A TED-Ed Lesson for Every Element on the Periodic Table

For years I have referred readers to the University of Nottingham's Periodic Table of Videos. That table provides a video about every element that is in the Periodic Table. A few years ago the producers of the Periodic Table of Videos partnered with TED-Ed to create lessons about every element in the Periodic Table.

TED-Ed's Periodic Videos page features an interactive Periodic Table of Elements. Click on any of the elements to launch a video. Below the video you will find a link to the related TED-Ed lesson. (Note, I had to reduce my browser size to see the links). Each of the TED-Ed lessons follows the typical format of providing a handful of multiple choice and short answer questions. The lessons also include some links to additional references.

Here's the lesson about Technetium.

If the questions that the TED-Ed lessons ask are too simple for your students, you can customize the lesson after registering on TED-Ed. You can also create similar lessons by using EDpuzzle. Here's how to use Edpuzzle to create a lesson.

A Lesson About Money for Students Getting Summer Jobs

Summer is near and for many high school students that means it is time to start working at summer jobs. For many students the first real paycheck that they receive comes with a surprise in the form of tax withholding. PBS Learning Media has a free lesson plan through which students learn about reasons for taxes being withheld from paychecks, where the withholdings go, and why some people have more or less withheld than others.

In addition to helping students understand taxes withheld from paychecks Taxes - Where Does Your Money Go? introduces students to concepts related to saving for retirements. To that end, the lesson plan includes a video about how a self-employed person handles budgeting for taxes and retirement.

Applications for Education
I've been working at one job or another since I was 14 (before that I had paper routes) and there are times when I'm still surprised at how much is withheld from my paycheck. I have no doubt that many students are surprised by the same. This free lesson plan could help you help your students be a little less surprised when they look at their paychecks from their summer jobs. 

Writing, Typing, and Virtual Tours - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where fog and light rain are making for a less than ideal morning. We have our last Tinkergarten class of the season and we were hoping for some nice weather. We'll just have to wear our rain gear and have fun in the rain. I hope that you have a fun weekend wherever you are. 

This week I hosted the first meeting of my Teaching History With Technology course. I'll be hosting more classes later in the summer so keep an eye out for announcements about those. And if you want me to host a webinar or workshop for your school, please send me a note at richardbyrne (at) freetech4teachers.com.

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. Two Ways to Quickly Turn Writing Into Videos
2. How to Archive Google Classroom
3. Videos for Teaching and Learning About Memorial Day
4. Games for Students to Play to Improve Their Typing Skills
5. Five Virtual Tour Creation Projects for Students
6. How to Quickly Remove and Replace Image Backgrounds
7. Use Google Drive to Comment on PDFs, Images, and Videos

Webinars for Your School
I conduct professional development webinars throughout the year. I'll host a free one-hour webinar for any school or group that purchases ten or more copies of 50 Tech Tuesday Tips.

Other Places to Follow Me:

• The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
• My YouTube channel has more than 41,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of educational technology tools. 
• I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for fifteen years. 
• The Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page features new and old posts from this blog throughout the week. 
• If you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Instagram or Strava.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include Icons Daily and Daily Dose. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.

What Makes Us Itch? - A Science Lesson

Last weekend we had our first really nice summer-like day of the year. There was lots of sunshine, it was warm, and there was little wind. That little wind is a curse and a blessing in Maine at this time of year. It's nice because it makes for easier bike riding. It's bad because it's easier for the mosquitos and blackflies (gnats) to swarm you. I stopped on my bike to take this picture and got swarmed. And for a few days afterward my arms were covered in itchy bug bites. 

Scratching and trying to resist scratching my bug bites reminded me of the video Why Do We Itch? published a few years ago by Be Smart. What makes us itch? Is there any way to avoid itching? And how can you make those itchy feelings go away? Those questions and more are answered in the video.

Applications for Education
We've all heard of various home remedies for itchy skin and your students probably have too. Before watching this video have students share some of those home remedies. Then have them watch the video and see if the science matches what their home remedies are supposed to do.

Five Fun Science Games for Kids

I'm taking my daughters to a science museum today. Thinking about the museum and the interactive displays that they have got me thinking about some of the science games that I've reviewed over the years. I went into my archives and pulled out five fun science games for elementary school students. 

Peep and the Big Wide World, produced by WGBH, offers a great collection of online games, videos, and offline activities designed to help students learn and practice skills in math and science. One emphasis of the games that I tried is recognizing patterns. In all there are twenty-one online games available through Peep and the Big Wide World.

Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp is an educational game produced by the Smithsonian. The purpose of the game is to help children recognize the movements of animals. In the game children move through a virtual zoo with a zoo keeper. As they go through the virtual zoo the zoo keeper will ask students to take pictures of animals who are demonstrating running, jumping, stomping, and other movements. Shutterbugs Wiggle and Stomp can be played online.  

Habitats is a fun little game from the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The online game challenges elementary school to match animals to their habitats. The game shows students images representative of four habitats; desert, coral reef, jungle, and marsh. Students drag pictures of animals from a list to their corresponding habitats. Students receive instant feedback on each move they make in the game. Once an animal has been placed in the correct habitat students can click on it to learn more about it in the Encyclopedia of Life.

Aquation is a free game offered by the the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The game, designed for students in upper elementary school or middle school, teaches students about the distribution of clean water and what can be done to balance global water resources. In the game students select a region to explore its current water supplies. Based on the information provided students take action in the form of building desalination plants, conducting further research, reacting to natural events, and attempting to move water between regions. Aquation can be played in a web browser. It is also available as a free iPad app and as a free Android app.

Feed the Dingo is a fun game that teaches students about the importance of maintaining balanced ecosystems. In the game students have to build and maintain a desert ecosystem. The game begins with a blank slate to which students have to add plants and animals. The game plays out over twelve virtual days. Each day students have to add more elements in order to maintain balance in the ecosystem. At the end of each day students are given feedback as to which plants and animals are healthy, which are in danger, and which have died.