Zero to Infinity

I cannot be the only one who noticed this. The title graphic for this episode of NOVA reminded me of the title cards used throughout 2001: A Space Odyssey. Specifically the one used to announce the final act: "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" (Buzz Lightyear's catch phrase is based on this act's name.) All caps Futura in white against a dark background, and an invocation of the infinite. Subtle? Yes. A coincidence? I'm saying no.

In any case, Talithia Williams' tale of numerical extremes is told through dancing animated aliens, masterful tabla playing, pizza slicing, and a visit to a hypothetical hotel. Zero was missed by the Sumerians, Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. Infinity unlocks the vast potential of calculus.

Asides: It was Williams' mellifluous voice that guided us through the Universe Revealed NOVA miniseries. And I did have to add a new custom category on this here blog and to my Lessons of Phyz store on TPT: Math. So if you know of any other compelling math documentaries that could benefit from a question set, let me know.

Zero to Infinity at TPT

As your science sommelier, I was struck when Williams synopsized the episode as being about "nothing and everything". It rang a bell! So I would say this episode pairs nicely (perhaps whimsically) with Jim Al-Khalili's Everything and Nothing. Williams is telling a math story; Al-Khalili is telling a physical science story. 

Arctic Sinkholes

It's worse than the models predicted. 

If you've been feeling that climate \change has been running ahead to schedule, there may be a reason for that. This episode of NOVA lays it out. Spoiler alert, it's permafrost thaw and perhaps fossil methane chimneys. 

"Thawing permafrost, right now on NOVA" apparently doesn't attract Viewers Like You, so producers looked for a sexier hook. What they found was arctic sinkholes, first seen in Russia's Yamal peninsula. At first glance, maybe large-scale, remote versions of sinkholes like those that have been swallowing cars around the world. Nope. These are explosion craters surrounded by debris fields. The calls are coming from inside the house. "Arctic sinkholes, right now on NOVA." Now we've got an episode.

The focus of the program is nevertheless permafrost thaw and the investigation of an ongoing release of ancient methane previously deemed safely sequestered. Nontrivial new greenhouse gas emissions that were not accounted for in the 2015 Paris Accords. So yeah, it's worse than we thought.

Arctic Sinkholes on TPT

Earth Revealed

It seems there was a wee Golden Age of college telecourses that preceded the explosive dawn of the World Wide Web. In physics, we had The Mechanical Universe. In chemistry, there was The World of Chemistry, and in geology, there was Earth Revealed. They had been preceded by more multidisciplinary documentary series such as Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, James Burke's Connections, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

These telecourses ran 26 half-hour episodes, and were intended to be fairly comprehensive. The Mechanical Universe actually got a second season, for a total of 52 episodes. If there are programs with matching ambition produced in The Age of Search (21st century), I am unaware of them. Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions (2014) does a great job, but tells its story in a mere 13 episodes.

The Buggles proclaimed that Video Killed the Radio Star in the first song played by the VJs of MTV. Did the web kill broadcast college telecourses? My guess is that the web allowed colleges to conduct their own telecourses, albeit less slickly produced, so that demand for these more broadly-targeted telecourses went extinct.

EARTH REVEALED at TPT

Earth Revealed shows the physical processes and human activities that shape

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I only became aware of this recently; it seems like a pretty good deal. A post that details the craft that goes into the creating of the Lessons of Phyz video question sets is directly below this post, if you're looking for inspiration for leaving positive reviews. And you can still write a better review than Open AI's ChatGPT can.

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Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions

A video-based instructional series in chemistry with accompanying website for high school and college classes. 13 half-hour programs, online text, course guide, interactive lessons, historical timeline and periodic table.

Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions teaches general chemistry concepts using real-life challenges in energy, materials development, biochemistry, and the environment.

The course zeroes in on essential topics that are generally taught in introductory chemistry, providing a strong foundation for learners to pursue further study in science or a liberal-arts education. Videos include dramatic demonstrations of key principles, interviews with scientists who are doing current research related to these fields, animations, and clear explanations. Each video is hosted by a different working chemist – together, they show a diversity of chemistry professionals and the challenges chemistry is addressing for society. The on-line text covers key concepts with clear text and illustrations, while interactive labs provide simulations of chemical processes online.

