ziizoo blog

This week’s pick is the creation of a UK based team of scientists and is loaded with physical science experiments, articles, podcasts, etc. The Naked Scientists website caught my eye with an informative article entitled, “What Do Snot And Wasabi Have In Common?” I’ll let you read it and come to your own conclusion, but was I ever surprised. Also there was a funny picture of the scientists themselves pretty much naked. Full of cheeky attitude and accurate scientific info, arranged into a thorough and thoughtful site, you can spend a few hours just reading about cool stuff, experiments to perform, and just about any science or math subject you could be interested in is there.

Well, this week I am deviating from my normal review of exceptional educational websites to bring you something a little different from some friends of mine. I don’t need to tell you Luxor 3, Little Farm and Elf Bowling fans that MumboJumbo has some awesome games……..that’s why they are called Premium Casual games, folks. My brother Rob has kicked off the MumboJumbo move to port their games to the social networks, and part of that is the new blog he started. Take a look at their games and hopefully you’ll be hooked by the beautiful graphics and ease of play. Expect lots of new things for the latest platforms from MumboJumbo.

Grademate is a FREE online tool for any student or teacher keeping track of his or her grades, assignments, classes, or anything else. I love the fact that GradeMate calculates the values of all your weighted assignments and tests, and keeps a running tally. You will never NOT know what your grade is in any particular class. Know your GPA on the fly……..Simply genius, if you ask me. Thoughtful, friendly design and ease of use is apparent in the GradeMate’s visual interface. Newly redesigned by the GradeMate team, the latest build (released today) includes the following:

* Hide old assignments from your Upcoming Assignments list on your Dashboard
* Rewrote and remodeled the Help Topics
* Drag and reorder the courses in the File Manager
* Each course now has its own settings page where you can customize new aspects of your courses
* Assignment types are fully configurable - change names, weights, and even colors!
* Added a feature request page for all of your ideas
* Changed the visuals and added nicer graphics

Possibly the coolest thing I saw in 8th grade science class was the air pumped from a bell jar and the marshmallow inside reacting to the oxygen free environment by crushing itself. I was mesmerized instantly by the imploding marshmallow. As I searched the internet for this week’s selection, I struck paydirt when I came across the Bell Jar website. Entitled “Vacuum Technique and Related Topics For the Amateur Investigator“, this site gives us the history of the bell jar, general information about them, and current suppliers of vacuum apparatus. I could play with one of these things for hours. SO if you have a natural scientific curiosity about Physical Sciences or you teach them, this is the site for you! Too cool………..

“A clear voice for science….” says the Earth & Sky website. This site covers everything from robot hands to animal news, to the wint-o-green lifesaver effect. Learn from scientists around the world. All you could want to know science facts for curious minds interested in science and our world is available at earthsky.org. Pick content for teachers, kids, Spanish language content, etc., and all of it available as podcasts daily. I am impressed with the depth of the information available and the clearly thought out delivery.

Nrich is a University of Cambridge site addressing ALL levels of Mathematics skills K-12, presented in a fun, interactive, and visually rich environment. Choose any stage 1-5, and there are puzzles and games dealing with maths concepts within them. I like the UK terminology as it differs somewhat from our US english. Each problem offers a hint, notes, and solutions submitted by readers. You can submit an answer and if it is correct you may be featured. Pretty cool!

In short, the kids will stay interested in the animated graphics, sounds, pictures and problems. Check out nrich.org!

Here’s a cool UK based site I stumbled across explaining the chemistry behind many useful and entertaining molecules. Pretty helpful for someone looking to understand the molecules in everyday things like cleaning agents and de-greasers for example. The site is legible, clearly arranged and uncluttered. My eyes thank the webmaster for larger fonts! Another great thing is when concentrating on complex molecules you won’t have to ignore Ads running up and down the borders of the page, etc.

Today’s site is a functional homage to the mighty slide rule. Learn theory and use of the slide rule, its history, geometry of the slide rule, and there’s a great movie on the homepage introducing them.

Bourne is on the loose again, in Singapore this time, and has created an easy to read and concisely useful site, Interactive Math to explain difficult math concepts ranging from Algebra, Trigonometry and Graphing, to Higher Calculus. I took a particular interest in reading the Money Maths section explaining credit cards, home mortgages, and interest. Very timely stuff that’s well explained and easy to grasp after Bourne lays it out. I wish Interactive Math was around when I needed it in high school!

Take a tour of our solar system! I have always been fascinated with space and the planets, as a kid I was able to attend planetarium showings at my school, and it was the highlight of my year….well we are all grown up now get to see outer space regularly these days with tools like author Bill Arnett’s Nineplanets website. It is loaded with NASA info, coomentary and hints for current and budding astronomers. I personally like the inside joke concerning Pluto…..