Mike Falick's Blog

Visual Periodic Table

Remember the periodic table?  Well here is the best visual representation of the periodic table I have seen anywhere.  Loaded with information, this should really help those of us who can't remember what Rhodium is (The rarest of all non-radioactive metals on Earth. World production is only three tonnes a year, mainly for catalysts in the chemicals industry).

This is the Best Physics Demonstrations Website I have Found: Loaded with Videos, this Site Shows that Physics Really can be for Everyone

Here is a truly amazing site for physics experiments.  I could go on and on about how much is here, but rather than do that, I'm just going to list them all.  I encourage you to visit this site.  I am not a scientist, but I found the videos very informative.  Here is the complete list:

• Astronomy: eye model, lunar eclipse
• Electricity and Magnetism
  
  • Coulomb Force: pith balls, volta's hailstorm
  • Induction: induced current, eddy currents, rail gun 
  • Lenz's Law: induced current, rail gun
  • Lorentz Force: eddy currents, bending electron beam, electron charge-over-mass ratio
  • Magnetic Fields: electron charge-over-mass ratio, rail gun
  • Magnetic Field Lines: field line demonstrators 
  • Static Charge: Van de Graaf Sparks, hair raising, volta's hailstorm 
  • Van de Graaf Machine: hair raising, ion wind, Van de Graaf Sparks, volta's hailstorm
• Fluid Dynamics 
  
  
  • Bernoulli Effect: Bernoulli floating ball 
  • Buoyancy: archimedes' principle
  • Pressure: air cannon. Bernoulli floating ball, Boyle's law, imploding pop can, Magdeburg hemispheres, pressure head, radiometer, water rocket 
  Mechanics 
  • Acceleration: centripetal force, spinning ball, timed free fall, waiter's tray
  • Circular motion: centripetal force, spinning ball, waiter's tray
  • Collisions: double ball drop, happy and sad balls, newton's pendulum 
  • Energy: happy and sad balls, newton's pendulum, the nose crusher 
  • Forces: centripetal force, force table, friction coefficient, kinetic friction, spinning ball, spring constant, static friction 
  • Friction: friction coefficient, kinetic friction, static friction 
  • Momentum: double ball drop, newton's pendulum, water rocket 
  • Newton's Laws: force table, kinetic friction, spinning ball, static friction 
  • Projectiles: air cannon, the monkey and the hunter, water rocket 
  • Vectors: force table 
• Modern Physics
  • Alpha Particles: alpha particles in a cloud chamber
  • Atoms: electron standing waves, spectral lines 
  • Cloud Chamber: alpha particles in a cloud chamber 
  • Nuclear Reactions: alpha particles in a cloud chamber, mousetrap reactor 
  • Relativity: Einstein Revealed 
• Optics 
  • Absorption: radiometer 
  • Interference: soap film interference, spectral lines 
  • Lenses: eye model 
  • Reflection: mirage mirror, internal reflection 
  • Refraction: internal reflection 
• Oscillations and Waves 
  • Standing Waves: electron standing waves, standing waves and resonance, standing waves in a spring 
  • Coupled Oscillations: coupled oscillator, Wilberforce pendulum 
  • Doppler Shift: doppler shift 
  • Interference: wave interference 
  • Longitudinal Waves: transverse and longitudinal waves 
  • Reflection:  impedance matching, wave reflection 
  • Resonance: coupled oscillator, resonant strips, standing waves and resonance, standing waves in a spring 
  • Simple Harmonic Motion: simple harmonic oscillator 
  • Superposition Principle: wave interference 
  • Transverse Waves: impedance matching, transverse and longitudinal waves, wavelength and frequency, wave speed 
• Thermodynamics 
  • Conduction: heat conduction 
  • Phase Transisions: excessive pressure buildup, imploding pop can 
  • Kinetic Theory: Brownian Motion, diffusion, motion of molecules in a gas, radiometer, solids and liquids, temperature of a gas 
  • Gas Equations: Boyle's law, excessive pressure buildup 
  • Radiation: radiometer

Two Great Resource Sites for Parents of Special Needs Students

Recently, I came across 2 very good resource websites for parents with children who have special needs.  The first, Bridges4Kids, is based in Michigan, and while it focuses a lot on Michigan issues, there is a tremendous amount of information on the site that applies nationally.  The site describes itself as

Bridges4Kids operates Michigan’s most comprehensive website providing parents, educators, and others the information they need to help children who might be at-risk or have special needs. It is updated daily and includes information on child development, education issues and opportunities, and extensive disability, gifted, at-risk, parenting, and teaching resources. Choose the "search" function on our menu to search the entire site for the information you need.

