“This is probably the best science class ever,” reports Liz Carey of a South Carolina student, with hands covered in dirt and knees in mulch. 3rd grade students excavated unpaved islands in their school parking lot and found quite a few artifacts. Tools for the archeological dig included spoons, forceps, brushes and magnifying glasses.

Digging up science: Elementary students use spoons and brushes to reveal artifacts» Anderson Independent Mail

What a great hands-on experience. Electronic devices are nice, but getting your hands dirty, and finding such interesting treasures is even better.

Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History.

Read all about it. This is a great channel from the Discovery Channel bringing news about science, technology & human history. There’s great reading here and food for thought that can spark real interest, discussion and more learning.  Beats includes space, archeology, humans, earth, history, technology & animals, including dinosaurs.

The interactive activity, Energy Consumption has links to worksheets, explains BTU’s and students calculate and compare costs of using different fuels and insulation to heat and cool a home in San Francisco, Dallas and Minnesota. There are many activities linked to this interactive.

Future Power includes a virtual lab. Links to videos and articles are embedded in the activity. Students compare the costs and CO2 emissions of natural gas and coal mixtures. Unfortunately the lab doesn’t include other fuel options, but perhaps students can investigate those as well. It is still  a very useful activity and challenges students to plan, experiment and report their findings.

How to Light Up a Room is another virtual lab that studies the effect of different window coverings on temperature. Students can run the experiments, compare and chart data.

Power Up is a fairly simple interactive activity where students complete a pie chart that identifies how much electrical energy is provided by different fuel sources in the US. Written information is provided for each source (grades 5 +). Mineral Resources – Recycling Aluminum is a one-session interactive good for lower grades.

Overall this is an exceptional collection of resources that can used to enrich learning in science and other disciplines.

From Ian Chadwick’s website about Henry Hudson [http://www.ianchadwick.com/hudson/hudson_03.htm], this an excerpt of September 1609’s voyage:

11: Hudson sailed through the Narrows and anchored in New York Bay. The first night he anchored off the northern tip of Manhattan.

12: A flotilla of 28 canoes, filled with men, women and children approached, but, Juet wrote, “we saw the intent of their treachery and would not allow any of them to come aboard.” However, the crew bought food from them. Hudson noted the natives used copper in their pipes and inferred there was a natural source nearby.

13: The crew traded for oysters with the Native Americans; the ship was near today’s Yonkers.

There are many quadricentennial celebrations and exhibits underway to mark this event. Some great gateways to explore stories and information about this are the Henry Hudson 400 web site home, with an interactive map filled with archival historical maps and links for more data, and Explore NY 400, a very comprehensive site dedicated to celebrating New York’s 400th year.

What did the native Lenape Indians eat? Check out Garden Lab’s Lenape Edible Estate,  which was created for the Hudson Guild and is located at 441 West 26th Street at 10th Avenue, New York, NY.  This Monday, September 14th,  there is a free, family Harvest Opening event from 6:00 – 8:30 PM featuring harvest activities, interpretive garden tours, native foods cooking demonstrations with field-to-fork food education program Growing Chefs, and other food demonstrations with Hot Bread Kitchen. On the website you’ll find pictures of the plants, the garden layout and lists of all the plants in the garden.

One of the more remarkable projects is The Manahatta Project. After 10 years of diligent, hard work the team, headed by Dr. Eric Sanderson, unveiled a website that details what Manhattan was like in 1609.

I had the good fortune to learn about his project at Teaching the Hudson Valley’s summer institute in July of 2008. It is truly a remarkable piece of well researched science and technology. The effort began with a very detailed British Army Survey Map from 1692. Using a sophisticated matrix of species and environmental conditions, scientists developed a ‘Muir Web’ of the likely flora and fauna for every inch of 1609 Manhattan. They estimate that there were 55 distinct ecological community type.  To get started,you’ll need to type in an address. Blocks are highlighted and clicking on one brings up another window with detailed information about the probable wildlife, plants, Lenape usage and landscape together with a photograph depicted that type of environment. You can easily mouse-over the map and do the same for every are of Manhattan.

There are some excellent teacher resources here as well including activities and lesson plans. One of these teaches the water cycle in an interesting, place-based way and compares the life of a water droplet in 1609 to present day. This is much more fun and realistic than the idealized charts we are used to. Another idea from here is to create a web using yarn going from one participant to another that connects specific plants, animals or environmental features. It becomes very apparent, very quickly, that everything is connected. To review and download the Manahatta Curriculum visit their website.

I’m sure you can also find these images on NASA’s site, but here is a short slide show from the NY Times. The Hubble Telescope has got to be the most important pieces of technology for the modern astronomer. Stellar images indeed

The Universe, in High Definition – The New York Times > Science > Slide Show > Slide 1 of 7.

The Outdoor Classroom: Science Experiments in the Environment | Edutopia

Talk about authentic learning experiences! Using technology tools (think probes) and sample kits, these grade 4-6 students in Minnesota are testing and sampling a Nature Conservancy’s program to restore the Glacial Ridge to its natural habitat, a prairie wetland. Click the link to view the video. How wonderful it would be if more students were able to get outdoors and conduct eco-experiments.

February 9, 2009

On Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’

In addition to being the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth, 2009 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of his fundamental work, “On the Origin of Species.” As with many original sources, it is known mostly by reputation. Few people who are not biologists read Darwin in the original. But his writing can still offer surprises, insights and pleasures, and it can be sampled here, with selections by prominent scientists of their favorite passages and discussions of why these passages are important. (Related Articles)

The articles pose some interesting questions as well. We humans are just another species, something which seems to get lost in our understanding of purselves and the world at times.

Also, Nova repeated the special “Judgment Day | Intelligent Design on Trial” which I found to be a fascinating look at the controversy in this country about teaching evolution and ‘creationism’ in the classroom. The website has schedules and great resources.

This episode also shows you one way to make your own comet. Line a mixing bowl with a plastic garbage bag. Pour water into a bowl, add couple of teaspoons of dirt, a little corn syrup, window cleaner (ammonia), and mix. Add dry ice.. voila! comet! See what happens as it warms up. This recipe was far from exact, but it doesn’t need to be. You Tube has a couple of videos … The BBC did a program called the Comet’s Tale and the excerpt is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OttjwJY8A-0. They used soy sauce instead of corn syrup, and smelling salts instead of window cleaner, but the results are strikingly similar.

The Discovery Channel is also featuring Cosmic Collisions on tv’s How Stuff Works Series. There’s a Cosmic Collision Quiz here. Check the Space Guide http://dsc.discovery.com/space/ for short, interesting videos and articles.