Seeing the Invisible

Investigate invisible forces. Young engineers design a setup that changes the direction of a steel ball using a magnetic force. The purpose of the setup is to model the gravitational pull of spacecraft by planetary bodies.

The electromagnetic spectrum includes everything from very powerful gamma rays (which are used to treat cancer) to much weaker radio waves (which include microwaves). Through a hands-on activity, scholars explore the temperature...

Students use iron filings to enhance the force field around different magnets. In this magnets lesson plan, students see how the Earth's force field is similar to a rectangular magnet.

What do bees use to get rid of tangles? A honey-comb! The video focuses on how bees instinctively find flowers — their eyes view the world differently than ours. They also seem to be guided by electric charges because the bees have a...

It's looking like the dark side is bigger than we thought! Physicists speculate that perhaps 96% of the universe consists of invisible dark matter and dark energy, while only 4% is what we can view with the aided eye. This flabbergasting...

How can something we can't see be so powerful? Gas molecules make an impact! This video explains their properties: 1. Gas particles always move in a straight line. 2. They are too small to occupy any volume individually. 3. When gas...

Airplanes resulted from observations of birds flying. What inventions could be inspired by watching sea creatures move? Viewers are challenged to consider how bio-observation might lead them to design something to overcome a challenge in...

Students discuss sunlight and rainbows. They view a picture of the visible light spectrum and discuss the differences in wave length for each color. Students discuss other differences in colors we see when using a prism. They discuss...

Viewers use a small, dimmed flashlight to identify the blind spot for both the right and left eye. It is a simple activity to incorporate into your activities during a lesson on vision and the structure and function of the eyeball.

What can the electromagnetic spectrum tell us about the sun? As it turns out, quite a bit! See the sun in a whole new light with a video from NOVA's Sun Lab unit. The narrator describes the electromagnetic spectrum in terms of visible...