OPTICS: LIGHT, COLOR AND THEIR USES (PDF ebook)
A great hands-on experiment & study guide from NASA filled with great color and light activities using lenses, prisms and mirrors to create telescopes, periscopes, microscopes and kaleidoscopes. Other activities include finding focal length and understanding reflection, refraction and diffraction. Activities are marked by grade level, and can be adapted from K-12 (so they say). Anyway, this is a lot of fun!
CLICK HERE to go to the download page!
IT’S A JETSONS WORLD by Jeffrey Tucker (PDF ebook)
Today we feature this fascinating economics book, just published by the Mises Institute book for junior high – adult readers on how free market has changed our lives today, particularly in the digital universe, and yet we don’t appreciate or realize this nearly enough. Meanwhile, the public (government) sector is systematically wrecking the physical world in sneaky and petty ways that really do matter.
Easy to read, full of great stories, and written with an Austrian School of economics viewpoint, this book is and eye-opener for older students and parents who want to gain a better understanding on the changes in our world today and in the years ahead.
The pace of change is mind-boggling. The world is being reinvented in our lifetimes, every day. Email has only been mainstream for 15 years or so, and young people now regard it as a dated form of communication used only for the most formal correspondence. Today young people are brief instant messaging through social media, but that’s only for now, and who knows what next year will bring.
Oddly, hardly anyone seems to care, and even fewer care about the institutional force that makes all this possible, which is the market economy. Instead, we just adjust to the new reality. We even hear of the grave problem of “miracle fatigue”—too much great stuff, too often. Truly, this new world seems to have arrived without much fanfare at all.
The Jetsons’ world is our world: explosive technological advances, entrenched bourgeois culture, a culture of enterprise that is the very font of the good life. But there is one major difference, and it isn’t the flying car, which we might already have were it not for the government’s promotion of roads and the central plan that manages transportation. It is this: we also live in the midst of a gigantic leviathan state that seeks to control every aspect of our life to its smallest detail.
The government, however, is still the Flintstones, an anachronism that operates as this massive drag on our lives. With its money manipulations, regulations, taxation, wars (on people, products, and services), prisons, and injustices, we similarly look the other way. We try to find the workaround and keep living like the Jetsons.
CLICK HERE to go to the download page for this ebook
THE THEOLOGY OF CALVIN & HOBBES
Well, not quite… but today we feature something completely different: Here from the Experimental Theology blog is a playful and thoughtful “young-reader friendly” online book of theology lessons derived from none other than Calvin & Hobbes. “How can this possibly be?” you ask. Well, give it a look-see. Regardless of your theological persuasion, this contains some fascinating material (AND great cartoons) for young and old readers alike.
CLICK HERE to go to the online ebook!
And don’t worry PEANUTS fans… Mr. Beck has also got you covered. Check this out!
THIS IS SAND
Just for the fun of it, here’s a delightful little activity game to end your week. See what you can make of this virtual sand box.
CLICK HERE to go to the site! Then press or double click your left mouse button to drop sand.
Tip: Click on the little square in the upper left hand corner to get instructions. Use the “c” key occasionally to change your colors. Have fun!
Over the past 10 years, Dad’s Worksheets.com has created over 8,600 printable math worksheets, logic puzzles and math games for students at every level — and makes them available free for printing or downloading on their website. Just about any mathematics topic you can think of can be found here, including all the core math skills, number patterns, measurement & conversions, word problems, geometry, rounding numbers, factorization, and on and on. All worksheets can be printed or saved to PDF.
The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, also known as Jefferson Lab, is a world-leading nuclear physics research facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. They have put together a great site offering over two dozen online educational games that aren’t full of shoot-em-ups and fancy graphics — but are very well designed… fun… and highly educational.
Here’s a wonderful full-cast audio dramatization of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, as originally broadcast on CBS Adventure Theater in 1977. This is much closer to the original story than the Disney movies, and has excellent sound quality. Tom Bosley (the father from “Happy Days” is the host and narrator). Today we feature part one of this two part story: “Mowgli” is a fantastic 40 minute audio story your kids will love. Look for the conclusion, “Tiger, Tiger” tomorrow!
“Welcome to a world of garage science and backyard experimenting. This page is all sciencey guy stuff .. but girls can play too!”
Today we are featuring this fascinating vintage comic book biography of George Washington Carver (1860 – 1943).
The Pulse of the Planet daily radio program offers free mp3 downloads, exploring the world of sound in nature, culture and science, with audio adventures, world music, extraordinary sound portraits, science diaries, and nature ring-tones.