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NOVA

RESOURCE	GRADE LEVEL	MEDIA TYPE
Air Bag Design Using automobile crash test footage, this video segment adapted from NOVA shows some of the challenges in designing the air bag.	3-12	Video
Antarctica: A Challenging Work Day What happens when the ground under your feet is ice and it's moving? This video segment adapted from NOVA features some of the dangers faced by scientists conducting research in Antarctica.	3-12	Video
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.	K-12	Video
Antarctic Ice Movement: Part I This video segment adapted from NOVA explains why ice sheets move. To find out how fast they move, scientists carve a tunnel through a glacier.	6-12	Video
Antarctic Ice Movement: Part II Within Antarctic ice sheets are fast-moving streams of ice. This video segment adapted from NOVA hypothesizes about how ice streams are the result of warming at the end of the last ice age.	6-12	Video
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.	6-12	Video
Booming Sands This video segment, adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, presents basic concepts of physics behind "booming" sand dunes. See how surface tension affects potential and kinetic energy and how it all works together to create sound.	6-12	Video
Caves: Extreme Conditions for Life This video segment adapted from NOVA raises the provocative idea that if life can exist in the most extreme environments on Earth — such as in dark, toxic caves — then perhaps living things can also survive in harsh environments on other planets.	6-12	Video
Chasing Tornadoes In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists are on the hunt for tornadoes. Using Doppler radar, they gather data in the hopes of solving the mystery of how tornadoes form.	6-12	Video
Climate Change This video segment adapted from NOVA explains the difference between weather and climate and features groundbreaking analysis revealing that Earth's climate has changed much faster than previously believed.	6-12	Video
Create a DNA Fingerprint Learn DNA profiling, the technique police use to catch the guilty and free the innocent. From NOVA: "The Killer's Trail" Web site.	6-12	Interactive
Dating Lava Flows on Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawaiʻi In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists search for carbonized remains of plants preserved in lava flows to find out how long it has taken rain forests on Hawaiʻi to regenerate after a volcanic eruption.	3-12	Video
Earthquake Prediction This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the tragic story of two Japanese seismologists who disagreed about the threat of earthquakes in the early twentieth century. Today, seismologists in California offer residents a probability of risk that an earthquake might occur.	6-12	Video
Earthquakes: San Francisco The history of earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay area is plotted on a digital map and analyzed in this video segment adapted from NOVA.	6-12	Video
Earthquakes: The Prehistoric Record In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a geologist digs a trench along the San Andreas Fault to reveal three thousand years of earthquake history. Information from the layers of sediment may help geologists to predict earthquakes.	3-12	Video
Earthquakes: The Seismograph This video segment adapted from NOVA uses historical illustrations, photographs, and animations to explain how seismographs work, the difference between P and S waves, and the Richter scale.	6-12	Video
Everest: Test Your Brain This interactive feature from the NOVA "Everest" Web site lets you take the same brain quizzes that researchers used to test the brain function of climbers on Mount Everest.	6-8	Interactive
Evidence for the Big Bang Theory This video segment adapted from NOVA tells the story of two scientists who inadvertently discovered microwave radiation that is now believed to be heat left over from the Big Bang.	9-12	Video
Explore a Stretch of Code Try your hand at reading a segment of genetic code in this interactive feature from the NOVA "Cracking the Code of Life" Web site.	9-12	Interactive
Fastest Glacier In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, scientists in western Greenland explain how a glacier there is shrinking and moving faster due to increased melting.	6-12	Video
Finding Disease Genes This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" explains the process of finding genes that cause disease.	9-12	Video
Forensic DNA Analysis This video segment from NOVA: "The Killer's Trail" investigates the potential for DNA evidence to solve murder cases, even those from the distant past.	9-12	Video
Genetic Variation This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" explores the genetic similarities and differences among organisms.	9-12	Video
Genome Facts This list from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" Web site provides some of the basic, yet impressive, facts and figures about the Human Genome Project.	9-12	Document
Global Warming: Graphs Tell the Story Examine these graphs from the NOVA/ FRONTLINE Web site to see dramatic increases in the temperature of Earth's surface and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.	6-12	Document
Global Warming: Graphs Tell the Story Examine graphs from the NOVA/FRONTLINE Web site to see dramatic changes in the temperature of Earth's surface and in the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.	9-12	Document
Gravity and the Expanding Universe This video segment, adapted from NOVA, traces the evolving history of theories about gravity and a force that may oppose it, along with our understanding of the impact of both of these forces on our expanding universe.	6-12	Video
