Video, as we all know, offers instant access to student attention. Video takes you across time, across boundaries, include microscopic and macroscopic boundaries. But video can also slow time and bend it to reveal physical phenomenon laying under day to day experiences. To see what I mean, visit the website for Discovery’s program Time Warp. Go here for an amazing interactive gallery. Watch popcorn popcorn pop (see images above)–and control time with your mouse. See a bullwhip break the sound barrier (that’s why they make that snapping sound). Samurai swords, sledge hammers, cornstarch-and-water (“non-Newtonian Fluid”) and more. Remember Mentos and Diet Coke? Time Warp slowed it down 5,000 times. Gush! Challenge the minds in your class: When milk is poured too fast into cereal, does it slosh out of the bowl under the cereal or behind the cereal? Move your mouse slo-oo-wly to reveal the secret. A great thought provoker. And a reminder that time is a factor, usually invisible, in all things (plate tectonics comes to mind.
More resources: PlayingWithTime, actual times from 200 microseconds to 3.2 billion years and time lapse lives out on the community video sites. But it’s not interactive like the Time Warp site!
Here’s a guy that ages 6 years in 5 minutes. Check out the haircuts. And school have been videotaping the yard, and the streets in front of the school, then speeding them up in iMovie, Windows MovieMaker, or Adobe. I love those “Day in the Life Videos”. Think about what you can do!
And if you’re looking for a state-of-the-art classroom, don’t forget to throw your hat in the ring here! Remember, you can enter once a day. And that’s day that can last a lifetime. Below: what a tomato….knew it when it was just off the vine.