Series produced in 2014 by the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. As of the time of publication, episodes stream at the Annenberg Learner website.

Chemistry: Challenges and Solutions at TPT

1. MATTER AND THE RISE OF ATOMIC THEORY

Teachers Pay Teachers is now TPT

Once upon a time there were Digital Video Discs (or was it Disks?) and/or Digital Versatile Discs. No more. Now there are DVDs. What do the apparent initials stand for? They don't stand for anything. The discs are simply DVDs.

I believe that once upon a time, there was Physics Education Technology. Now there is PhET.

I'm sure more examples abound. Now we can pour one out for Teachers Pay Teachers. The service isn't going away. It's now simply TPT. The initialism had been in common use for years, and the company's leaning into it.

The rebranding is not universally welcome in the physics teaching community. The American Association of Physics Teachers' official journal, The Physics Teacher, has been published since 1963, and is often referred to as TPT.

I do not foresee either institution changing their practices out of deference to the other. We've survived multiple meanings for ATM, CD, CRT, EMT, etc.. We'll power through this duplication.

Human: The World Within

The Lessons of Phyz materials I've posted to TPT started in the realm of physics. That's been my primary teaching assignment since 1986. So it's what I know the best. But I have also taught earth science, and I've always loved astronomy. So I have video question sets in that realm, too. Once I retired from the classroom, I dipped a toe into chemistry, and found some groovy documentaries there, too. More recently, I've come across two video telecourse series and have posted question sets for them. 

But biology. Biology is the most heavily enrolled high school science course there is. But if there's a 13-part, 26-part, or (like The Mechanical Universe) 28-part or 52-part telecourse covering high school or introductory college biology, it eludes me.

I recently discovered this miniseries, though. And it seems to cover many of the basics through a contemporary lens. It's hosted by Jad Abumrad of Radiolab fame. So I ran with it. Some vignettes chaffed against my skeptical sensibilities, but I decided the judges will allow it. Each of the six episodes runs 53 minutes. As is sometimes the case in documentaries produced by one network then acquired by another, the PBS sequence and the Netflix sequence do not align. Which is to say the episodes stand on their own well enough.

HUMAN: THE WORLD WITHIN at TPT

Take a deep-dive into the universe that’s inside each and every one of us, by exploring a shared biology that we often don't take the time to appreciate, or understand. Heart, brain, eyes, blood, tears; "Human" uncovers not only the science behind how our bodies work, but how what's inside powers every moment of what we do out in the world. Personal profiles of people from around the globe become entry points into deeper stories about how the body's many systems function.

The Planets

When I was in 4th grade, our class would take trips to the school library. And we were allowed to check out books. I believe this might have been a privilege reserved for those of us in "upper elementary" (4th-6th grade). My teacher, Mrs. Murphy, noticed that I had become especially enamored of a book about the planets. I believe it was a small (maybe 6"x9") dark blue hardcover book titled The Planets.

And yes, I was transfixed. Other worlds that orbited the sun. Earth was not alone in the universe. There were other worlds! In the mid-1970s, the planets of our own solar system were the only planets we knew to exist. Maybe there were planets orbiting other stars, but maybe not. As far as we knew, there were nine planets (Pluto was a planet in those days).

I checked out the book, and checked it out again when it was due back, and checked it out again after that. Speed reading was not my thing. And I'm sure I just kept re-reading pages I had already read.

Mrs. Murphy suggested that I write a report on The Planets and I (the future physics teacher) readily agreed. Talk about pushing on an open door! 

Mrs. Murphy and Dean in 1973

Using dad's collection of Flair felt-tipped pens, my report devoted one page to each planet. Each page had a partial diagram of the solar system, showing the orbits of all the planets, but showing the specific page's planet in its orbit on that page. Graphics and art were important. The remainder of the page was a list of the planet's parameters: distance from the sun, diameter, mass, and such. The pages were bound by binding rings. Very polished. 