The search feature is very good.  A search for "IEP" returned 305 results.

The second website is Parents Helping Parents which states its mission as

Parents Helping Parents meets the needs of one of our community's most vulnerable populations-children with any special need and their families.  PHP is a 30-year-old nonprofit, family resource center that benefits children with special needs. This includes children of all ages (birth through life) and all backgrounds who have a need for special services due to any special need, including but not limited to illness, cancer, accidents, birth defects, neurological conditions, premature birth, learning or physical disabilities, mental health issues, and attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder to name a few. 

PHP's mission is to help children with special needs receive the resources, love, hope, respect, health care, education, and other services they need to reach their full potential by providing them with strong families, dedicated professionals, and responsive systems to serve them. 

Graduation Day: Spring Branch Graduates 1,767 Students Today

Congratulations to the 1,767 Spring Branch ISD Graduates from our 4 comprehensive high schools.  Today is your day!  From the District website:

Memorial High’s graduation will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday, May 27, at Don Coleman Coliseum. The high school expects to graduate about 535 seniors this year. Co-valedictorians this year at Memorial High are Melissa Bender, Liane Carlson, Katherine Conroy, Thomas Divine, Zachary Farmer, Shan Gupta, Jason Haber, Nicole Harkinson, Dixie Houser, Amanda Jones, Kathryn McCormack, Desirae Peters, Michael Redding, Jennifer Richards, Robert Rossy, Yushane Shih, Sarah Trepagnier and Melody Wang. Memorial High salutatorians this year are Thomas Lane, Mackenzie Lemmer and Katelyn Wise. Senior Bruce Bain II will attend the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Northbrook High’s graduation will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 27, at Don Coleman Coliseum. The high school expects to graduate about 340 seniors. Valedictorian this year at Northbrook High is Tam Ha; salutatorian is Hilda Bautista.

Spring Woods High’s graduation will be held 7 p.m. Saturday, May 27, in Don Coleman Coliseum. The high school expects to graduate 432 seniors. Valedictorians this year at Spring Woods High are Chau Nguyen, Quang Nguyen, Riley Roach and Rejnal Tushe. Class salutatorian is Krystal Ramirez. Three Spring Woods High seniors will attend U.S. military academies after graduation: Mark Contreras and Bo Cipra will attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Russell Roberts will attend the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Spring Branch School of Choice will hold its Graduation Celebration for the Class of 2006 at 10:15 a.m. on Thursday, May 25, at Spring Branch Education Center, 9016 Westview. The school will graduate 51 seniors. Valedictorian this year at Spring Branch School of Choice is Kelssem Quintal.

Stratford High’s graduation will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 27, in Don Coleman Coliseum. The school expects to graduate about 460 seniors. Co-valedictorians this year at Stratford High are Bryant Binyon, Christopher Bowdle, Klaudia Canaj, Shannon Cavanaugh, Hannah Chong, Emily Drott, Mansoor Fassihi, Joseph Frewer, Kelsey Fuller, Jordan Gross, Daniel Hwang, Christine Isbell, Aditya Kunjapur, Haw Kwon, Monica Lui, Erik Mantor, James McLellan, Colleen Nash, Donya Nazemi, Margaret Othold, Ashley Powell, Jeffrey Siegel and Eric Sung. Stratford High co-salutatorians are Sarah Irwin, Ue Kim and David Miller.

Graduation at Westchester Academy for International Studies will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 24, in a tent on the school’s south parking lot. The public charter high school expects to graduate about 75 seniors. Co-valedictorians at Westchester Academy this year are Mariam Aana and Aaron Runge. Class salutatorian is Quynh Tran. Two Westchester Academy graduates will attend U.S. military academies after graduation. Nicholas Clark will attend the U.S. Air Force Academy and Phillip Lassiter will attend the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

The Houston Health Museum Presents It's a Nano World: A Great Learning Opportunity

Today marks the beginning of what sounds like a really interesting, interactive, kid-friendly exhibition at The Houston Health Museum.  The exhibit, called It's a Nano World, includes

Giant Blood Drop
Pretend to be a germ and jump inside the Giant Blood Drop filled with small red plastic balls representing red blood cells.  Be on the lookout for white blood cells – they are coming to attack and fend off the invading germ to keep the body healthy and strong. 

