ExploreLearning News

Need a science fair topic? Our latest batch of enhanced Gizmos might help!

How quickly can you react to an image? How well do you hear high- and low-pitched sounds? Can you adjust to a cursor going in the opposite direction that you move your mouse? You can answer these questions and more with our latest set of enhanced Gizmos:

Sight vs. Sound Reactions

Hearing: Frequency and Volume

Reverse the Field

Real-Time Histogram

Time Estimation

Each of these Gizmos are now equipped with Teacher Guides, Student Explorations, Answer Keys, and Vocabulary Sheets. These Gizmos are great for gathering data, analyzing results, and designing controlled experiments. Each of the Student Exploration sheets for these Gizmos contains many tips for creating a science fair project based on the Gizmo. 

By the way, this wraps up our curriculum enhancement project for life science Gizmos. Moving on to chemistry next!

Sue Bridgman: Gizmo Educator of the Month

Sue Bridgman is our Gizmo Educator of the Month for March. She teaches grades 7-12 math, and other subjects as well, in Osborn, MO. She uses Gizmos for every level of math from 7th grade through Algebra II. Sue has contributed two lessons, and three Gizmo recommendations as part of the ExploreLearning Community.

Sue’s contributed lesson materials are for the Distance-Time Graphs Gizmo, one of the more popular Gizmos on our site. Sue actually uses this Gizmo in all of her math classes, by varying the focus of the lesson.

The first lesson is a pre-Gizmo warm-up lesson. It starts with a set of questions to introduce the concept of slope. The last question on this warm-up is “Is it possible to make a graph of distance versus time in which the resulting graph is a circle?” This encourages students to think about functions, and the meaning of this distance-vs-time graph.

Her second lesson with this Gizmo is a more advanced activity, which she uses with her algebra students. The lesson has students set up various graphs using both runners (a system of two linear functions). Students then are asked to create runners’ graphs from hypothetical equations of lines, find the equations of lines shown in graphs copied from the Gizmo, and solve systems of equations and demonstrate the solutions on the runners’ graphs.