And it earned an A++ from Mrs. Murphy. Mind you, no one else in the class had been asked to do anything like this. I was flying solo on this project.

Mrs. Murphy and Dean in 2022

I recently reconnected with Mrs. Murphy and she's a total delight. Full of energy and as sweet as could be.

In any case, I thought of the report and Mrs. Murphy as I watched the BBC/PBS-NOVA miniseries, The Planets. It originally aired a few years ago, but somehow got past me. Now that I'm crafting question sets to accompany science documentaries, it was high on my priorities.

It turns out that post-Voyager and other probes, we know a whole bunch more about the  planets than we did in the early '70s. So I learned a bunch. 

Your students can learn a bunch, too. They live in a galaxy festooned with thousands of known planets orbiting stars far and farther. And in a solar system in which Saturn is not the only planet known to harbor rings.

THE PLANETS

Among the stars in the night sky wander the eight-plus worlds of our own solar system—each home to truly awe-inspiring sights. Volcanoes three times higher than Everest, geysers erupting with icy plumes, cyclones larger than Earth lasting hundreds of years. Each of our celestial neighbors has a distinct personality and a unique story. In this five-part series, NOVA will explore the awesome beauty of “The Planets,” including Saturn’s 175,000-mile-wide rings, Mars’ ancient waterfalls four times the size of any found on Earth, and Neptune’s winds—12 times stronger than any hurricane felt on our planet. Using unique special effects and extraordinary footage captured by orbiters, landers and rovers, we’ll treat viewers to an up-close look at these faraway worlds. We’ll stand on the dark side of Pluto, lit only by the reflected light of its moons, watch the sun set over an ancient Martian waterfall, and witness a storm twice the size of Earth from high above Saturn. And, we’ll reveal how each of them has affected our own planet: Earth.

As of the publication of this resource, The Planets was available via PBS streaming, Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, and on DVD and Bluray.

The Planets at TPT

1. INNER WORLDS 

Order and Disorder: The Forces that Drive the Universe

I was late to the Jim Al-Khalili party, so I'm working through the back catalog, scrambling to catch up. So far, I've authored question sets for Atom, Chemistry: A Volatile History, Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity, Gravity and Me, The Secrets of Quantum Physics, and Secrets of Size: Atoms to Supergalaxies.

I still have a few Al-Khalili gems to mine. For now, I'm adding this volume to my library.

Order and Disorder: The Forces that Drive the Universe at Teachers Pay Teachers

In which Al-Khalili spins a thread that carries us from ancient Mesopotamia through

Cosmos: Possible Worlds

My first course in physics was Project Physics, Harvard's post-Sputnik curriculum project that emphasized  the history of physics and human interest throughout the course. I loved Project Physics. And on Sunday, September 28, 1980, Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage episode 1, "The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean" aired for the first time. Cosmos grabbed me and did not let go.

I eventually became a high school physics teacher (the only career choice I specifically eliminated from my constellation of options while still in high school). And when California's state-mandated physics testing and reporting ended in the 2010s, I decided to weave Cosmos into my physics curriculum. 

By then, I had been implementing Skepticism in the Classroom, stand-alone lessons that could be dropped into the physics curriculum where appropriate. One theme of Cosmos was skepticism, so it aligned with my agenda. I wrote up question sets for each episode, and showed one episode the day after each unit test. I had to up the pace at the end of the year, and I showed episode 13, "Who Speak for Earth?" without a question set. Students were ready by then and remained engaged; it was like lifting hands off the moving bicycle's handlebars.

When Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey debuted in 2014, I added that series to my AP Physics 2 curriculum. AP Physics 1 got no Cosmos. But they did learn about waves and circuits back in those days.

In 1980's Cosmos, an existential threat that Sagan was overtly warning about was the nuclear arms race and the possibility of a life on Earth-ending nuclear war. In 2014's Cosmos, an existential threat that Ann Druyan (through Neil deGrasse Tyson) warned about was anthropogenic climate change.

