Above the Clouds: Telescopes on Mauna Kea
This video segment adapted from First Light explains why the highest peak in the Pacific, Mauna Kea, is an ideal site for astronomical observations. Featured are new telescope technologies that allow astronomers to explore the universe in more depth.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Accidental Discoveries
This lesson will help the students understand that science theories change in the face of new evidence, but those changes can be slow in coming.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
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5-8 |
Lesson Plan
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Accidental Discoveries
This segment from Swift: Eyes through Time traces the history military officers and engineers discovering a strange phenomenon in the sky that astronomers now know are gamma-ray bursts.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
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5-8 |
QuickTime Video
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Anatomy of a Rover
In this interactive activity from NOVA, learn about the sophisticated scientific instruments on two identical robotic rovers that have explored Mars — Spirit and Opportunity.
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3-12 |
Flash Interactive
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Antarctica: Sea Ice
This video segment adapted from NOVA uses microwave images to reveal how sea ice doubles the size of Antarctica each winter. Rare footage shows how sea ice crushed the famous ship Endurance in 1914.
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K-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Arctic Sea Ice Satellite Observations
In this interactive activity produced for Teachers' Domain, learn how Arctic sea ice has changed over the past 25 years in terms of maximum winter extent, concentration, and the timing of breakup each spring.
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6-12 |
Flash Interactive
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Are We Alone?
This video segment adapted from NOVA features a variety of scientific perspectives on the age old question, "Are we alone in the universe?" Animations make vivid the improbability that we could intercept a radio wave signaling extra terrestrial intelligence.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Astronomical Images in Different Wavelengths
Visible light is just one portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that a telescope may detect. This collection of images produced for Teachers' Domain features radio wave, infrared, visible light, and X-ray images of distant stars and galaxies as well as images of the telescopes designed to detect the various wavelengths of radiation.
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6-12 |
Flash Interactive
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Astronomy Theories
This video segment from Swift: Eyes through Time deals with the advancement of science through changing existing ideas, refuting outdated theories, and incorporating new findings.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
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5-8 |
QuickTime Video
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Creativity in Science
This lesson will take a look at the different roles scientists play in discoveries.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
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5-8 |
Lesson Plan
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Earth System: Satellites
This video segment adapted from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows how integral satellites are to everyday life and describes the different types, including orbital and geostationary.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Engineering for the Red Planet
In this video segment from NASA, robotics researcher Ayanna Howard uses engineering to improve the intelligence of robots in space exploration.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Galileo: Discovering Jupiter's Moons
This video segment adapted from NOVA shows how Galileo, using his newly developed refracting telescope, observed four of Jupiter's moons, the first astronomical bodies to be discovered since ancient times.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Gamma-ray Burst Theories
This video segment from Swift: Eyes through Time introduces and explains theories of the origin of gamma-ray bursts.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
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5-8 |
QuickTime Video
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Global View of the Seasons
This interactive activity produced for Teachers' Domain features satellite data of Earth's seasonal cycles. Visualizations and comparative still images reveal how successfully plants are photosynthesizing at different times of the year.
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6-12 |
Flash Interactive
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How Big Is Our Universe?
This interactive resource from Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics uses images and activities to understand the scope and scale of our universe. Featured are technologies used by generations of explorers.
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3-12 |
HTML Interactive
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Hubble's Expanding Universe
This adapted video segment, using footage from NOVA and NASA,
examines Edwin Hubble's work and how his findings laid the foundation for the Big Bang
theory.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
|
Hubble Telescope: Looking Deep
This video segment adapted from the Space Telescope Science Institute shows what
the Hubble telescope found when it stared at a single, nearly empty spot in the sky for 10
days in 1995. The unexpected result was a picture of a multitude of galaxies stretching into
the distance.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
|
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Infrared Search for Origins
This interactive resource from NASA illustrates how infrared technology has advanced space exploration and can offer insight into questions about star formation, planetary systems, brown dwarfs, and the origins of the universe.
