Winter Solstice

June 20, 2008

Winter Solstice in the southern hemisphere – June 21st

Use the occasion of the winter solstice to explore some interactive multimedia resources explaining the Earth’s changing seasons.


If you are unable to view the embedded YouTube video ‘What causes Earth’s Seasons?’ you may be able to access the same content via TeacherTube.


Seasons

This interactive flash resource Earth in Motion: Seasons from the Adler Planetarium provides a simple audio and video explanation of the earth’s movements.


Reasons for the Seasons

Reasons for the Seasons This applet has been designed to help students visualize the reasons for the seasons.


The Seasons

Seasons Interactive Everyone knows that it’s warmer in the summer than in winter, but why is that? With this interactive you can examine the main factors which affect temperature: the position of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun, the tilt of the earth’s axis of rotation and the path of the Sun in the sky over the course of day.


DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required]

TLF Learning Object on the Seasons
Control the motion of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. Work out how the Earths orbit and the tilt of its axis determine seasons in the different hemispheres. Work out how the Earths orbit and the tilt of its axis determine day length in the different hemispheres. Examine the heating effect of the Sun. Compare seasons at different locations on the Earth. For example, work out that when it is summer in China, it is winter in Australia. This learning object is a combination of four objects in the same series.


Biggest Morning Tea@Your Library

May 22, 2008
Thursday 22 May is the official date of Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea 2008, but you can host a morning tea anytime in May in your office, home, school or community centre to raise money for cancer research, education and support services.

Extra materials including posters, invitations and letters to send to parents/guardians are available for download from the Cancer Council’s Biggest Morning Tea site.


HyperHistory Online hyperhistory.jpg
This incredibly information rich site includes over 3,000 interconnected files and several hundred links to the world wide web. The growing site itself contains presently over 100 MB of images and text files, but individual gif files are kept small enough to allow for a quick display. Here is a quick graphic introduction to the site and a slightly more detailed text-based guide.

360 Panoramic VIRTUAL TOURS
These sites have been selected for their interactive multimedia presentations. Users are able to control the virtual tours often selecting details they view and degrees of magnification.
Medieval Game of Life gameoflife.jpg  
Learn about interesting aspects of life in medieval times by choosing your path through life.

DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required]Useful digital resources to support Society and Environment programs in this collection include:
Early Childhood

Explore social issues in a supermarket such as nagging adults for treats. Identify actions of children and adults which promote harmony. Identify personal safety issues. Look for ideas where children can positively interact with adults. Review a set of rules for socially responsible and desirable behaviour. This learning object is one in a series of two objects.

Meet a group of children eating their lunch at school. Notice how each child uses or disposes of their plastic lunch bag in a different way. Predict where the bags might end up and how they may affect the environment. Find out about the durability of plastics and environmental benefits of recycling.

Middle Childhood

Explore how human activities impact on the Antarctic ecosystem. Compare opinions on climate change, the ozone hole and whaling. This learning object is one in a series of eight learning objects.

Investigate community problems in a street, such as a child painting graffiti on a shop wall. Identify actions to help people get along better. Look for positive ideas where people work together to solve problems. Choose community rules and rank them in order of importance.

Investigate events that led to the miners’ uprising in Ballarat in 1854. Help a teenage girl to understand why her brother wants to join the miners in the Eureka Stockade and protest against the government. Browse background notes and interviews of several characters. Do a SWOT analysis to decide whether or not to support the miners’ protest. Consider the outcomes of the Eureka uprising and its significance to Australian history.

Early Adolescence

Investigate the advantages and disadvantages of providing housing for homeless people. Review three points of view on the issue and the arguments that support them. Gather facts and opinions from a consultant and local people. Consider issues such as social equity, welfare, compassion and employment. Recommend the best course of action. This learning object is one in a series of two objects.

Explore arguments for and against building a tourist resort on a tropical island. Examine a development proposal and comments from locals and the media. Notice that the comments contain emotive language and are not always based on fact. Prepare a case representing the point of view of a group such as the indigenous population, local business owners or environmentalists. Recommend an action and give reasons to justify your decision.


