NBC Launches Science of the Olympics Site for Educators
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By Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 02/09/2010
How do physics, biology, and chemistry fit into this year’s Olympic winter games in Vancouver? NBC Learn, the network’s educational arm, has launched the Learn the Science of Olympic Winter Games Web site, which offers a free 16-part series designed to explore the science behind the speed of a bobsled or an airlift ski jump.
Through interviews with athletes, coaches, and scientists, the series focuses on the math and science behind all the amazing athleticism that takes place during the games.
“The science is broken down by capturing the athletes’ movements with a state-of-the-art, high-speed camera called the Phantom Cam, which has the astonishing ability to capture movement at rates of up to 1,500 frames per second,” explains Adam Jones, NBC News’s senior vice president, who has worked on NBC Learn since 2006. “This allows frame-by-frame illustrations of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum, friction, drag, speed, velocity, and other scientific concepts.”
For example, in the episode on ice-skating, Olympian Rachel Flatt and sports scientist, Deborah King of Ithaca College, explain a principal of physics as it relates to figure skating.
Users can create playlists of the videos—which adhere to state standards—and can easily embed video clips into projects. The clips appear in a format similar to sports trading cards, which highlight important facts and offer a place where students can keep notes.
There’s also a social media aspect and a gaming feature called What’s Your ICUE?, which asks individuals or teams to answer questions against a 30-second clock and to accumulate more points the faster they answer.
A subscription database, NBC Archives on Demand for K-12, also offers thousands of searchable and downloadable resources in the sciences, social studies, language arts, health, and business sectors for teachers to use in the classroom.
The project is in partnership with the National Science Foundation and is narrated by NBC news anchor Lester Holt. NBC will start broadcasting the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics on Friday, February 12.
