Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Nature's Smallest Factory: The Calvin Cycle

For Students 9th - 10th
Use this TED Ed lesson, complete with video, questions, and links to resources for deeper understanding of the Calvin Cycle.
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Not All Scientific Studies Are Created Equal

For Students 9th - 10th
Use this TED Ed lesson, to learn why you should be skeptical of scientific research. Lesson is complete with video, questions, and links to resources for deeper understanding of the topic.
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Why Do Women Have Periods?

For Students 9th - 10th
TED-Ed describes the history and evolution of menstruation. [4:45]
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Barium: Periodic Table of Videos

For Students 9th - 10th
The team at periodicvideos has created a TED-Ed Lesson for every element of the periodic table. This one is about element number 56. [7:50]
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Magnesium: Periodic Table of Videos

For Students 9th - 10th
The team at Periodicvideos has created a TED-Ed Lesson for every element of the periodic table. This one is about the first useful metal on the periodic table, magnesium. It famously burns very brightly when exposed to flame. [6:36]
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Explore Cave Paintings in This 360 Animated Cave

For Students 9th - 10th
In this special 360 degree TED-Ed animation, explore an ancient cave and its surroundings as Iseult Gillespie shares a brief history of cave paintings.
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: "First Kiss" by Tim Seibles

For Students 9th - 10th
This animation is part of the TED-Ed series, "There's a Poem for That," which features animated interpretations of poems both old and new that give language to some of life's biggest feelings.
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: The Story Behind the Boston Tea Party

For Students 9th - 10th
This short TED talk given by Ben Labaree gives the background of the Boston Tea Party and its eventual ramifications. [3:48]
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: How Benjamin Button Got His Face

For Students 9th - 10th
Ed Ulbrich, the digital-effects guru from Digital Domain, explains the Oscar-winning technology that allowed his team to digitally create the older versions of Brad Pitt's face for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." [18:04]
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: A Light Switch for Neurons

For Students 9th - 10th
Ed Boyden shows how, by inserting genes for light-sensitive proteins into brain cells, he can selectively activate or de-activate specific neurons with fiber-optic implants. With this unprecedented level of control, he's managed to cure...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: The Great Brain Debate

For Students 9th - 10th
Throughout history, scientists have proposed conflicting ideas on how the brain carries out functions like perception, memory, and movement. Is each of these tasks carried out by a specific area of the brain? Or do multiple areas work...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: A Tap Dancer's Craft

For Students 9th - 10th
Tap dance, born out of the marriage of African and European dance traditions, went from extremely popular to barely existent to grand revival, all in under a century. Professional tap dancer and TED Fellow Andrew Nemr taps into the...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Early Forensics and Crime Solving Chemists

For Students 9th - 10th
In a CSI age, we take forensic science for granted. New York did not have a medical examiner or forensic toxicologist until 1918, whose eventual arrival changed the landscape of crime investigation forever. Deborah Blum prompts the TED...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: A Rosetta Stone for the Indus Script

For Students 9th - 10th
Rajesh Rao is fascinated by "the mother of all crossword puzzles" - how to decipher the 4000 year old Indus script. At TED 2011, he tells how he is enlisting modern computational techniques to read the Indus language, the key piece to...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: 3 Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed

For Students 9th - 10th
Ric Elias had a front-row seat on Flight 1549, the plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York in January 2009. What went through his mind as the doomed plane went down? At TED, he tells his story publicly for the first time....
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: The History of African American Social Dance

For Students 9th - 10th
Why do we dance? African-American social dances started as a way for enslaved Africans to keep cultural traditions alive and retain a sense of inner freedom. They remain an affirmation of identity and independence. In this electric...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Are You a Giver or a Taker?

For Students 9th - 10th
In his new TED podcast WorkLife, Wharton psychologist Adam Grant visits the strongest functioning workplaces and shares their secret 3 ingredients.
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Why Tech Needs the Humanities

For Students 9th - 10th
On the TED stage, Eric Berridge shares why tech companies should look beyond STEM graduates for new hires and how people with backgrounds in the arts and humanities can bring creativity and insight to technical workplaces.
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Why I'm Done Trying to Be Man Enough

For Students 9th - 10th
Justin Baldoni wants to start a dialogue with men about redefining masculinity- to figure out ways to be not just good men but good humans. In a warm, personal TED talk, he shares his effort to reconcile who he is with who the world...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: What I Learned as a Prisoner in North Korea

For Students 9th - 10th
In March 2009, North Korean soldiers captured journalist Euna Lee while she was shooting a documentary on the border with China. In her TED Talk, she shares her experience living as the enemy in a detention center for 140 days- and the...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Four Billion Years of Evolution in Six Minutes

For Students 9th - 10th
Ichthyologist and TED Fellow Prosanta Chakrabarty dispels some hardwired myths about evolution, encouraging us to remember that we're a small part of a complex, four-billion-year process- and not the end of the line.
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Lessons From Auschwitz: The Power of Our Words

For Students 9th - 10th
Classical music mastermind Benjamin Zander concluded his 2008 TED Talk by recounting the heartrending story of an Auschwitz survivor and her brother. This short animated piece highlights that story, reminding us that the words we speak...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: How We See Color

For Students 9th - 10th
There are three types of color receptors in your eye: red, green and blue. But how do we see the amazing kaleidoscope of other colors that make up our world? The following learning module explains how humans can see everything from...
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: The Chemistry of Cold Packs

For Students 9th - 10th
If you stick water in the freezer, it will take a few hours to freeze into ice. How is it, then, that cold packs go from room temperature to near freezing in mere seconds? John Pollard details the chemistry of the cold pack, shedding...