Science Education Expert Wants Students to See These 2 Sites

People think that the default site for locating educational videos is YouTube, but you might have to wind your way through a lot of Taylor Swift gyrations before you get to one on how DNA unravels. There are, however, alternatives for those of us who are scientifically curious. You might be interested in these two websites for science education. The real fun in each of these sites is exploring, finding new subjects to investigate or ferreting out interesting facts and processes that you won’t be able to find on YouTube. When you have some time and feel like treating yourself to some new scientific knowledge, check out these two sites.

Scivee.tv

Two research scientists from California established a website with a mission of communicating science using a visual approach. Phil Bourne of UC San Diego and Leo Chalupa of UC Davis established Scivee.tv, a website where active scientists, research institutes, and video makes can post research that eclipses the limitations of just text and still pictures, drawbacks of old school science education. Its motto is: Making Science Visible.

Since its conception, the website has expanded and the result has been on only a boon those of us who want to get a visual look at some exciting modern science. Covering research in a wide swath of subjects—oceanography, cancer, aerospace, physics, plant biology—this site has videos delivered direct from scientists and research groups to the viewer.

For example, a research group funded by the National Science Foundation recently uncovered some important skeletons of Ice Age babies from 11,500 years ago in Alaska. The NSF made a short video of this discovery.

In another recent post to scivee.tv, you can view a gorgeous animation explaining cognitive heart failure.

Scivee.tv is structured to invite the viewer to explore a wealth of science videos. I found a 1963 video about time dilation and immediately after that I listened to a presentation on bacterial quorum sensing by Bonnie Bassler of Princeton University. Videos on topics as diverse as science education to inguinal hernia repair are found on Scivee.tv. Why not check out this website and see what unusual and rare science videos strike your fancy?

DNAtube.com

DNAtube.com is another website with thousands of unusual science videos. It was started by Nazir Okur from the University of Illinois. I entered the site and started exploring some topics. I found some science areas I didn’t even know existed! I went here and saw an amazing video of a process called electric treeing.

Without this kind of site that collects science videos I wouldn’t have even had the chance to find out about this Lichtenberg figures, which are the kinds of patterns made in the sky by lightening. If I went to YouTube, what would I search for?

Then, since I once had a quadruple bypass surgery I thought I would take a look at the process of open heart surgery in action. After all, when it happened to me I was in an anesthesial zombie land. After viewing this video I am glad I was.

DNAtube.com also contains a number of courses and lectures, from condensed matter physics to materials science.

These two sites are worth checking out; you might be surprised how your mind can be opened with just a few clicks.


Image Credit © DNAtube & SciVee 

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