A New TED-Ed Lesson Explains Why There Are So Many Types of Apples

It is apple picking season here in New England. Take a stroll through a local orchard and you're likely to see a bunch of different types of apples. In fact, you might even find a type of apple that you haven't previously seen. The reason for this is explained in a new TED-Ed lesson titled Why Are There So Many Types of Apples?


In the lesson students can learn how new types of apples are developed, the benefits of developing new types of apples, and how many types of apples currently exist in the world.

Why Do Leaves Change Color? Video & Graphic

According the calendar Autumn has officially arrived and here in Northern New England we're approaching the peak of fall foliage colors. To help students understand why the leaves change colors in the fall, the Maine Forest Service has an animated video explaining why leaves change colors. The video is titled Maine's Autumn Magic and you can watch it here. To help students understand some of the terms in the video, the Maine Forest Service has a glossary of tree terms.

USA Today has a simple interactive illustration that students can click through to see how the weather affects the color of leaves. Students can select individual tree leaves to see what different leaves look like throughout the seasons.

While not as informative as the two resources above, National Geographic has a couple of nice photo galleries of fall foliage. Click here for a small gallery of images from Acadia National Park. Click here for a gallery of images from the Adirondack Park.

Applications for Education 
Fall provides a great opportunity for students to see science in action in the form of changing leaf color. If you can't get your class outside to look at the various leaf colors in the fall, the two resources listed provide nice visuals to complement your lessons on changing leaf colors.

Crash Course - Plant Cell Biology

Last month I wrote about the YouTube channel Crash Course. At that time I was highlighting the Crash Course history videos. Today, I want to point out the science videos. Crash Course is now up to six biology videos. Like the history videos, the biology videos are rather fast-paced and in a couple of spots make some borderline inappropriate comments But as a general rule, the Crash Course videos should be okay for high school students (use your discretion, what's okay at my school might not be okay at your school, before showing the video to a classroom).