The Science Connection, Clarinda, Iowa

Uncommonly Sensible Science®
Video Course Series Descriptions

		Have you ever had a flat tire, walked up stairs, fixed things around the house, drove a car, popped open a paint can, used a ramp, played teeter-totter, merry-go-round, rode a bicycle, opened your window shades, cut your food, or turned a door knob? Of course you have! You did all this with Just Simply Machines! But simple and compound machines are not a simple part of our lives! We don’t want to live without them, but what are they? In this course you'll find out! You’re going to balance belts, make bearings, fly helicopters, make and race pulleys, build gears, hold bowl races, zip up, split wood, make a teeter-totter from hot air, yo-yo, make a windmill turn, and test your strength against different types of Just Simply Machines!


		Quick, name all our body parts and what they do! What? That would be tough! How about we enter the Body Shop and find out how living things work instead? If you’re studying living things, you have two basic things to study; their structure (how they’re built) and function (how that part works). Well you’ll do this and have a ton of fun doing it all! You’ll make fingerprints, dissolve bones, test food, build an ear, make an eyeball that works, stir up blood in a beaker, mix around your chromosomes, “bone up” on skeletons, make a backbone, and have an epidemic on your hands! That sounds like a lot, but you can do a whole lot more and still have fun doing it! And you won’t have to dent your car to get into this Body Shop!


		Secrets are fun to keep! But do you know Earth’s Dirty Little Secrets? No, Earth doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of, it’s secrets are there for us to discover! This course will take you from mountain tops to ocean bottoms! Along the way, you’ll learn Earth’s Dirty Little Secrets as you put an Earth in your hands, find the Earth inside an apple, discover pollution, float continents on your desk, make earthquakes that won’t destroy your home, erupt volcanoes that won’t kill you, explore the ocean without drowning, make a glacier with a hammer, make dirt recipes, find out about Earth’s top ten, be a cookie miner, and “rock” around the classroom as you become a mineral detective with your own rock and mineral collection!


		Here’s a problem for you. Communicate with a friend across a football field without using any waves! You can’t do it!! That’s because we use waves all the time!! But how do we? In Everyday Waves you’ll learn about waves and what they do for us! Use toys, “sticky notes”, water, beads, simple lenses, water pipe, soda pop bottles & cans, space blankets, coins and coat hangers to learn about what waves are and can do! Find out how sound, light, and heat use all these and much more to make Everyday Waves!!! Get hot and cold, slice ice, “fix” broken glass, make music, bend light, use light-detecting beads, find out why the sky is blue, make a simple camera, and slice up light! That’s only a little bit of what you’re going to learn!


		What did you do today? Did you walk, talk, play, drive a car, breathe, lift, shop, pump gas, buy groceries, watch TV, listen to the radio, or use the computer? Well, you used forces in all of them, and everything else you did! Nothing moves without a force! Have Forces; Will Travel could be your motto! In this course you’ll explore what forces are, what energy is, how energy is converted, how forces get transferred, learn about Newton’s Laws of Motion, and find out why and how things turn and move! You’ll get to build a pyramid with newspaper, measure how tough an egg can be, spin pennies, make pendulums, make a hammer “float”, make your own bouncing ball, and remind all of us to wear our seatbelts! But that’s not all you’re going to do, you’ll Have Forces; so you Will Travel!!


		Take a deep breath or eat a meal. Now you have to thank a plant! Ok, so they won’t answer you, but we still can’t live without them! Why’s this? In Plants; Inside and Out! you’ll find out! You get to burn seeds, cut up flowers, find chlorophyll, separate DNA, clone plants, look back into the past, find natural Velcro^R, make it rain, color real flowers, pollinate like a bee, act like a gardener, be a germinator, build bridges of understanding, take some survival target practice, go on a soupbean safari, and recycle! You’ll do all this and a lot more! Whew, that makes a person tired!! But you won’t be tired of learning about plants and their role as a foundation for all life! When you get done, you will thank all the plants around us for keeping us all alive! (They still won’t answer!) But you’ll understand Plants; Inside and Out!

Seela Science
Home of The Science Connection
at 1-800-232-5861
or
712-542-2335
for more information about
this service!