The Kid Should See This.
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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 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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From the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Measuring the Universe! So how exactly do we measure things that are incredibly far away? Positioning over time, light, and math, math, math! This video contains a lot of information — even about sound waves and color shifts in light — but it’s such a great start to understanding how we see and measure what’s out beyond our Earth and our galaxy. And it demonstrates how important math and patience are in science!
via The Awesomer.
Via LaughingSquid, check out this video by Mark Day of the strange and beautiful shadows created by the annular solar eclipse on May 20th, 2012. And via KQED, the ring of fire — “when the Moon’s apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun, causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring), blocking most of the Sun’s light” — as seen from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Phases of the Moon, a beautiful video animation created using Virtual Moon Atlas and accompanied by Beethoven’s Sonata No. 14, (Opus 27, No. 2). Related watching to better understand the moon’s phases: (a super not-to-scale) moon orbits Earth as Earth orbits the sun.
More moon videos.
Artist Jim Campbell describes the process of developing and creating Exploded Views, a commissioned work that was installed in SFMOMA’s atrium in November 2011.
More light, more art, more San Francisco, more museums.
The California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco has created a primer on NASA’s Kepler Mission. Kepler has found over 1200 planet candidates, 54 of them in the habitable or “Goldilocks” zone. How do we see these planets from so so so so so far away? We measure light!
What to watch next: ScienceCasts: Getting to Know the Goldilocks Planet.
The kind of light that we see things in changes how we see those things. This reef tank is shot under actinic light, which not only “will facilitate photosynthesis or stimulate light sensitive species,” but it changes how the corals look, as well. From liveaquaria.com:
The light spectrum, or Kelvin rating, of aquarium lighting will also alter the appearance of corals… For example, bulbs that emit light heavy in the actinic blue range bring out dazzling fluorescent colors not visible under full spectrum daylight bulbs. While different hobbyists prefer different combinations of light spectrums, a typical lighting system for a reef aquarium consists of 50% white light with a high Kelvin rating and 50% blue, actinic light.
It’s also a lovely video of reef life to boot!
Yes, you can build your own lightbulb! This is what you’ll need: Eight D-sized batteries, Mason jar or other clear glass, Electrical tape, Pie pan, Scissors, Toilet paper tube, Mechanical pencil refills, Small alligator clips and adult supervision. Now watch the video! Details here.
Oh Japan, you have delivered once again. This time, it’s in the form of Wrecking Crew Orchestra, a dance team that’s perhaps perfected the art of TRON-like illuminated dancing. (No, we’re not sure who came first.) The tight light sequences were fun to watch, especially because they look edited, but aren’t. The co-curator and I kept trying to figure out where the darkened dancers would turn on next.
For a higher-quality look at Wrecking Crew Orchestra’s work, check out one of their DOCOMO Xperia commercials.
Thanks, @cosentino. Via reddit.
Light painting animations using cold cathode case lights, EL wire, lasers and more… all mounted on a turntable! The piece was created by Kim Pimmel:
The video is stop motion, so every frame is an individually shot photograph. Each photograph is a long exposure photo, with exposures reaching up to 20 seconds in some cases.
There are also some long exposure images on flickr, like this one and this one.
via SwissMiss.
