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! 

Introverted Inertia Explained

We tried something a little different with this experiment. Most of the posts we have done so far have had an environmental emphasis; this experiment is a physics based lab. Now because of that we had to do a little more research. Neither Rachel, nor I, are physics experts but we recognize the importance of physics in everyday life.

In order to talk about Inertia we need to go over a little bit of basic physics, this means Newton and his laws of motion. Physics is the study of movement. Everything moves but not everything moves to the same degree. Newton described three laws of motion. Inertia deals with the first law; which is sometimes called the Law of Inertia.

Our 'artistic' showing of Newton's First Law

The law is a bit more important than just "Objects at rest like to stay at rest and objects in motion like to stay in motion." If we didn't explain a little further you'd think moving objects never stopped! Can you imagine running forever and not stopping?

To amend our statement: Objects at rest will stay at rest and and object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by another force. So you will keep running in your straight little line until something makes you stop; like a wall.

Oh No!

So Inertia is what makes it so hard to get out of bed in the morning. It is easier to stay lying in bed than to exert the energy to move. It's also the same reason exercising can feel good. Once you get going it can be hard to stop!

Inertia can also be explained mathematically (we know, something you'd don't usually want to hear). Don't worry though, the formula for inertia is actually quite easy and you've probably heard of it before.

F = ma

"Force equals mass times acceleration." Mass isn't actually the weight of something even though many use the word mass interchangeably with weight. On Earth our weight is an example of Newton's first law and in our case acceleration would be gravity. (It's okay if you don't understand this at first, it is a hard concept.) In physics we show this in kilograms.

Acceleration can be thought of as the speed of something, we show this in meters per second^2 (second squared). So what are the units for force? Kilogram meters per second squared, or otherwise: kg m/s^2. In physics we like to simplify this as a Newton, N, after Isaac Newton of course.

This means that something with a larger mass takes more force to get it moving. You can blow on a feather and get it floating but can you blow on a rock and make it move? This is something that people think about everyday without even noticing. Can we lift that object changing its inertia? If it isn't too heavy we can.

It's amazing how simple things like moving a rock or getting out of bed can boil down to such a simple idea as inertia.

If you want to watch a clip on Inertia here is one we found on YouTube that is helpful. http://youtu.be/by-7kkAu2Pg?t=1m24s

Introverted Intertia

This experiment is not specifically for those who do not want to venture out of the house or are shy, but it is a great lesson for a rainy day! There are four parts to this experiment. Each one demonstrates inertia and is very simple. Go ahead, test out those physics skills of yours!
Video at the end showing demonstrations of each activity.

Part One:
Materials:
-Cup
-Coin
-Index Card

1.) Place the note card on the cup with the coin in the center. 

2.) Flick the card.

3.) The coin will drop in the cup. (Beware, cards can fly far.)

Part Two:
Materials:
-Marble
-Sand/Cotton
-Cup
-Index Card

1.) Pour sand or cotton in bottom of the cup.

2.) Place the note card on the cup with the marble in the center of the card.

3.) Flick the card.

4.) Marble will fall into cup.

Video: starts around 28 seconds

Part Three:
Materials:
-Paper
-Cup
-Coin

1.) Place note card on the rim of the cup with coin balancing.

2.) 'Karate chop' the paper.

3.) Coin should fall into the cup.

(Caroll tried this multiple times before getting it, Rachel got it on her first shot!)

Video: starts around 10 seconds

Part Four:
Materials:
-Heavyweight Paper
-Tape
-Cup
-Coin
-Pencil

1.) Cut paper 3cm wide 30 cm long. (1 in wide, 12 inches long)

2.) Fold paper in a circle and tape.

3.) Place the ring on the cup and balance coin on top.

4.) Flick pencil inside the ring to make the coin fall in the cup.

Video: starts around 17 seconds

Video: