ExploreLearning News : Site Announcements

Five new sets of enhanced curriculum

As part of our ongoing curriculum enhancement project, five more Gizmos are now outfitted with Teacher Guides, Student Exploration Sheets, Answer Keys, and Vocabulary Sheets. They are

Archimedes Principle

Distance-Time and Velocity-Time Graphs 

Household Energy Usage

Diffusion

Doppler Shift

All new materials are available in Word and pdf formats and can be edited to suit your individual preferences. Enjoy!

Earth science and astronomy curricula enhanced

As part of our ongoing project, we have published expanded curriculum materials for several popular Earth science and astronomy Gizmos:

Tides

Water Pollution

Earthquake - Recording Station

Earthquake - Determination of Epicenter

Star Spectra

Physical science is coming up next!

Five new sets of enhanced curriculum materials

Our curriculum-enhancement project is rolling along, and we are pleased to announce that five more Gizmos are now outfitted with expanded curriculum materials:

pH Analysis

pH Analysis: Quad Color Indicator

Density Experiment: Slice and Dice

Mystery Powder Analysis

Triple Beam Balance

The new materials include a Teacher Guide, Vocabulary sheet, Student Exploration sheet, and an Answer Key. All materials are available as a Word document or pdf. Feel free to modify any of these documents for your own specific uses. Enjoy!

Announcing our new "Introduction to ExploreLearning" video!

We have published a great new "Introduction to ExploreLearning" video. You can view it by clicking on the orange and black icon here on our website's front page (in the New to ExploreLearning box). The video features information on what Gizmos are and why so many teachers are using them in Math and Science classrooms. Best of all, it features our founder, Dr. David Shuster, Ph.D., talking about ExploreLearning's mission and showing some of his personal favorite Gizmos. Check it out today!

Five more Gizmos get updated curriculum materials

We are pleased to announce that five popular life science Gizmos are now equipped with expanded curriculum materials: Teacher Guides, Exploration Sheets, Answer Keys, and Vocabulary Sheets. The Gizmos are:

Mouse Genetics (Two Traits)

Cell Energy Cycle

Building DNA

Natural Selection

Identifying Nutrients

All of the new curriculum materials are available as a pdf or a Word document that you can easily edit and adapt to your own needs.

Gizmo demo movies - elementary science - done!

It's been a long time coming, but at long last, every elementary science Gizmo has a demo movie!  (That's 40 of them, if you're keeping score at home.)

The "movies" are short (about 2 minutes each) and have a simple "how-to" approach. They show how to use the basic features in the Gizmo. If students are brand-new to a Gizmo, the demo movie would be a nice brief introduction to it.

The movies feature a voice-over, so be sure audio is turned on before watching.  (In a lab setting, you probably either want to project it for the whole class to watch and listen to, or have students use headphones.)

To see a demo movie, click on the "demo" icon at the bottom left corner of the Gizmo, in the purple bar, as shown below.

(Note: Demo movies will only appear in elementary-level Gizmos - the ones with the purple bar on the left side.)

Tip: To find the 40 elementary science Gizmos, either click "Browse Gizmos" and browse through the grade 3-5 science offerings, or just type "elementary science" (without the quotes) in the search field.

Enjoy!  We hope these are useful for both teachers and students.

By the way, the elementary math Gizmo demo movies will now slowly start appearing also!  We hope to have all 40 of them complete by the end of 2009.

New curricula for current Gizmos

When we added enhanced lesson materials to our elementary Gizmos, the new format was so popular that we decided to revise the materials for all of our grade 6-12 Gizmos as well. We chose 20 of our most popular science Gizmos to start, and these sets of lesson materials are now available. Each set includes the following:

--Teacher Guide with teaching tips, related activities, discussion questions, science background, and interesting links.

--Student Exploration worksheet with 1-3 activities to guide student learning.

--Answer Key for the Student Exploration worksheet.

--Vocabulary Sheet that defines key words used in the Student Exploration activities.

It will take a while to update the curriculum materials for all of our grade 6-12 Gizmos, but we have made a great start. You can see new materials on the following Gizmos:

Photosynthesis

Cell Structure

Food Chain

Mouse Genetics (One Trait)

Cell Division

Element Builder

Boyle's Law and Charles' Law

Density Laboratory

Phase Changes

Balancing Chemical Equations

Plate Tectonics

Rock Cycle

Water Cycle

Greenhouse Effect

Seasons: Why do we have them?

Roller Coaster Physics

Distance-Time Graphs

Fan Cart Physics

Circuits

Free-Fall Laboratory

We will continue to add new lesson materials throughout the year. Let us know what you think!

40th new Gizmo for 2008!

We've released the 40th and final new Gizmo for 2008! (Hey, at least it was very recently 2008...)

Check out the Road Trip (Problem Solving) Gizmo! This Gizmo ties together many concepts as students plan and take a road trip around the United States. Gas mileage, budgets, geography, state capitals, general problem-solving skills... they're all in here. A lesson with the Road Trip Gizmo can be a great capstone lesson, challenging students within an open-ended and very realistic context.

Enjoy, and again, happy new year from ExploreLearning!

Seven new math Gizmos!

As 2008 draws to a close, we're happy to introduce seven brand new math Gizmos!  Here's a quick overview...

First is a trio of related Gizmos.  In Function Machines 1 (Functions and Tables), you can introduce input-output machines and record data in data tables. Function Machines 2 (Functions, Tables, and Graphs) takes that a step further, adding graphs. In Function Machines 3 (Functions and Problem Solving), students program their own machines, model and solve real-world problems, and begin to think about inverse functions.

The Pattern Flip (Patterns) Gizmo challenges students to recognize and extend patterns in a fun carnival-game-like setting.

Fraction Artist 1 (Area Models of Fractions) is a creative Gizmo in which students create modern-looking paintings, in the style of Piet Mondrian, and then describe their paintings using fractions. This Gizmo serves as an introduction to the already-published Fraction Artist 2 (Area Models of Fractions).

In Factor Trees (Factoring Numbers), students can create factor trees in Factor mode as they break composite numbers into their prime factors. In Build mode, students can build numbers by multiplying primes. The two modes allow students to see these as two sides of the same coin.

Finally, the Reaction Time 2 (Graphs and Statistics) Gizmo uses the "catch the ruler" and "click a target" experiments to allow students to collect data, interpret graphs, and explore mean, median, and mode.

All of these Gizmos come with a full set of Lesson Materials and Assessment Questions.  (You have to be logged in to see all of these materials, as always.)

This brings our yearly total to 39 new Gizmos for 2008 -- one more to go to hit our goal of 40 for the year!

In addition, all of us at ExploreLearning would like to say "thank you" for helping us have a successful 2008!  We're pleased to be a partner in math and science education for so many teachers and students.  Happy holidays and best wishes for a happy new year to all.

Three new Gizmos published!

We're happy to announce that we've added 3 new Gizmos to our elementary mathematics library...

Balancing Blocks (Volume)
Rock Art (Transformations)
Fractions Greater than One (Fraction Tiles)

The Balancing Blocks Gizmo is a cool 3D Gizmo intended to help teach volume of prisms. Students build three-dimensional figures out of cubes, and rotate them to see them from any angle (great spatial-relations practice). As a challenge, can your students build a figure of a given volume that also balances on the tip of a cone?

In the Rock Art Gizmo, students learn about reflections, rotations, and translations, inspired by art found on cliff walls in the American Southwest. The built-in "old paintings" challenge students to use transformations to match ancient paintings.

The Fractions Greater than One Gizmo is the third in a set of three fraction tile Gizmos. (The first two are Equivalent Fractions and Adding Fractions.) Students can make their own fraction tiles using the "Fractionator" and add them. Sums greater than 1 are shown as either improper fractions or mixed numbers.

We hope you enjoy these and find them to be valuable practice for your students!

New from ExploreLearning: Online Gizmo Training!

Are you interested in increasing your knowledge and skill using ExploreLearning Gizmos?

Do you want to learn to use Gizmos in your own environment, with an affordable individual cost? Sign up for one of our new three-week online initial training courses. Anyone with an active subscription to ExploreLearning.com can purchase a seat in this new course, which will feature both guided and independent learning opportunities.

The first session begins on January 5th and the second begins on February 2nd.

Contact Explorelearning Sales for more information or to sign up.

Addition by subtraction

We just published a new elementary math Gizmo, called Subtracting Decimals (Base-10 Blocks). This Gizmo completes our suite of three Base-10 Blocks Gizmos--the others are Modeling Decimals (Base-10 Blocks) and Adding Decimals (Base-10 Blocks).

With these Gizmos, students will gain a deeper understanding of place value, the base-10 system, and regrouping during addition ("carrying") and subtraction ("borrowing"). Students will see that the rules for adding and subtracting decimals are no different from the rules for adding and subtracting whole numbers, and will see why it is necessary to line up the decimal points when adding or subtracting decimals.

Enjoy!

Elementary Math Gizmos -- Not just for elementary students

After a long effort, the development team at EL is proud to announce the launch of our new line of Elementary Math Gizmos. Twenty-five new Gizmos are available now.

These Gizmos were designed from the ground up, featuring vibrant colors and large, easy-to-use controls. Curriculum materials include worksheets (available in Word for easy customizing), answer keys, vocabulary sheets, and helpful teacher guides. Keep in mind that while these materials were developed with the elementary student in mind, they are completely appropriate for older students with a little modification.

We had some fun along the way. Fling clowns from a cannon at the circus, count critters, hop around as a frog eating flies, or rate movies. You can even spin the big wheel to see how often you win a prize.

So check out the newest Gizmos, and enjoy!

ExploreLearning Office Closed on July 4th

In observance of Independence Day, the ExploreLearning offices will be closing at 3pm on Thursday July 3, 2008.

Our offices will reopen on at 8:30am on Monday July 7, 2008.

Elementary Science library updated!

The EL development team is proud to announce five new Gizmos to have been updated in our elementary science library. They are: 

• Circulatory System: Trace the flow of blood through the heart and blood vessels.
• Measuring Trees: Practice measuring skills and determine the age of trees.
• Pattern Finder: Where will that frog hop next?
• Pond Ecosystem: Measure the temperature and oxygen level, then relax and go fishing!
• Radiation: Try to pop a kernel of popcorn with a very powerful flashlight.

We had a lot of fun developing elementary science Gizmos this year, and we hope you enjoy using them. Send us a message and let us know what you think!

ExploreLearning Offices Closed for New Year's

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed December 31st and January 1st for New Year's.  Customer support will be unavailable during this time.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you a Happy New Year.

Begin the new year with new Gizmos!

With 2008 right around the corner, we are happy to announce five new grade 3-5 science Gizmos.

• Measuring Motion: Go on safari to determine the speed of animals.
• Phases of Water : Observe  molecules in ice, water, and water vapor.
• Conduction and Convection: Compare two methods of heat transfer.
• Inheritance: Determine how traits are passed down from parents to offspring in an alien creature.
• Homeostasis: Try to maintain a constant body temperature in a hostile environment.

Happy holidays and have a great start to the new year!

ExploreLearning Holiday Hours

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed December 24th & 25th.  Customer support will be unavailable during this time.  We promise to get back to you as soon as possible when our offices re-open on Wednesday, December 26, 2007.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you Happy Holidays.

Seasonal Gizmos

Two new Grade 3-5 Gizmos will help you and your students understand why winter is cold and summer is warm.

The first, called Heat Absorption, explores the heating of materials through radiation of light from a very powerful flashlight. Students will see that light is much more concentrated (and therefore much more powerful) when it is vertical than when it strikes at a low angle. This relates to seasons because sunlight is much more direct in summer than in winter. Students can also use this Gizmo to explore how different colors of light interact with various colored objects.

Seasonal changes are further explored in the Summer and Winter Gizmo. In this Gizmo, students can directly compare the angle of sunlight, day length, and temperature on June 21 and December 21 for any location. They will see that during winter days are shorter and sunlight is much less direct than during summer. They will also see that southern hemisphere seasons are opposite those of the northern hemisphere. In Australia, summer is just about to begin!

This would be a great Gizmo to present to your class on the solstice next Friday, December 21!

Conan inspires Gizmo

The 1982 cult movie Conan the Barbarian is not known as an intellectual triumph, and it is unlikely that many teachers have used it to illustrate scientific principles. One scene in this movie did provide the inspiration for our latest simple machines Gizmo, however.

Loosely based on the "Wheel of Pain" from the movie, the Wheel and Axle Gizmo features a large wheel that can be turned by barbarians. By adjusting the radius of the wheel or axle, students will see how mechanical advantage can be maximized.

Check it out!

Back to the basics

Weight and mass are some of the most basic principles in physical science, but these terms are often confused by students and teachers alike. It's no wonder--in our everyday lives we use the terms interchangeably. We in the development team at EL can testify to several occasions when a mysterious Gizmo error was traced to a failure to convert a mass to a weight or vice versa.

The Weight and Mass Gizmo was designed to address the basic distinction between mass and weight. Students measure mass and weight in a variety of locations (Earth, the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter) to discover that while the mass of an object is constant, its weight will fluctuate depending on the strength of gravity.

Enjoy!

New Color Gizmo

Colors are all around us, but why do we see the colors we see?

This question is addressed in the new Color Absorption Gizmo.

Your students will see that white light is actually a mixture of three primary colors of light: red, green, and blue. They will produce a wide variety of colors (orange, purple, teal) by placing pieces of red, green, and blue glass into a light box.

Enjoy!

Elementary Gizmos -- Not just for elementary students

After a long effort, the development team at EL is proud to announce the launch of our new line of elementary Gizmos. Twenty-five new Gizmos are available now.

These Gizmos were redesigned from the ground up, featuring vibrant colors and large, easy-to-use controls. Curriculum materials include worksheets (available in Word for easy customizing), answer keys, vocabulary sheets, and helpful teacher guides. Keep in mind that while these materials were designed with the elementary student in mind, they are completely appropriate for older students with a little modification.

