Online Resources for Science Teachers

Later this month I'm giving a talk at the City of Calgary Teachers Convention on resources in Astronomy for teachers.  In preparation for that talk I've been compiling a list of Astronomy Resources.  Since I've got quite a few online resources now I thought I'd create one 'master list' of science resources.  Below you'll find a list of excellent science& math online resources, animations, simulations, videos and links.  I hope you find the useful:

Online Simulations & Animations
1. PhET Simulations - Collection of interactive Science simulations
2. University of Nebraska Simulations - Excellent assortment of Physics and Astronomy Simulations and Demonstrations
3. WolframAlpha - Ask (almost) any mathematics related question and get an answer from this website.

Downloadable Programs
1. Stellarium - This amazingly detailed planetarium software allows you to look at the sky from any place the Earth at any time.  You can zoom in to look at Planets, Nebulae or Galaxies or zoom out to see the entire Milky Way.

Citizen Science Sites
1. Planethunters - An amazing Citizen Science Project searching for extrasolar planets
2. Zooniverse - A collection of dozens of different Citizen Science Projects ranging from Astronomy to Biology to Sociology
3. AAVSO DSLR Tutorial - An introduction to DSLR photometry


YouTube Videos
1. Size of Stars and Planets - Check out how big objects in the universe are
2. Physics of Freefall - Demonstration of Physics students studying the effects of Freefall on Harry Potter
3. CERN and the Standard Model - A video describing how the Large Hadron Collider Works
4. Pale Blue Dot - A wonderful commentrary about our place in the universe by Carl Sagan
5. Travel Inside a Black Hole - This video provides a hypothetical trip into a black hole
6. Powers of Ten - An old video (originally from the 1970s) showing how scientific notation is used to measure different distance scales.
7. Hubble Deep Field - Arguably the most important image of all times.  The Hubble Ultra Deep Field looks deep into space and time to give us a glimpse of our place in the cosmos.

Mobile Devices as Classroom Clickers

Cell Phones in Classrooms?


For the longest time this was mostly taboo.  For many years I felt the same way.  Cell phones were a distraction that took students attention away from the very important lessons I was trying to impart.  Gradually over the past 3 or 4 years I've had a change of heart and now, with a few limitations, completely support students using cell phones in class.  Why?  That's simple.

• First, if students are distracted it may actually mean what I'm teaching isn't interesting for them.  Maybe instead of looking at THEM I should focus on how I can make my classes more dynamic and student centered.

• Second and probably more important call phones can be an incredibly powerful learning tool.  

• Finally if I don't teach student what the appropriate use of their mobile devices are who will?

One of the most engaging ways to get kids learning on their phones is to use them for formative assessment.  The website www.polleverywhere.com allows teachers to set up multiple choice and free response questions that students can answer by texting.  The class responses can then be displayed in real time.  Students use their phones to provide teachers with formative assessment.  Its fast, its engaging and its easy!


Teacher simply create a free account and then start making up questions.  Students than respond to questions by texting or emailing a code to the polleverywhere website.  The responses can viewed by the teacher or the entire class in real time.

Showing students how to use their mobile devices for more than just facebook and youtube is a powerful educational tool.  This is just one simple example of a way to get kids using mobile devices in a way that won't frustrate or infuriate their teachers!