Physical Science
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Math
Escaping from a black hole
Students will come to better understand black holes and Hawking radiation by deriving expressions and calculating theoretical data that relate to these phenomena.
- Physics
Mind over body
These discussion prompts focus on some of Stephen Hawking's most notable discoveries and ideas, as well as the disease that destroyed his nerve cells.
- Physics
A life revisited
Students will explore and compare articles about Stephen Hawking and black holes from the Science News archive.
- Physics
Remembering Stephen Hawking
Students will answer questions based on the Science News article "Stephen Hawking's legacy will live on."
- Health & Medicine
Opioid data dose
Students will work individually or in small groups to study different parts of the CDC website on opioids and summarize their findings for the class.
- Chemistry
When drugs and body meet
These discussion prompts cover the biology and chemistry of opioids and ask students to brainstorm strategies for preventing or reversing opioid addiction.
- Health & Medicine
Tracking opioid deaths
Questions based on the Science News article "Fatal fix" ask students about the effects of opioids and to analyze a graph of overdose deaths.
- Chemistry
Fracking for fructose
Students will learn more about the enzymatic modification of sugars through hydrolyzing sucrose and to build molecular models of fructose, glucose, sucrose and a common artificial sweetener, sucralose.
- Chemistry
Track those sugars
These discussion prompts ask students about how isotopes can be used to label and track chemical molecules, and about sugars and the enzymes they interact with.
- Humans
Following fructose through the body
Students will answer questions based on the Science News article "Small intestine is first stop for fructose."
- Chemistry
Surveying a sensitive ecosystem
These discussion prompts cover the pH scale, the solubility of gases, food webs and how organisms react to climate change.
- Earth
The effects of ocean acidification
These questions explore past articles about ocean acidification in the Science News archive.
