students don't need accounts, and therefore don't need e-mail addresses, to use this tool. It is free and works on both the Mac and PC since it is web-based.

This is what the editing interface looks like. It operates largely by drag and drop so students would be able to start using it without too much instruction. Finished movies can be shared by directly e-mailing them to someone or through a retrieval code that is generated when you save your movie. You can share this retrieval code with anyone you want to view your video. It's important to note that this retrieval code only takes you back to the completed video and doesn't allow you to continue editing your video. In fact, it doesn't appear that there is anyway to save a partially completed video and then come back to it again at a later time so students would have to have their video completely planned out and be able to finish it in one sitting.

You can preview the sounds and music by double clicking on the individual selections. However, I couldn't find a way to preview the video clips. In order to watch each clip I had to first drag it into the timeline and then view it there. This isn't a huge issue but it would take students a bit longer to sort through the clips and find the ones they wanted to use so it's something to be aware of. There is a nice selection of video clips and sound effects but don't assume that just because there is a video clip of an African Civet that there will be a corresponding sound clip of that same animal. Again, this may not be a significant issue but one I thought was worth mentioning.

I hope I don't sound too negative about this tool. If you are looking for an easy to use video editing application that allows your students to incorporate high-quality footage (without having to worry about file storage or copyright issues) then Wildlife Filmmaker is definitely worth checking out. I would love to see more tools of this kind come online in the future.

Science Up Close

I was reading about Science Up Close on Paul Hamilton's blog and thought I'd share it here on my blog. Science Up Close is produced by the textbook company Harcourt but you don't need to have the textbook to use the site. In fact, you don't need to login or create any kind of account either. The site provides interactive science content for grades 1st-6th. The content is tied to the chapters of a specific science textbook but that doesn't really matter since the topics are very common and would be covered in most any elementary science textbook.

I decided to check out the module on the Water Cycle for third grade since this is something my daughter's class is going to be covering soon. I liked that I could have the text read to me if necessary but also turn it off if I wanted to. There was also an option to display the keyboard shortcuts for different parts of the screen for students who might have trouble using a mouse. In many ways this is a talking textbook with interactive images and illustrations. Some of the modules have video segments for the students to watch and I must admit I haven't been able to review every single resource on this site to know what else might be available within individual modules, but it is a nice collection of resources that are closely tied to the various science topics taught in elementary school.

Google Sky

First off let me apologize for being such an absent blogger. I have been on the road for the past week and a half visiting family and while I brought my computer along with me I didn't find much time to post to the blog. Now that I'm back I wanted to share Google Sky with everyone. Yes, the Google geniuses are back at it again and have created yet another cool tool. Google Sky is a lot like Google Earth except that instead of punching in a location on Earth you can explore the sky and various parts of the galaxy. Another thing that differentiates Google Sky from Google Earth is that it is web-based and doesn't require any kind of download to use. Of course, the images you see on Google Sky are going to reflect the limits of our current technology so don't be surprised if you punch in "Jupiter" in the locator window and don't end up with a crystal clear close-up of the gas giant. If you are really into astronomy, and teach it with your students, you may also want to check out Google Moon and Google Mars.

Build Your Wild Self

I learned about Build Your Wild Self several months ago but I can't put my finger on the source so I apologize for not giving credit where credit is due. This is a great site for helping kids learn about animals and the different features (wings, fins, claws, horns) that allow them to survive in their respective habitats. Students can create their own "wild self" much like they would create an avatar by picking a human head and body and then adding different animal body parts in place of their arms, legs, ears, eyes and much more. They can even select a background image for their creature. Once they are done they get to read about the different body parts they selected and see how those parts are unique to an individual animal and help that particular animal. I used Build Your Wild Self with my daughter's class last week since they were researching the different types of animals and they had a lot of fun creating their own wild creatures. The site doesn't require a log in or registration and when they were finished they could easily save their creature as an image file to use later in Power Point presentations they will be doing. Here are some other ideas I had on how teachers could use this tool.

1. Students could create their own wild self and then use that image as their profile picture for different online tools they use. This would allow them to visually represent themselves in a safe way.
2. Students could create a wild creature and then design a habitat that would be best suited for that creature based on the different body parts it had.
3. Students could be assigned a habitat and then asked to design a creature that would be able to survive in that habitat.
4. Students could create and name a brand new creature and write up an informational guide about their new creature. This could even be turned into a class book on mutant animals or some other catchy topic.
   

As with any tool like this the students (this was a 2nd/3rd split class) wanted to play a lot and had fun just clicking through the different body parts so I think it is important to allow time for some of this exploration before you ask them to complete specific tasks.