Category Archives: Free Resources
Essential Biology 03 – Chemistry of Life uploaded
Part 3 of the revision guide for 2009 session IB Diploma Biology is here:
essential-biology-03-chemistry-of-life.doc
To the right of this page there are also new updates specifically aimed at IBDP Bio – separate pages for each topic in the syllabus. I’ll try to get these as complete as possible as soon as possible, but things might be a bit quiet round here in the run-up to the exams.
If you dowload the document, let me know how you get on.
Fizzix is Phun
I’m a bit worried about posting this so close to the DP exams*, but it is irresistable…
Ben Goldacre posted this video on the badscience blog – it’s a Physics toy for the computer, which can be downloaded here: phun.at.
The comments page turned up a load of other good toys to play with, so go on over to the original post and check them out.
There are plenty of videos of Phun in action on YouTube.
*potential 10 on the procrastinometer
Footprints Science – loads of simple, clear interactives
This site has a good collection of animations and interactives aimed at KS3/GCSE levels. It is divided into Bio, Chem and Phys and has a section on coursework. Well worth spending time having a look there, especially as most of them can be saved easily.
Special prize for anyone who can work out what the Taj Mahal is doing in the banner for a Science website.
Freezeray.com – clicky-clicky!
This is a great resource for KS3 teachers. Thanks to Joshua Jones for posting the link to the TES Boards.
There is finally a site that aims to produce resources for classes AND deliberately allows them to be saved and kept for use on the IWB. They even have a page to help you save Flash files – and templates to make your own Flash tasks on Flash MX 2004 +.You know what’s even better? The Flash animations are actually useful. Such as this one, which is a simple and clear graph plotter for middle school. They also have technology (mehanics) sims, investigation planners and a bank of hangman-style keyword activities. Rock on.
It is produced by Freezeray, in association with Great Barr School – a specialist Science college that looks like it might actually be into Science.
Stop reading – go look.
PS – for the quickest way to dowload and save, go the Firefox way.
Slideshare.net – upload slideshows and embed for free
Slideshare is a great service if you need somewhere to store slideshows online for free. you can upload powerpoints as shows or pdf files. Other programmes (e.g. mac) need to be uploaded as pdf.
Shows are then processed and can be embedded to blogs, wikis or webpages and, if you allow it, they can be downloaded by those who view them. They can be tagged and can also be viewed fullscreen online. It’s pretty much the YouTube of powerpoints.
Here’s an example (Photosynthesis* for IBDP Biology):
*edit – I had posted Cell Respiration, but deleted it by accident from the Slideshare account. Be careful – there’s no ‘are you sure?‘ box when you hit delete!
North Harris College – loads of animation links
The Biology department at North Harris College have posted links to many animations online. They are divided into general Biology and Anatomy & Physiology.
Gene Almanac – a resource of good animations and simulations
From the Dolan Learning Centre, this collection of animations and simulations can be downloaded easily for PC and MAC.
Clicking the image on the left should bring you directly to an animation about the polymerase chain reaction.
Imaging Technology Group’s Virtual Microscope – Amazing free software
This is an unbelievable free, open-source piece of software. It basically emulates a scanning electron microscope and allows you all kinds of fuctionality, including: wide range of magnifications of super-high quality images; mass spec analysis with false colouring of different elements present; control over colour, brightness and image position; a very nifty measurement/line tool that is just perfect for the the IB Cells statements on magnifications.
The download is 128MB for the package including three images ready to mount. When opened, you can download many more images (around 25-30MB each – huge and great quality).
It’s brilliant – stop reading this and go play with it.
Well, if you’re still reading…
Their excellent website also includes a series of animations on the basics of microscopy, videos on preparing mounts and even a section on careers in microscopy.
Biologymad.com – A-Level study site and lots of resources
Biologymad has plenty of resources for A-Level Biology (many of which can be used for IB). There are a few simple animations on the resources page, including the golgi apparatus Flash linked to in the image.
They also offer free Moodle hosting for Biology courses, with the proviso that the course must be free to the students.
i-Biology 