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Twig Science Films – free science videos

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I was approached by Twig to look at their site and review it. Now I rarely do this as there is so much out there and I don’t want this blog to become another huge link list, in other words you have to be good for me to recommend you! Anyway, I had a peruse of the site and was really impressed and strongly recommend you look the site up (I am not getting any affiliate payments for this by the way). It also appears I am not the only one who rates the site as they have won the BETT Award for 2012 in the Secondary Digital Content category.

Check out the What is Twig video..gives a good idea of what you are getting. More videos are available upon a very affordable subscription.

Twig Science Films

Daphnia-Caffeine experiment alternative

If you are working abroad then it can be a big problem trying to complete the core practicals included in the Edexcel A Level syllabus. At the moment I am having a lot of difficulty obtaining simple bacteria and in the past it has been impossible to get daphnia shipped internationally.
One alternative to using daphnia to observe the effects of caffeine on heart rate is to use mosquito larvae.
My colleague picked this tip up on a recent exam review session in Madrid. He tried it out and found that it was easier to do than with daphnia, both the heart beat could be counted (and it is slower than daphnia)and a large blood vessel could also be observed pulsating. In hot countries it should be fairly easy to get hold of the larvae from any area of still water.

Video: Visual cliff experiment

This is a short clip illustrating the visual cliff experiment, suitable for section 8.5 making sense of what we see:

TED Talks: Visual development

Below are links to some TED talks that address visual development and can extend students covering sections 8.4 visual development and 8.5 making sense of what we see:

How brains learn to see

Our brains are miswired

Optical illusions show how we see

TED talks: Bioengineering and remote controlled bugs

This talk is great for discussion on ethics, progress in tissue engineering etc. This touches on topics covered by the excellent three part series from Channel 4 called Animal Farm.