The Society and Environment K-10 Syllabus webpages provide support for teachers as they continue with implementation of the Curriculum Framework. The Society and Environment pages detail syllabus content at each year of schooling and phase of development from kindergarten to year 10 and provide classroom-ready resources to support the teaching of all Society and Environment outcomes.


Happy National Library Technician’s Day

May 20, 2008
Wishing you all a wonderful National Library Technician’s Day.

Here are a couple of ‘fun sites’ to help you enjoy your day.

lightlib.jpg Help Lydia the Librarian find books for the kids before they get upset and leave! The better your memory the better you’ll do at Lightning Librarian.
robo.jpg Use the arrow keys to guide the Robo Librarian. Pick up books for points. Do not run into people or book carts. Use the spacebar to jump over objects. You get bonus points for jumping over book carts.

On a more serious note you may like to share these great interactive sites with your Science Learning Area specialists.


power10.jpg

View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.


marsnow.jpg
Explore an evolving design of a Mars habitat based on current concepts of engineers and designers. As you walk through the simulation, discover science, technology and hazards of a near future mission to the red planet.


elements.jpg


yuckiest.jpgFirst there was mud. Then there were worms. and now there is Yucky! Test your skills with Whack-A-Roach. All you need to know about barfing, belching and blackheads! Plus mad scientist fun in Yucky Labs!


DET teachers are able to access The Learning Federation Learning Objects via the DET Portal. [log in required]Useful digital resources to support Science programs in this collection include:


Early Childhood

Explore how to build food chains to describe interactions. Look at the feeding patterns between plants and animals. See an energy source, producer and consumers arranged into a food chain such as Sun>plant>mouse>cat. Notice that the Sun always comes first. This learning object is one in a series of six objects.

Also: Food Chains – Forest, Desert, Farm, Town, Wetlands

Look at a range of animals such as a crab, octopus, snake and tortoise. Group the animals into vertebrates and invertebrates.

Look at groups of animals: invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Explore characteristics of common species.

Move animals from a boat to their new home in a zoo. Put them on a cart, then use monkeys to push or pull them up a hill. Use the minimum amount of force needed to move each animal. For example, use a single monkey to push a pelican or use three monkeys to pull a zebra. This learning object is the last in a series of three objects that progressively increase in difficulty.
Also: push or pull?, how much force?, zoo move

Clean up Old Bernie’s Pond. See how it has become polluted and invaded by introduced species. Restore the pond by choosing actions such as planting native species and removing sources of pollution. Look at the effects of each change. Earn points to get a certificate.


Middle Childhood
Explore the uses of a microscope. Use a microscope to examine slides of four different plant and animal cells. Place each of the slides in turn on the microscope stage. Adjust the light, focus and magnification to get the best image. Compare the different cells, and then sum up your findings by answering the conclusion questions.

Investigate a range of animal eyes: dog, cat, bee, fish, eagle and human. Discover how these animals see things in different ways because their eyes have different structures. For example, look at an animal’s field of view, how it focuses and sees colours. This learning object is one in a series of seven objects.
Also: rock bridge puzzle, stone wheel puzzle, slingshot puzzle, wall tile puzzle, killer bees puzzle, door keys puzzle, mission 1, mission 2

Experiment with the structure of human arms and legs. Replace the arms and legs with body parts such as owl wings or dolphin flippers. Look at the skeletal structure of the new animals. Describe the functional effects of replacing the limbs. Explain how the structure of an animal’s body is related to its function and environment. Print a worksheet of your customised design for a ’superhuman’.

Early Adolescence
Explore subatomic particles and how they combine to form atoms and ions. Compare different ways of modelling atoms. Use nuclear symbols to represent different isotopes. Build atoms and ions by combining protons, neutrons and electrons. This learning object is a combination of three objects in the same series.
Also: atom structure, assisted atom builder, atom builder, ion builder, atom bingo, atom and ion bingo

Explore how criminal suspects are described in police profiles. Build a profile describing yourself or a friend. Take fingerprints, draw an identikit picture and record physical characteristics such as height, weight and blood type. This learning object is one in a series of eight objects.

