Mathematics

Geometry and Spatial Sense

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NOVA

RESOURCE	GRADE LEVEL	MEDIA TYPE
Anatomy of a Firework There's more to a fireworks display than meets the eye. This interactive activity from the NOVA Web site looks at the technology behind each burst of light.	6-12	Interactive
Animal Hearing Students explore how sound is created, the importance of hearing in certain environments and some environmental causes of hearing loss.	6-8	Lesson Plan
Avalanche Town The impact of natural disasters is made vivid in this video segment adapted from NOVA. A small town in Iceland, prepared for recurrent avalanches, is devastated when one takes a new and damaging path.	6-12	Video
The Beginnings of the Telescope This animated essay from the NOVA Web site examines the design of Galileo's refracting telescope and Sir Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope.	6-12	Document
Diamonds: The Science Behind the Sparkle This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site explains why the atomic structure of a diamond slows down light and produces a sparkle more brilliant than from any other colorless substance.	6-12	Document
Earthquakes: Los Angeles In this video segment adapted from NOVA, animations are used to show how the hills around Los Angeles were formed by earthquakes at small thrust faults that extend outward from the larger San Andreas fault.	6-12	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
Eclipse of the Century This video segment adapted from NOVA features spectacular footage from the 1991 solar eclipse that fortuitously occurred directly over several major astronomical observatories in Hawaiʻi.	3-12	Video
Einstein: How Smart Was He? This essay from the NOVA Web site explores the impact Einstein made on physics and most everything we know about the cosmos.	6-12	Document
Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity What happens when you approach the speed of light? This video segment adapted from NOVA follows one of Albert Einstein's thought experiments and his quest to find the answer.	9-12	Video
Fireworks! Lifting Charge In this video segment adapted from NOVA, learn how pyrotechnicians use common compounds to blast fireworks into the sky and give them shape.	6-12	Video
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.	3-12	Video
Galileo: His Experiments This interactive activity from the NOVA Web site samples Galileo's experiments with falling objects, projectiles, inclined planes, and pendulums.	6-12	Interactive
Galileo: His Place in Science Einstein called Galileo the "father of modern physics." This media-rich essay from the NOVA Web site looks at Galileo's quest to understand the mathematics of motion.	6-12	Document
Galileo's Inclined Plane How did Galileo figure out the mathematics of falling bodies? This video segment adapted from NOVA examines Galileo's work on motion.	6-12	Video
Galileo: Sun-Centered System In the early 1600s, most people believed that the Sun revolved around a stationary Earth. This video segment adapted from NOVA tells how Galileo proved that the Sun, not Earth, is at the center of our universe.	3-12	Video
Galileo: Timeline of His Life This illustrated timeline from the NOVA Web site turns back the clock to the late 1500's to relive the dramatic life of one of the world's most renowned scientists.	6-12	Document
Gravity at Earth's Center In this video segment from NOVA scienceNOW, learn about the effects of gravity as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson falls through a virtual hole through Earth's center.	6-12	Video
How Big Is the Universe? In this media-rich essay from the NOVA Web site, astronomer Brent Tully of the University of Hawaiʻi walks you through the latest scientific theories about the size of the universe.	6-12	Document
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
Jupiter: Earth's Shield Jupiter's immense gravity protects Earth from asteroids. In this video segment adapted from NOVA, scientists searching for signs of life in the universe identify solar systems with Jupiter-like planets that may be shielding smaller nearby Earth-like planets from comets and asteroids.	6-12	Video
Lever an Obelisk Investigate the mechanical advantage of the lever in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.	6-12	Interactive
Levers: Raising the Moai on Easter Island In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a team of archaeologists and engineers explores different uses of the lever by recreating the engineering feats of the ancient Easter Island peoples.	3-12	Video
More Than an Image This video segment explores how humans perceive the world through vision. Footage from NOVA: "Mystery of the Senses: Vision."	3-8	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
A Nanotube Space Elevator In this video adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, find out about the discovery of a new building material, the carbon nanotube, whose physical properties could theoretically enable the creation of a 22,000-mile elevator to space.	6-12	Video
Raising an Obelisk: An Engineering Puzzle This video segment adapted from NOVA follows two teams as they each test a different engineering design in an effort to explain how ancient Egyptians raised a giant stone obelisk.	3-12	Video
Relativity and the Cosmos This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site introduces the basic concepts of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and what we know about cosmology as a result.	6-12	Document
Sagan on Time Travel Astronomer Carl Sagan discusses the possibility of time travel in this audio-enhanced interview from the NOVAWeb site.	9-12	Document
Shape of Things: Trees This video segment from NOVA: "The Shape of Things" describes the pervasiveness of branching systems, which are found in all multicellular organisms.	6-8	Video
Shipwrecks Reveal Ocean Currents In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a detailed map showing the trajectories of abandoned ships from the late 1800's is used to reveal the routes of surface currents in the Atlantic Ocean. Animations illustrate the role played by ocean currents in the colonization of North America.	6-12	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
Speed of Light: Time Traveler This interactive game from the NOVA Web site explores what happens to time as a traveler approaches the speed of light.	6-12	Interactive
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
String Theory: A New Picture of Gravity This video segment from NOVA describes the general theory of relativity and the theory of electromagnetism.	6-12	Video
String Theory: Gravity - The Odd Man Out This video segment from NOVA describes the discovery in the 1930s of two forces in addition to electromagnetism: the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.	9-12	Video
String Theory: Newton's Embarrassing Secret This video segment from NOVA chronicles Newton's theory of gravity and Einstein's discovery that contradicted it.	6-12	Video
String Theory: Strings to the Rescue This video segment from NOVA discusses the challenge of unifying the force of gravity and the forces described by quantum mechanics into a single theory of unification.	9-12	Video
Tidal Curiosities This illustrated essay from the NOVA Web site answers questions about irregularities in the tides.	6-12	Document
Total Solar Eclipse Animation This brief animation adapted from NOVA illustrates how total solar eclipses form and explains the stages from first contact to totality.	3-12	Video