Winter Break Bordem - Science Videos

This summer I had the wonderful joy of watching many talented YouTube artists make videos on our favorite topic: SCIENCE! Sure, we're a little late for the beginning of the year but just in time for Winter Break!

Here are a few of my favorite videos from this summer. If you find yourself wanting to learn some science this Winter Break but don't want to read those dusty textbooks check out some of these Youtuber's other videos.

1.) Paul G. Hewitt teaches the "Conservation of Momentum"
This video isn't new (2008) but it does show an entertaining way to teach a physics concept that can be difficult for students to grasp. Hewitt is a physics teacher, among other things, who is well known in the  science education world for writing a physics textbook that helped teach through analogies. His analogies and demonstrations not only make science more interesting and easy to understand but they are fun too!

2.) NPR (National Public Radio) is absolutely wonderful. They have a website and YouTube channel and their content ranges from politics to music and even science! This video here from NPR answers the question "How heavy is a hurricane?" Can you guess the weight of a hurricane in whales? The answer may surprise you.

3.)Vsauce- Michael Stevens is a science writer and the host of Vsauce. This channel has many interesting videos; some on video games, science news, fun things to-do online and nifty things people have created. Vsauce has a few side channels as well, including vsauce2, (new) vsauce3, and vsaucegaming. This video explains why people are ticklish and why some people think it is actually painful.

4.)Veritasium- America is definitely not the only country with scientists. This vlogger is from Australia and did his Ph.d on teaching science through videos. This video explains common misconceptions about temperature by interviewing people on the streets in Australia. Go ahead, watch this video and learn why some materials feel colder than others.

5.) Crashcourse is a new Youtube channel created by two brothers. Each brother tackles an AP subject. The first two subjects were World History and Biology. This is the first video in the Biology segment. (Just now starting is a segment on Ecology.) If biology is your thing you should watch these videos that are done by Hank Green, who got his Ph.D in environmental biology.

6.)ASAPscience - I recently came upon this science channel. Their tagline is "Got a burning question?" They have about 50 videos on many different topics in science. Ever wonder why people get hangovers? Want to know know about the age of earth? Or maybe you just wondered how Spiderman's powers work, this is the channel to keep an eye on.

7.) Is astronomy more your thing? SpaceLab is a youtube channel that has playlists of astronomy related things. They also have connections with the International Space Station. Neil DeGrasse Tyson has been interviewed a few times on their channel and their normal host is... Bill Nye the Science guy!

8.)SciShow is the place to go for science news. This channel is written and hosted by Hank Green (of CrashCourse) and mainly focuses on science news. There are some videos of explanation and even a few on labs you can do at home.

9.) MelodySheep - Lastly, this channel takes clips from movies, documentaries and speeches about different topics and turns them into a catchy auto-tune song of science! 

Icy Ovens Explained

In the last post we did an experiment involving ice cubes. We briefly explained how the same idea behind the movement of the ice cubes is also the concept for a convection oven. But this idea is astronomically larger than that (like earth or sun or galaxy sized). The idea of convection is an environmental and geological one.

According to the 3rd edition of the Glossary of Geology, convection has 4 different meanings. The definitions for economic geology, meteorology, oceanography and tectonics are slightly different however the underlying idea is the mass movement of something caused by a change in heat or density.

Convection currents are the driving force of tectonic movement.

In most schools students learn about plate tectonics. (I think my school touched on them in 7th grade.) However, we've noticed that most students learn very little about tectonics (and geology in general.) They learn that tectonics make mountains and earthquakes, but how are those created? Simply? Convection!
Convection is the movement of the heat in the Earth.  Convection causes the tectonic plates to shift. When they move we get tectonic activity and this causes a bunch of things to happen. Earthquakes, volcanoes, expanding oceans, mountain building. You name it, tectonics probably has a hand in it.


Convection is also found as a force in stars. To think about this concept we will use the closest start to Earth for studying...

The Sun!

Just like the earth the sun is made of different layers. We've all heard about the Earth's core (or seen the terrible movie called Core. Now that we've talked about geodes that movie makes less sense.) but we don't often chat about the core of the Sun. The sun is very important to life on Earth. We are at the perfect distance for heat to sustain life and with our magnetosphere blocking UV waves we get pretty auroras.


How exactly does convection work in the sun? Well, in the layer of the sun called the photosphere, convection occurs and moves the heat from the core. The photosphere is the lower layer of the sun's atmosphere and is where the brightness of the sun comes from. The core is where nuclear fusion takes place, this fusion causes enormous amounts of heat. This heat circles through the photosphere through convection currents.

It's simply amazing how much heat can do. It keeps our Earth moving and keeps sediments occurring. A professor at our schools likes to say "Without tectonics there would be no serious sedimentation." And this includes ocean currents, waves, rivers and all other forms of sedimentation.

Now, how cool is that?

Icy Ovens

I take it you have heard of the convection oven. A convenient cooking tool that makes sure the whole oven is warm. The best way to make perfect cookies!

Mmmm, gingerbread cookies! How festive!

We know you all like cookies.

To explain the idea of convection (the process that makes perfect cookies) we are going to do an experiment with ice cubes!

Materials:
- A rectangular tub about 10 inches deep
- Desk Lamp (with lightbulb)
- Ice Cube Tray
- Blue and Red Food Coloring

 

What To Do:
(Pre-Lab Set Up) - Fill an Ice Cube Tray with water; add a few drops of blue dye to each container
1. First fill the tub with about 8 inches of water.

2. Place both the tub and the lamp on a flat surface. Position the lamp over one half of the tub. Let the light sit on over the tub for 10-20 minutes.

3.) Put the ice cubes in the side of the tub opposite the lamp.

4.) Place a few drops of red food coloring on the side with the lamp.

5.) Watch the initial reaction. The food color should not mix at this point because they are different temperatures. (However some of the dye may mix, that happened with us.)

6.) After about 20 (maybe more) minutes the water should be a purple and the ice cubes melted. This is because heat from the lamp has moved throughout the container (convection!) and the food coloring has mixed.

Suggestions: When making the blue ice cubes make the water very dark blue. The dye freezes at a different rate than the water. also it will help when viewing the mixing of colors.