Studying the periodic table of elements

In case you lost your own copy of the periodic table...

• Webelements.com - Online periodic table
• Chemicool.com - Another online periodic table
• Wikipedia: Periodic Table of Elements
• Dayah.com: Dynamic Periodic Table of Elements - Mouse over an element to see more about it, or highlight elements one group at a time

More Homework Help: Skoool.ph

Intel and the Department of Education have launched www.skoool.ph, a site that provides interactive math and science lessons for students and teachers.

You can browse it according to year level or subject. It requires that you have Javascript installed, which shouldn't be a problem if you watch Youtube on that computer anyway.

HOWEVER, some feedback for the people behind skoool.ph, based on my "surface scan" of the site:

1. Please get rid of the "concept paper" language! And with bad grammar too. For example:

The learner shall developed the following competencies:

The site is online now; talk to your audience directly, instead of referring to them in the third person. Right now it looks like a site targeted to your donor rather than the Pinoy student. And do a grammar check!!!

2. The math lesson I tried out was too UK-centric. Is there an effort to localize this? Not to dumb down the content, but only because it's not generally in a Pinoy high school student's experience to pay "2.50" for a sandwich and eat "bonbons."

Frog anatomy

The dissection of frogs is still happening in high schools all over the country, apparently. Poor frogs!

Here are some links so you can study their anatomy without actually poking through their guts.

• Youtube: 3d visualization of frog anatomy (see the related videos too)
• Kent School District: Frog Anatomy
• About.com: Male Frog Internal Anatomy (icky photo)

The Scientific Method

From sciencebuddies.org:

The scientific method is a process for experimentation that is used to explore observations and answer questions. Scientists use the scientific method to search for cause and effect relationships in nature. In other words, they design an experiment so that changes to one item cause something else to vary in a predictable way.

The process itself goes like this:

1. Ask a question
2. Do the research
3. Construct your hypothesis
4. Experiment
5. State your conclusion

However, it's not exactly that simple. How do you do research? How do you test your hypothesis? What if your experiment's results don't support your hypothesis, is that OK? There's more reading to do, and these sites will answer those questions and more:

• Sciencebuddies.org - Steps of the Scientific Method
• Brandonbeltz.com - The Scientific Method
• Discovery Education Science Fair Central - Scientific Method
• Biology4kids.com - Reasoning in Science
• Wikipedia - Scientific Method

Newton's laws of motion

The three laws of motion as compiled by Sir Isaac Newton:

First law - An object will stay at rest or continue at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force. (Law of inertia)

Second law - The rate of change of momentum of a body is proportional to the resultant force acting on the body and is in the same direction. (Law of acceleration)

Third law - For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Law of reciprocal actions)

Physics is fun, once you get the hang of it.

Youtube video of people having fun with Newton's Laws. (Don't try at home!)

• Newton's laws of motion Wikipedia entry
• Physics Classroom Tutorial
• Newton's laws of motion at Glenn Research Center, NASA site
• Isaac Newton's laws of motion at id.mind.net
• Newton's laws at scienceworld.wolfram.com

Balancing chemical equations

Here's a tutorial on balancing chemical equations hosted on the Ohio State University site. There are text-only and audio-enhanced versions of the tutorials. Might come in handy now that final exams are coming up.

Animated animal cell mitosis

Mitosis, that process of cell division that results in new cells, is taught in second-year biology. (It still is, right?) The whole process goes through various phases, which textbooks often illustrate.

Wouldn't it be great if it were animated, though?

Cellsalive.com has it -- animal cell mitosis, the animated version. Clicking on a "phase" shows you a still image of that phase, so you can move back and forth to see the differences.

Some lessons really do need something more than textbook illustrations to be effective. With a process like mitosis, for example, it's better to see just how one phase flows into another. You could imagine it, but not everyone has that vivid an imagination.