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6-12 |
Flash Interactive
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Ingredients for Life: Water
This video segment adapted from NOVA goes on a whimsical journey in search of life forms thriving in extreme conditions on Earth and in outer space. Animations show ice on Jupiter's moon, Europa, and signs that water once existed on Mars.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Looking Back in Time
This lesson plan will provide a concrete way for the students to understand the concept of “distance in space equals distance in time.”
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
|
5-8 |
Lesson Plan
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Looking Back in Time
This video segment of Swift: Eyes through Time provides concrete examples to explain the concept that distance in space equals distance in time.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
|
5-8 |
QuickTime Video
|
Mars Dead or Alive: A Hostile Environment
This NOVA video segment describes the challenges presented by the frozen desert environment of Mars to NASA engineers designing two robots that will journey millions of miles to the red planet.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Mars Dead or Alive: Mars Up Close
NASA scientist Steve Squyres narrates this visual tour from NOVA Online of the most revealing discoveries made by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars.
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6-12 |
Flash Interactive
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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Mars Dead or Alive: Where to Land?
In this video segment from NOVA, engineers and scientists designing the Spirit and Opportunity rovers struggle to choose landing spots both safe enough for landing and geologically promising.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
|
Melting Ice
In this media-rich lesson, students explore the role that ice plays on Earth, the factors causing it to melt, and the local and global consequences of melting ice.
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6-12 |
Lesson Plan
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Observations of Climate Change
In this media-rich activity, students learn how data gathered through surveys with local residents and data collected by remote satellites are complementary tools that help deepen our understanding of the effects of climate change in the Arctic and elsewhere.
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6-12 |
Student Activity
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Observe One Place at Many Scales
These satellite images and the companion animation from McDougal Littell/TERC begin at a scale that covers the whole Earth and zoom in to a view of the Capitol building in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.
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6-12 |
Flash Interactive
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The Origin of the Elements
This video segment adapted from NOVA explains the origin of the elements and how scientists use unique element profiles to identify supernova types.
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6-12 |
QuickTime Video
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The Relationship Between Science and Technology
Students will learn how technology can help scientists solve a problem. One of the challenges scientists face with any spacecraft is attitude control. Students will be introduced to the problem of attitude control in space and two different ways scientists address it.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
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5-8 |
Lesson Plan
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Robotic Exploration of Space Timeline
This interactive timeline from NASA journeys through the last century, detailing key discoveries, experiments, missions, and other events that brought robotic space exploration from science fiction to reality.
|
9-12 |
Flash Interactive
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Satellites Orbiting Earth
This animation adapted from NASA shows the orbital paths of spacecraft in NASA's Earth Observing Fleet that are a source of wide-scale, primary research about Earth.
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3-12 |
QuickTime Video
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The Search for Another Earth
This NASA video provides an overview of technology under development to explore the planets and stars outside our solar system. These will be the most sensitive instruments built to date.
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3-12 |
Flash Video
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Seeing Stars
This video segment, adapted from QUEST, explores the modern techniques employed by astrophysicists to detect planets in orbit around stars
in the universe other than our own.
Collection Developed by:
KQED Public Television
|
11-12 |
QuickTime Video
|
A Strange New Planet
This video segment adapted from NOVA features the first planet to be discovered outside our solar system. Its surprisingly large size and short orbit sent scientists back to their data and led them to discover similar planets.
|
6-12 |
QuickTime Video
|
Swift: Gamma-Ray Bursts
In this video segment adapted from Penn State Public Broadcasting's Swift: Eyes Through Time, learn about the Swift satellite — a NASA mission with international participation — and how it is collecting data about gamma-ray bursts that may yield important discoveries about the Universe.
|
6-12 |
QuickTime Video
|
Teamwork in Science
This video segment from Swift: Eyes through Time explores the concept of teamwork as scientists around the globe work together to explore deep space.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
|
5-8 |
QuickTime Video
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Theories
This lesson will help the students understand that science theories change in the face of new evidence, but those changes can be slow in coming.
Collection Developed by:
WPSU
|
5-8 |
Lesson Plan
|
Tracking Polar Bears
In this interactive activity adapted from the USGS Alaska Science Center, track the movements of a polar bear as it migrates across the changing Arctic sea ice and compare the paths of four different polar bears.
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K-8 |
Flash Interactive
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