Leonid Meteor Shower This Week! They Might Be Giants Explains Meteors in a Song.

Prime Viewing Tomorrow and Friday nights!

For those teachers that are in Astronomy units with their students right now, be aware that the Leonid Meteor Shower is in prime viewing position on Thursday and Friday nights this week:

Though the meteors can be viewed all night long, on both days, just around midnight and at around 3 a.m. local time, those who stay up should be rewarded with the best view of the rain of falling stars if it's not cloudy. 


Though the annual shower will be less spectacular than in some years, "the Leonids are pretty famous for having a good number of bright ones," says Ben Burress, staff astronomer at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland.  


For those who don't want to get up in the middle of the night, just before moonrise is a good time to watch, Burress says. Thursday, that will be around 11:30 p.m. On Friday night/Saturday morning, moonrise will be at 12:30 a.m. Saturday morning.  Though the shower itself lasts for several weeks, the peak comes at around 3 a.m. both Friday and Saturday morning, when the maximum number of meteors should be falling. Because the moon will be in quarter phase, its light will wash some of the shower out, so go out before moonrise.  


Next year, the meteor shower viewing conditions will be better.  It is easier to see the meteors when the moon is in crescent phase or new phase.


If you are wondering how to explain to your students what a meteor (or shooting star) is, this simple and very catchy tune by They Might Be Giants from their grammy winning album "Here Comes Science" will help to clear things up.  The actual song starts at around 2:30 in the video...this is a live performance of it with sock puppets.

Leonid Meteor Shower This Week! They Might Be Giants Explains Meteors in a Song.

YouTube SpaceLab: Get your students experiments into space!

"Imagine your experiment, 250 miles above Earth, for the world to see. What will you do? We're asking you to come up with a science experiment for space and upload a video explaining it to YouTube. If your idea wins, it will be performed on the International Space Station and live streamed on YouTube to the world. And we'll throw in some out-of-this-world prizes, too. Can plants survive beyond the Earth? Could proteins in space reveal the mysteries of life? Science in micro gravity can help unlock the answers. The countdown's begun."


Watch the video below, or click here to go straight to the SpaceLab page where they have all of the important information, like submission deadlines, requirements, age groupings (sorry, middle and elementary schoolers, you have to be at least 14 years old...), etc.


The PRIZES are AMAZING!


There will be six Regional winners chosen from each of 5 Global Regions (so that's 30...).  


Regional Winners:

A trip to Washington, D.C. USA, including an
exhilarating ZERO-G flight.

A Lenovo© IdeaPad© U300s Ultrabook™ each.

Global Winners:
There will be two Global winners (one from each age group) that will win the following:

Your experiment is carried out on the International Space Station and streamed live from space on YouTube.

An amazing space experience of your choice: watch the rocket with your experiment blast off in Japan or wait until you're 18 and take cosmonaut training in Russia (WHAT???).

A trip to Washington, D.C. USA, including an
exhilarating ZERO-G flight.

A Lenovo© IdeaPad© U300s Ultrabook™ each.

YouTube SpaceLab: Get your students experiments into space!

You Tube 101: Private Sharing Tutorial by The NINJA

Okay, I'm sort of starting to have a Ninja theme to my posting.  This is my second ninja post in three weeks!

So the other day in class, some of my students produced a music video called "Down to the Sound":  it's all about the Geological History of Long Island Sound (glaciers, moraines, kettle lakes, etc.).  They choreographed, shot, edited, wrote the lyrics to and SANG to the tune of Jay Sean's Down.  These amazing students gave me a copy of their chef d'oeuvre  ('masterpiece' in french) and I wanted to share it with other teachers in my school, but it was too large to fit through the filters on my network email so I needed to upload it to the web.

However, for those of you who read my post on COPPA there are privacy issues--my students are young.  So, I shared the item privately.

Instead of putting together my own tutorial, watch this one: It's WAAAAAAAAAAY funnier than I could ever be and it stars a Ninja!  This tutorial is so funny, I laughed out loud:  belly laugh, head thrown back, losing-my-breath, laughing.




These are the lyrics to the song my students wrote, but I'm not going to post a link to the video because it's PRIVATE, duh!

You Tube 101: Private Sharing Tutorial by The NINJA

Playlist Middle Earth: Rock On With Your Bad Elf!

For those of you who haven't followed my blog, I am not only the Science and Technology Lady; I am also the co-advisor for the club Middle Earth at my school, which celebrates "all things Lord of the Rings".  This week, we listened to music inspired by the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy that I compiled in a most-excellent YouTube playlist.  I found most of the titles in a Wikipedia entry that included the popular culture influences of the work.

There's something for most (not all) people here from Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop" and Black Sabbath's "The Wizard" to the more tame Enya "May it Be" (in Elvish/English with subtitles) and operatic compositions from the Tolkein Ensemble.

Oh, there's also a little clip of Liv Tyler at a press conference, speaking Elvish.

Enjoy!

Playlist Middle Earth: Rock On With Your Bad Elf!

Photosynthesis Rap by Rhythm Rhyme Results

CLICK HERE to download the lyrics.

Photosynthesis Rap by Rhythm Rhyme Results

Edit to CamStudio post

There's an error in my original CamStudio post...see two days ago...in the directions, I said "select the region on your screen you want to record and then press record."

Well, you have to press record (the red circle, dummy!) and THEN select the region of the screen...THEN you press "play" on the youtube (or other video player) window. You'll have a few seconds of lag time on the beginning of the video.

On my desktop computer at work, I actually have to record the audio from a microphone and make sure that everyone around me is superduper quiet. Alternatively, you can narrate parts of the video...like if you're explaining how to download or use CamStudio you can show full-screen recording while you narrate the steps. Very useful for creating training videos or how-to's for your students.

Edit to CamStudio post