The first episode of Cosmos: Possible Worlds aired on March 9, 2020. Four days later, I taught the last regular, in-person class of my 35-year high school teaching career. Druyan's third season of Cosmos got lost in the pandemic. And National Geographic made the series difficult to find and watch (especially for those dozen or two of us that don't subscribe to cable or have a dish).

Developing question sets for each episode of Possible Worlds has been on my to-do list since 2020. Forty-two years after the debut of Cosmos, I have begun my work on Possible Worlds. 

All seasons of Cosmos bring context and humanity to the work done in science. I think it's a valuable resource to fold into course curriculum. It is not tightly-focused content exposition, as one might find in The Mechanical Universe. But that's a feature, not a bug.

Ladder to the Stars [Free] at Teachers Pay Teachers

One down; 12 to go before I have a full set for Possible Worlds (Cosmos season 3). In the meantime, question sets for seasons 1 and 2 are available at The Lessons of Phyz. 

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage at Teachers Pay Teacher

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey at Teachers Pay Teachers

Will there be a season 4 of Cosmos? Ann Druyan has one envisioned. Time will tell.

UPDATE: The Fleeting Grace of the Habitable Zone at Teachers Pay Teachers

(9/29/22): Lost City of Life at Teachers Pay Teachers

(9/30/22): Vavilov at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/4/22): The Cosmic Connectome at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/5/22): The Man of a Trillion Worlds at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/6/22): The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/7/22): The Sacrifice of Cassini at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/9/22): Magic Without Lies at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/10/22): A Tale of Two Atoms at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/11/22): Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/14/22): Coming of Age in the Anthropocene at Teachers Pay Teachers

(10/16/22): Seven Wonders of the New World at Teachers Pay Teachers

Ultimate Space Telescope

Cue the Boston "It's been such a long time". But we have arrived at the moment when the James Webb Space Telescope has enough air underneath it to merit an episode of NOVA that includes images.

Delay after delay and budget overruns aplenty made us wonder if this beast was ever going to launch. And when it finally did launch, the reality of its 300+ single points of potential mission failure made us wonder if we were ever going to see images.

Spoiler alert: JWST had a successful launch and deployment. And those images!

So here we are: Chapter 1 is complete and the story can be told about what is now the ultimate space telescope. You and I may know the back story and drama, but our students do not. This hour-long introduction brings them up to speed with the details of this ambitious research tool. If Hubble is an indicator, JWST may become the most productive research instrument we have ever built.

Those chapters have yet to be written. This chapter is about how we got here.

Ultimate Space Telescope at Teachers Pay Teachers

Biology lives here

As I built my Lessons of Phyz library over the years, I liked working in groovy biology content whenever I could.

As mentioned in the "Chemistry: we've got it" post below, physics teachers are spoiled with an abundance of course-covering video series. Chemistry doesn't seem to have such a thing, nor have I found one for biology.

But here's the biology-related documentaries I have found.

Biology at The Lessons of Phyz on Teachers Pay Teachers

Chemistry: we've got it

When I retired from classroom teaching in 2021, one project I set out upon was increasing the chemistry content on The Lessons of Phyz at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Physics teachers were fortunate enough to have David Goodstein's The Mechanical Universe (College and High School) at their disposal, to be used at their discretion. Better yet, they had Paul Hewitt's Conceptual Physics Alive!. All of these were in-depth, course-long series that covered nearly all the topics in introductory physics.

Surely there must be similarly comprehensive series in chemistry. 

Or not. Somehow the Goodsteins and Hewitts of chemistry either don't exist or have not had such good fortune in getting any comprehensive series green-lit. Talk to me, my colleagues in chemistry: what went wrong? If there's something missing from the list that follows, let me know.

What we do have is a couple of chemistry mini-series and one-offs that are delightful and work well in the chemistry curriculum. Here's what I've found so far.

Chemistry at The Lessons of Phyz

All the Bundles of Phyz

Each Bundle of Phyz is potentially a living organism. Lessons might be modified if I think of something, and new lessons might be added at any time. But for now, this is the state of the bundles. (I was assembling them one at a time, so looking back at the bundle of 21 bundles was a little surprising.)

When you're preparing your unit on any of these topics, take a peek and see if there's a lesson you can use. Or grab the complete bundle for maximum flexibility.

