The Kid Should See This.
There's just so much science, nature, music, art, technology, storytelling and assorted good stuff out there that my kids (and maybe your kids) haven't seen. It's most likely not stuff that was made for them...
But we don't underestimate kids around here.
Kid-friendly not-made-for-kids videos for all! Collected by Rion Nakaya and her three four year old co-curator.
Tip Jar: Curating this ad-free blog takes work! If you like the videos on this site, please support the science education projects that we've picked on DonorsChoose.org.
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Brookfield Zoo is happy to announce the birth of an aardvark on January 12, 2012. Because of the dedicated care provided by the Society’s zookeepers, veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and nutritionist, the now healthy 13-pound calf has a bright future ahead of it…
For several weeks following its birth, the calf spent nights at the zoo’s Animal Hospital being cared for by the veterinary staff and brought back to its mom in the mornings. Aardvarks are nocturnal and [its mother] sleeps during the day, giving the calf uninterrupted time to nurse and get all the nutrients it can from its mother’s milk. This scenario mimics what would take place in the wild: a mother aardvark would leave its burrow to go forage for food during the night and return in the morning to sleep while the calf nurses.
Aardvarks are native to Africa and eat mostly ants and termites. One interesting note about aardvark babies is that zookeepers won’t know if the calf is a boy or a girl until it is about one year old.
via Neatorama.
More than half a century of sending objects into space has left the Earth surrounded by junk. Bits of long-dead satellites, spent rocket stages and other debris orbit the planet at almost 18,000 mph, each chunk a potential hazard to working satellites or astronauts.
The Swiss have a plan, however. Scientists at the Swiss space centre at EPFL, the federal institute for technology in Lausanne, want to send a “janitor satellite” into orbit, to sweep up debris and permanently remove it from orbit.
The SFr10m (£7m) satellite, called CleanSpace One, could launch within five years, according to EPFL.
From guardian.co.uk.
Make a very lovely hovercraft! This super awesome DIY project requires a bit of parent or teacher supervision (sharp needle needed to make a hole), but overall, it answers all of my wishes: Not only does it teach about physics and get kids making things that are fun, but it gives us a great use for the old CDs that we have in boxes around the house! (And there are quite a few.) That alone makes this project a gem in my book.
YAY, Toys from Trash! We’ll definitely be seeing vids from Team Arvind Gupta here again…
Francisco Prieto animates the assembly of a Lego Millennium Falcon, Lego set 10179 from Star Wars Ultimate collector series. He writes: “Created using 3ds max and V-ray. A very long work over 3 years, modeling all the pieces by myself. and rendered frame by frame.”
And of course, because it’s the internet, there are (many) other versions of the Millennium Falcon’s assembly out there…
via reddit.
Oh, British Pathé! You and this Dynasphere are both awesome. The kid should definitely see how crazy this vehicle is! From wikipedia:
The Dynasphere was a monowheel electric vehicle invented in 1932 by Dr. J. A. Purves from Taunton, Somerset, UK. It had 2.5 horse power and once attained a speed of 25 mph.
And there are more monowheels to be seen, via the Retronaut.
Have the kids seen W.T. “Wally” Wallington yet? He’s a retired carpenter who believes he knows how Stonehenge was built. With 35 years experience in construction under his belt, he’s been practicing how to move 300 lb blocks… 1600 lb blocks… 1 ton blocks… massive barns… all by himself! Wally has been working on building his own Stonehenge at his home in Michigan using no machinery — just his engineering techniques using structures of sticks, stones, and his favorite tool: gravity!
Now here’s some candy-making skill! Watch this candy dragon get drawn with what appears to be melted caramel/sugar or malt (mak ngah) somewhere in China. Despite the many videos found online of this art, the caption of this video (and comments below it) have suggested that it’s sadly a skill fading from the culture…
Hello parents, teachers, and blog readers!
We’ve received so much interest in The Kid Should See This and for the educational videos featured here — especially for the science vids — that we’d love to focus that attention on the teachers who are bringing science education to life for kids every day.
If you’ve liked watching videos on this ad-free blog, want to let the co-curator and I know that the research and work put into this site has meant something to you, and above all want to directly help students in need, then please consider giving this site a small tip in our tip jar by supporting one of the science-focused projects that we’ve picked on DonorsChoose.org.
It works like this:
1. Donate money to a classroom project that you like
2. When the project reaches its funding goal, DonorsChoose.org buys and sends the materials to a class.
3. Teachers have the resources they need to help kids learn!
If the project you donated to doesn’t get completely funded, you can use your donation to fund another project.
We, as a community interested in science and education, can make a difference. A donation of any size — even just $2 or $5 — will add up if every single one of us pitches in. Your donation will help provide books, supplies, equipment, videos, information, experiences and inspiration to kids who love this stuff as much as we do!
Please support us by supporting them. Thank you!
The first 3/4 of the video are a chemistry experiment breakdown of what goes into a glow stick and what each of those ingredients is meant to do. But at the end, all of this coalesces into a fine explanation of the difference between light-absorbing dyes and fluorescent dyes. Come for the glow-stick “how to”, stay for the better understanding of how light works and how it influences what you see!
via BoingBoing.
On this day a half century ago, Mercury Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. On the morning of February 20, 1962, an anxious nation watched as Glenn climbed into his cramped Friendship 7 space capsule and was propelled by an Atlas 6 rocket high above the atmosphere. He circled the Earth three times before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. As the veteran space program reporter John Noble Wilford wrote last week in The New York Times, “Perhaps no other spaceflight–all 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds of it–has been followed by so many with such paralyzing apprehension.”
From OpenCulture.
Discovered by a Washington, D.C., lawyer in search of antique furniture, this is truly a Cabinet of Wonders, for inside is the 1700-specimen personal collection of 19th Century British naturalist, field biologist and contemporary of Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace.
From the Washington Post:
There are butterflies and beetles, moths and shells. There’s a small bird. Flies. Bees. Praying mantises. Tarantulas. Seedpods. A hornet’s nest… “I think it’s a fabulous thing,” said David Grimaldi, curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “I think it’s a national treasure, actually.”
via Science Dump.
The Landfill is a three minute film by documentary filmmaker Gary Hustwit and director Jessica Edwards about how our different kinds of trash can be used as harvestable resources.
The United States produces 390 billion pounds of garbage every year, and finding places to dispose of it is a serious environmental and economic challenge. But what if we could change the way we think about garbage, from something to be disposed of to something to be harvested? THE LANDFILL profiles a small county landfill in Upstate New York, which is using a system of composting, recycling, and methane capture technology to operate sustainably while producing electricity for 400 homes in their area. By focusing on the people and ideas behind this innovative waste-to-energy initiative, THE LANDFILL shows the beauty and potential of the stuff we throw away.
Sustainability FTW! This is exactly the kind of problem solving that kids should see. For more information, visit focusforwardfilms.com/films/11/the-landfill
Thanks, @cosentino.