How Many Nanometers Tall Are You?
Visitors tall and small, can measure themselves in nanometers as well as inches, meter and centimeters using a measuring tool with a height slider.  Kids will be happy to discover that since nanometers are so small, the number that reflects their nanometer height will be very big.    

Giant Magnifying Glass
The giant magnifying glass magnifies objects approximately 3 to 4 times their actual size.  Looking through the lens you might discover that your friend’s nose has become hugely big, or that you can see an object across the room in sharp detail.

Tackle pollen, dust and germs with pinball prowess
Three pinball machines illustrate micro-scale germs, dust and pollen and the impact they can have on the body.

Powers of Ten Film
Powers of Ten was created by Ray and Charles Eames, two ground-breaking twentieth century scientific and cultural pioneers.  The film takes viewers on a journey of diminishing scale from the cosmic view of the Earth in outer space, to an aerial view of Chicago, to people picnicking, ending with a view of a cell inside the hand of a man sleeping on his picnic blanket.

The Health Museum is located in the Museum District at 1515 Hermann Drive Houston, TX 77004. Admission is $6 for adults and $4 for children and senior adults. Children under four years of age and Museum members are admitted free. Summer hours of operation are: Monday - Saturday 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sunday 12 p.m. – 5 p.m. Visitors can enjoy free admission on FREE Family Thursday from 2 – 5 p.m. For more information about The Health Museum and its programs, please visit www.thehealthmuseum.org or call (713) 521-1515.

Law School or Teach for America: 19,000 Apply to become Teach for America Teachers

An online article posted at Inside Higher Ed makes the surprising case that getting into the Teach For America program is extremely competitive, and is being increasingly chosen over other, higher paying careers, like law.  19,000 people applied to become Teach for America teachers with 3,300 being accepted.  Of these, 2,400 are expected to begin teaching this Fall.

Perhaps these numbers are the most telling though:

Teach For America drew applicants from at least 10 percent of eligible graduating students at such institutions as Amherst, Carleton, Claremont-McKenna, Dartmouth, Kenyon, Scripps and Spelman Colleges, the University of Notre Dame, and Yale University. More than 9 percent applied from both Georgetown and Rice Universities, and among state universities, the University of California at Berkeley led the way, with 6 percent of its seniors applying.

School of Choice Holds Its Graduation Ceremony: Congratulations Class of 2006

Spring Branch's School of Choice held its graduation ceremony today and saw 51 students graduate, including 15 who are the first students in their family graduate.

Many of these students overcame significant challenges, and most will continue their education beyond high school.

Congratulations School of Choice Class of 2006!

It's a Bus: Spring Branch Welcomes 29 Brand New Buses

This morning, Spring Branch had a ribbon cutting ceremony to welcome 29 brand new buses to the fleet. These new buses replace vehicles that were 20+ years old. One of the many collateral effects of Robin Hood is that running a flat year-over-year budget makes regular replacement cycles very challenging.  SBISD's budget for this year was $60,000 higher than it was in 2002-2003.  That's $60,000 in a $214 million budget at a time when fuel costs have doubled and benefit costs (health insurance, etc.) are up nearly 40%.

Westchester Academy for International Studies Holds Its Graduation Ceremony: Congratulations Class of 2006

Spring Branch's Westchester Academy for International Studies held its graduation ceremony tonight.  In a move based on the size of the graduating class, the ceremony was held outside, which while a little warm, added a uniqueness to the celebration.

Westchester Academy saw 75 students graduate, all of whom have plans to attend college providing an excellent example of the kind of success that a college focus can bring to students.

Congratulations Westchester Academy Class of 2006!

California Court Says Students Must Participate in Role Playing About Islam: Surprising Ruling from the Court that Held "Under God" in the Pledge Unconstitutional

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has done it again.  The Court that ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it includes the words "under God" has ruled in a case brought by parents of California seventh-graders, who after 9-11 were taught the pro-Islamic lessons as part of California's world history curriculum.  The parents sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment and argued that the government was promoting Islam.

The three week curriculum includes:

• Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . ."
• Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."
• Chanting "Praise be to Allah" in response to teacher prompts.
• Professing as "true" the Muslim belief that "The Holy Quran is God's word."
• Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.
• Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.

How can one Court issue two opinions that are so diametrically opposed to each other?