MOTION — INERTIA — FORCES — GRAVITY

MOMENTUM — ENERGY — ROTATION

FLUIDS — HEAT AND THERMO

ELECTROSTATICS — ELECTRIC CIRCUITS — ELECTROMAGNETISM

HARMONIC MOTION — WAVES AND SOUND

LIGHT AND COLOR — REFRACTION — MIRRORS AND LENSES — WAVE OPTICS

ATOMIC PHYSICS — NUCLEAR PHYSICS

STARS AND THE BIG BANG

Secrets of Size: Atoms to Supergalaxies

What would the universe look like if you were a billion times smaller or a billion times bigger? In this mind-bending series, Jim Al-Khalili will look at the universe across its vast range of size, ranging from the tiniest objects measuring just a few atoms, to vast structures consisting of hundreds of thousands of interconnected galaxies. Investigating these astonishing objects will reveal fundamental truths about our universe. At the end of each film, the audience will see the largest structures ever discovered in the universe and the smallest objects whose images scientists have managed to capture to date.

This series premiered on BBC Four in May, 2022. These question sets only have value if you can find and show the episodes. Until this miniseries makes it to, say, Amazon Prime via Spark or some such, you may need to be resourceful to access it. If you intend to assign it outside of class, make sure students will be able to access it.

Mirages [Lab Springboard]

This activity mixes a lab activity with a springboard lesson to explore the optics and perception of mirages and looming (inferior and superior images).

The recommended equipment is Arbor Scientific's Laser Viewing Tank.

To make this lesson work, you begin by setting up the "skinny fish tank" with water and corn syrup or sugar. Then you go through the "paper and pencil" lesson about the optics of mirages, and why they are perceived as bodies of water. Then it's time to hit the tank with the lasers to see how the index gradient causes the beam to curve. By then, the connection between curving light rays and mirages is understood.

Understanding Rainbows [Springboard]

Second only to "Why the Sky is Blue" in ambition, I would rank this as one of the best lessons I have authored. 

With rainbows, the physics is relatively simple (once you've covered refraction and dispersion) and the geometry is simple. Putting them together? Well, this is a four-page lesson. It takes a bit of time to work out the details.

The post-lesson "extras" in the presentation are amusing rewards. The "Double Rainbow" video has mostly faded from cultural awareness among students, so it's new to them! Is the dramatic interpretation over the top? Yes it is.

Understanding Rainbows [Springboard] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Includes

Student document (print-friendly Google Docs file on Google Drive)

Instructional presentation (link embedded in answer key)

Answer key

Diversion into Dispersion [Lab Springboard]

This is an exploration of differential refraction: white light is dispersed into a spectrum by a prism. The activity explores the physics behind dispersion before giving a name to the phenomenon. 

Pink Floyd's classic album cover for Dark Side of the Moon is evaluated: what's right and what's wrong with the illustration? [I painted a 10' x 30' mural of Storm Thorgerson's image outside my physics classroom.]

Diversion into Dispersion [Lab Springboard] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Includes

Student document (print-friendly Google Docs file on Google Drive)

Instructional presentation (link embedded in answer key)

Answer key

Index of Refraction [Springboard]

Examples of vacuum, glass, and gallium phosphide are used as we define and apply the index of refraction. Ratios of speeds, wavelengths, and sines of angles are involved. Interesting graphical tangents are visited, and a numerical sample problem is included.

Index of Refraction [Springboard] at Teachers Pay Teachers

Includes

Student document (print-friendly Google Docs file on Google Drive)

Instructional presentation (link embedded in answer key)

Answer key

Diversion into Refraction [Lab Springboard]

This activity acts as an introduction to refraction. Prior knowledge: sound travels faster in solids (like steel) than it does in air. So what about light? Does it travel faster in transparent solids (like glass) than it does in air? Isaac Newton thought so.

We use the classic "car on carpet" model to explore the question. A toy car is rolled at an oblique angle down a ramp. There are hard surfaces, and there are carpeted surfaces. The direction of the car's path is affected by moving through the different surfaces.