Blog Archives
Some comic relief from the mock exams…
Reward your studies with a 5-minute giggle-break.
If you really must think as you’re watching the video, can you pick out examples of innate and learned behaviour, altruism, competition, kin selection and mate selection?
BIS Students: remember there are loads of past papers on Moodle, including P1 quizzes to try through Quia: http://www.quia.com/profiles/staylor. The quizzes will grade themselves, but you need to get the question papers from Moodle or the network.
Neither Science nor a video but…
… I found this funny. From XKCD.com. What is the difference between a simile, a metaphor and an analogy?
Analogies, from XKCD
OK Go – This Too Shall Pass
Viral video pop masters OK Go set an incredible engineering challenge for this music video – a giant Rube Goldberg machine that fits in with the song and is all completed in a single shot. Here is the result:
Engineer Adam Sadowsky has a really entertaining talk on TED about the ten commandments of making the video and the challenges they overcame. OK Go introduce their video at the end.
Eepybird are back – with a Rocket Car!
Eepybird, DietCoke and Mentos wizards, are back with their latest big-budget bubblicious adventure – a rocket car. There is a 3D version here, and remember – other diet sodas are also available.
XKCD Webcomic
If you need to switch off for a while during your study…
XKCD Webcomic - Science and Maths fun
There’s plenty more where that came from, so don’t waste too much time there.
The Biology Song & Lyrical Science
I love this song. “There are seven things it needs to survive”:
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Inspired by the Stanford biologists, I’m looking for popular songs to butcher into biological themes. The process of taking one of your favourite songs and twisting it into a factually-sound academic re-write can be a great way to consolidate key concepts, especially for the musically intelligent. It takes more than just recall of the facts – you have to force yourself to understand the topic in order to write a decent song. To make the song make sense, you need a good grasp of the content and you must use the key terms correctly.
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Ideas so far –
- An IB Biology version of “Apoptize” (One Republic’s ‘Apologize‘) (completed – click here)
- “One Gene, One Protein“, after “No Woman, No Cry“
- “Don’t Divide Even“, after The Script’s “Break Even” (completed – click here)
- “I Will Divide,” after Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” (have a go – click here)
- “ACE, ACE Inhibitors“, based on Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby“
- Endangered Species song for “Numb/Encore” by LP and Jay-Z
- “Hormones“, after Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours“
- “Good Riddance (to excess end products)“, based on Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your life)” (completed – click here)
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For some more reading on how making use of Musical Intelligence can aid in learning across the curriculum:
- “The Effect of Music on Second Language Vocab Acquisition” from ESL Through Music
- “Promoting Literacy Through Music” from Songs for Teaching (Resources here: Science page)
- “Singing In Science: Writing and Recording Student Lyrics to Express Learning” from the University of California. Here’s Tomcfad demonstrating this technique with an elementary earth science class:
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My big question: Has there been any research on the effectiveness of different styles of music in relation to age group, cultural background or musical preference?
Many of the bought-resources seem to based on country songs or old songs – how well does that translate to a modern teen audience in an international or urban setting?
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If you’ve got any cool ideas (the more complex, the better), or any comments on the use of music as a learning tool, please post them below!
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Headphones image from: http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/date/2008/page/5/
Really funny plasma membrane & Evolution raps
This is really well done, from a group of Stanford students:
And this one on evolution is very funny:
There are more cell biology clips on their YouTube channel.
“Don’t drag your knuckles when you walk!” More science comedy
From Brian Malow, Science Comedian.
More on his channel, ScienceComedian.
Tim Lee -Science Comedian
Not the Tim Lee in our class, this guy has a PhD and uses it for powerpoint comedy. Check out his inventive use of cladograms:
More science comedy to come…
Biotech: The Musical (re-up)
Science + music + YouTube = awesome.
Here are some comedy highlights:
Bio-Rad are the leaders when it comes to making silly music videos to promote their products. The classic ‘PCR Song‘ is great for the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology topic:
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And you’ve got to love their follow up, GTCA So Fast – touting enzyme supermixes for the PCR process – this would fit in the DNA Replication section:
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Mass Spec-tacular for the chemists (Reach that Peak):
More musical mayhem after the jump…
i-Biology 