How Do Avalanches Form? In this video segment adapted from NOVA, dramatic footage of avalanches and animations of ice crystals illustrate how a layer of weakly-bonded snow can contribute to a devastating avalanche.	6-12	Video
How Do Tornadoes Form? In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists use computer simulations to explore the question of how supercell thunderstorms produce tornadoes.	6-12	Video
How the Body Responds to Exercise In this video segment adapted from NOVA, follow novice runners as they train for a marathon, and discover how quickly the body responds to regular aerobic exercise.	6-12	Video
Human Genome Project This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" looks at the meaning and significance of the effort to decode the human genome.	6-12	Video
Hurricanes: New Tools for Predicting This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW features new advances in predicting the intensity of hurricanes.	6-12	Video
Imaging with Radar This interactive activity from NOVA features synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which uses radio waves to create high-quality images. Examine SAR images of Washington, D.C., and learn about this technology's unique advantages.	6-12	Interactive
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.	3-12	Video
Journey into DNA Travel deep into the human body to see exactly where your DNA resides. From the NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" Web site.	6-12	Interactive
Lava Sampling on Kilauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientist Mike Garcia draws lava samples at the foot of the active Kilauea volcano to see if it is related to its neighboring volcano, Mauna Loa.	6-12	Video
Lightning Hunters Find out how scientists and engineers use rockets to attract lightning in this video segment adapted from NOVA.	3-12	Video
Mirror Neurons This video segment, adapted from NOVA scienceNow, introduces the latest research on a system of neurons that plays a part in how people relate to each other.	6-12	Video
Mount Pinatubo: Predicting a Volcanic Eruption This video segment adapted from NOVA relates the dramatic story of vulcanologists trying to predict the timing of the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.	6-12	Video
Nature vs. Nurture Revisited Which dictates our existence -- our genetic makeup or the environment we grow up in? Kevin Davies offers an update on this long-standing debate, from the NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" Web site.	9-12	Document
Oil Spill: Exxon Valdez, 1989 This video segment adapted from NOVA follows the clean-up effort after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska. Also featured is a marsh where an oil spill occurred 20 years earlier; analysis suggests that environmental damage may last for decades.	6-12	Video
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.	6-12	Video
The Origin of the Moon This video segment adapted from NOVA follows the Apollo 15 astronauts as they collect samples of ancient rock from the Moon's crust, whose discovery helps lead to a radical new theory about the Moon's origin.	6-12	Video
Quarks: Inside the Atom This video segment adapted from NOVA shows how the particle accelerator helped physicists find parts of the atom even smaller than protons and neutrons.	6-12	Video
Robot Race In this video segment adapted from NOVA, cars drive themselves. Teams of designers using different technologies compete for a two-million-dollar prize to see which unmanned vehicle will make it to the finish line first.	3-12	Video
Sequence for Yourself How do researchers read the tiny As, Gs, Ts, and Cs that comprise DNA? This step-by-step explanation shows you. From NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life."	9-12	Interactive
The Sequencing Race Begins This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" looks at one of the key players in the race to decode the human genome.	9-12	Video
Sound Waves Underwater: Experiment with Sonar This animation from the NOVA Web site describes how sonar uses sound waves to "see" underwater.	6-12	Document
Sound Waves Underwater: The Loch Ness Monster This video segment, adapted from NOVA follows a team of enthusiasts and scientists who attempt to find a trace of the Loch Ness monster by scouring the lake with sonar.	6-12	Video
Stories in the Ice Take a journey back through time, on the NOVA/FRONTLINE Web site, using ice cores to learn about Earth's climatic history, including evidence of global warming and nuclear activity.	6-12	Document
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	Video
Super Salmon This video segment from FRONTLINE/NOVA: "Harvest of Fear" explores genetic modification of salmon and possible consequences.	9-12	Video
Synthesizing an Alkaloid In this video segment, adapted from NOVA, learn how chemist Percy Julian revolutionized chemistry by synthesizing the alkaloid physostigmine from scratch—the first total synthesis of a chemical compound.	9-12	Video
Taking the Earth's Temperature This video segment from FRONTLINE/NOVA: "What's Up with the Weather?" depicts research efforts to record Earth's past and present temperatures shifts.	9-12	Video
When Did the First Americans Arrive? In this video segment adapted from NOVA, recent archeological evidence leads scientists to revise existing theories about human migrations into the Americas around the time of the last ice age.	6-12	Video
Who Owns the Genome? This video segment from NOVA: "Cracking the Code of Life" examines the social and ethical implications of genome research.	9-12	Video