KoepScience

Video guide for Bill Nye's Greatest Discoveries in Genetics. From Mendel to drosophila to jumping genes to the double helix to the Human Genome Project - Bill Nye brings the history of genetics to life. He uses actors, historic film, animations, and engaging interviews to make the great breakthroughs of the past 150 years come to life. This Greatest Discoveries video is available on YouTube. This study guide is broken into segments, reflecting the segments in the program. Each asks students to

Superbugs. Resistant strains of ordinary bacteria. No longer susceptible to the antibiotics we've come to rely on for decades. Scary stuff. Over-prescription and misuse of antibiotics have been in the news for some time, but a new problem is brought to the forefront in this Frontline documentary. It turns out that most of the antibiotics used in the US are fed to animals as part of their daily ration. Livestock raised in huge factory-style enclosures are sensitive to infections of all types. A

Every year trees add layers of wood as they grow. These growth rings preserve a record of the unique chemical and environmental conditions the tree experienced as the growth occurred. Dendrochronology combines the techniques of botany and climatology to reconstruct ancient climates and environments. Methuselah is a bristle cone pine tree living in the White Mountains of California. It is the oldest known living tree in existence. This video tells the story of Methuselah's life, based upon the e

Earth has experienced five major extinction events. This video from the PBS Evolution series explores all five major extinctions, and the implications of each for life as we see it today. The program then looks into the future as we consider the impact of humans as the cause of a sixth extinction - happening right now. This video guide organizes student note taking to focus on the main points of each section. The URL listed connects to the program YouTube site, and the sections of the table co

Extreme Ice follows a team of glaciologists and film makers around the world as they document the increasing rate continental glacier loss due to climate change. Many of the world's great rivers are able to flow all year only because they are fed by glacial meltwater. When they are gone, so is the water they provide. This activity is an organizer to help students take notes on the film.

A spider that attacks chickens. And how to get a picture of it? SpiderCam - of course! It's lots of fun - very entertaining - but the message of the PBS Nature presentation is the complexity of relationships in a rain forest community dominated by massive Brazil nut trees. Other members include strangler figs, a variety of mammals, birds, and insects. And if one drops out of the system, the system collapses. It's a great story, and a wonderful lesson in ecology. This video guide organizes stu

GATTACA is a classic science fiction film which depicts a future in which each person's place in society is determine by their genotype. Parents choose their children's inherited characteristics before birth, and those choices follow them throughout life. This is the story of a young man whose parents left his genotype to chance. Due to potential health concerns, he is blocked from higher education and most careers. He decides to take matters into his own hands, and assumes the identity of anot

Lab Reports..... Ugghh.... What if they could be made short, uniform, and still useful? Give this a shot. I came up with this organizer after looking over the lab procedures of a number of Midwest colleges and universities. They don't all require the same outline, but they're close. And this is what they're close to. The most important characteristic of this organizer is the boxes. ANYTHING WRITTEN OUTSIDE THE BOX WILL NOT BE READ. This is an incentive for students to think about what they wr

Six Degrees is a NatGeoTV video that explores the likely changes to sea levels, crop production, disease outbreaks, and other impacts caused by increases in world average temperatures. It asks the question, "What if....", and then offers answers based on single degree temperature increases. This study guide is a graphic organizer intended to help students in note-taking.