See how genes and genetic engineering work. Build models of DNA, and work out how it is copied as cells divide. Discover how the codes carried in the genes are copied and used to build proteins. See how gene splicing can be used to benefit human lives. For example, model the transfer of a human gene into bacteria, so they produce insulin. This learning object is a combination of five objects in the same series.

Investigate the role of physical forces in how bicycle wheels work. Test how wheel size, tyre pressure, tread and load affect rolling resistance. Then choose wheels best suited to track conditions in a time trial. This learning object is one in a series of four objects.

Check the CMIS Theme page for more recommended resources to support teaching and learning in the Science learning area. Topics include: Astronomy, Flight, Minibeasts and Threatened Species.

The Science – K-10 Syllabus webpages provide support for teachers as they continue with implementation of the Curriculum Framework. The Science pages detail syllabus content at each year of schooling and phase of development from kindergarten to year 10 and provide classroom-ready resources to support the teaching of Science outcomes.


Webby Award Winners 2008

May 8, 2008
logo_webbyawards_md.png
Since 1996 the Webby Awards have celebrated achievement in the field of interactive multimedia. Website entries make up the majority of Webby Awards Winners, Nominees and Honorees.

The 2008 Webby Award Winners [announced May 6th]

View the Winners’ Flash Gallery or the Static List

While all the nominated sites could be used to explore the techniques of effective multimedia communication the following selection could be useful general classroom resources. Teachers are advised to preview sites to ensure the content is suitable for students in their classrooms.

darfur.jpg Eyes on Darfur - Amnesty International’s unprecedented Eyes On Darfur project leverages the power of high-resolution satellite imagery to provide unimpeachable evidence of the atrocities being committed in Darfur – enabling action by private citizens, policy makers and international courts. Eyes On Darfur also breaks new ground in protecting human rights by allowing people around the world to literally “watch over” and protect twelve intact, but highly vulnerable, villages using commercially available satellite imagery. [Some images may not be suited to use with younger students]
displaceme.jpg Invisible Children:Displace MePeople’s Voice Winner In the spring of 2003, three young filmmakers traveled to Africa in search of a story. What started out as a filmmaking adventure transformed into much more when these boys from Southern California discovered a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them, a tragedy where children are both the weapons and the victims.After returning to the States, they created the documentary “Invisible Children: Rough Cut,” a film that exposes the tragic realities of northern Uganda’s night commuters and child soldiers.
skillsone.jpg Skills OneWebby Award Winner The Institute for Trade Skills Excellence promotes and advances learning, teaching and training in Australian trades education and elevates the status of traditional trades and trades education as a career choice.
smithsonain.jpg Smithsonain Education Peoples’ Voice Winner – The gateway to Smithsonian education resources. [including lesson plans]
design.jpg Design for the Other 90% Webby Award Winner – Encompassing a broad set of modern social and economic concerns, these design innovations often support responsible, sustainable economic policy.Design for the Other 90% demonstrates how design can be a dynamic force in saving and transforming lives, at home and around the world.
wwo.jpg World Without Oil – In May 2007, over 1,800 people combined imagination with insight to create World Without Oil (WWO), a realistic simulation of the first 32 weeks of a global oil shortage chronicled in 1,500 personal blog posts, videos, images and voicemails. Via these lesson plans, high school teachers can use this collaborative grassroots simulation to engage students with questions about energy use, sustainability, the role energy plays in our economy, culture, worldview and history, and many others.
nasa.jpg NASA Earth Observatory Peoples’ Voice Winner – The purpose of NASA’s Earth Observatory is to provide a freely-accessible publication on the Internet where the public can obtain new satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. The focus is on Earth’s climate and environmental change. In particular, we hope our site is useful to public media and educators. Also nominated NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
paper.jpg Paper Critters – an online application for creating and sharing digital paper toys.

More resources suited to classroom use can be found in the Webby Awards Honorees section – start by checking out the Official Honoree sites for Activism, Art, Education, Health, Science and Youth.