We had some fun along the way. Lift an oinking pig or gobbling turkey in the Lever Gizmo, watch a gigantic pitcher get knocked down by his own throw in the Gravity Pitch Gizmo, and hear a cuckoo tolling the hour in the Pendulum Clock Gizmo. In February our offices in Charlottesville were filled with turnip, tomato, and green bean seedlings as we created the Growing Plants Gizmo.

So check out the new Gizmos, and enjoy!

Labor Day 2007 Holiday -- Office Closed

ExploreLearning's offices will close at 3pm EST on Friday, August 31 and will be closed Monday, September 3 in observance of U.S. Labor Day.

We will respond to customer service and technical support calls on Tuesday, September 4.

We sincerely appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience during this time.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend.

Site Maintenance Scheduled

In order to perform maintenance, the ExploreLearning site will be unavailable between approximately 9:00 p.m. on EDT Friday, August 24 and 6:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday, August 25, 2007.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.

ExploreLearning Office Closed on July 4th

In observance of Independence Day, the ExploreLearning offices will be closed on Wednesday, July 4, 2007. Our offices will reopen on Thursday, July 5, 2007

Site Maintenance Scheduled

In order to perform routine maintenance, the ExploreLearning site will be unavailable between approximately 6:30 am and 11:00 am on Saturday, June 16, 2007.

We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.

Another Award for ExploreLearning!

ExploreLearning has won a 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award from The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) for the Best Science Instruction Website. This is the second time that ExploreLearning.com has garnered this award, further validating the exceptional instructional value and innovation of Gizmos! For over 100 years, AEP has supported and promoted the educational publishing industry. Their annual awards program honors the best materials and accomplishments in educational products and education marketing. Judged by peers and experts, the awards provide an objective, authoritative evaluation of educational products and marketing programs. Winning products are widely recognized as exhibiting outstanding quality and achievement. For a list of all of this year’s Distinguished Achievement Award winners, please visit http://www.aepweb.org/awards/curricwin.htm. Congratulations to the entire ExploreLearning team for bringing home this significant award! A contingent from the Charlottesville, VA ExploreLearning staff attended the gala in Washington, D.C. last night to accept the award. The hard-working "men in black" below proudly display our newest award plaque:

And I also got a chance to show it off:

Click here for official press release.

Explorelearning closed for Memorial Day

In observance of the Memorial Day holiday, the ExploreLearning offices will close at 3:00PM EDT on Friday, May 25, 2007 and remain closed through Monday May 28, 2007. Our offices will reopen on Tuesday, May 29, 2007

ExploreLearning named a finalist in 2007 AEP Awards

ExploreLearning has garnered another award nomination! We are pleased to announce that we’ve been named one of three finalists for a Distinguished Achievement Award from The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP), in the category of Science Instruction Websites for grades 9-12.

We’re very happy that Gizmos have been recognized again from AEP as outstanding materials in the field of teaching and learning. We won an AEP Distinguished Achievement Award in 2005 and we were a finalist for a Golden Lamp Award in 2006.

Once again, thanks to our entire team for making this possible!

ExploreLearning wins coveted CODiE Award for the 2nd year in a row!

ExploreLearning.com has won a 2007 CODiE Award for Best Science Instruction Solution. We won this same award in 2006 and we’ve been nominated for several other CODiE Awards over the years as well. Congratulations to the entire team at ExploreLearning for making this possible.

Our developers have really been working hard to make ExploreLearning the best site for inquiry learning in science and in math. In 2006, we added over 40 new science Gizmos, greatly increasing our coverage of key science topics. This year, the team is heads down in development of our new Elementary Science Gizmos, which will debut this fall. Keep up the good work, team!

Link: official press release.

ExploreLearning Offices Closed for New Year's

ExploreLearning's offices will be closing at 1:00 PM on Friday, December 29th, and reopening at 8:00 AM on Tuesday, January 2nd. Customer support will be unavailable during this time.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you a Happy New Year.

New Features for Assessment Results

Recently, we incorporated a great user-suggested improvement to the way Gizmo assessment questions are stored.  Previously, teachers were unable to assess a given class or student multiple times, since student assessment answers were permanently recorded.  Now, teachers can reset assessment results for a single student or an entire class, as many times as they (not the students!) wish.

Secondly, as we continue updating the assessment questions for certain Gizmos, it's possible that existing assessment results will be rendered obsolete.  Rather than clearing the data, we archive these student answers for a period of at least 45 days.  If this happens to one of the Gizmos you use, special instructions will appear above your class's results table in the assessment results window.

We always enjoy receiving ideas from our users on site improvements, so please keep 'em coming!

ExploreLearning Holiday Hours

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed from Friday, December 22 through Tuesday, December 26.  Customer support will be unavailable during this time.  We promise to get back to you as soon as possible when our offices re-open on Wednesday, December 27, 2006.

During this period, you can still activate a 30-day Free Trial directly from our website and instantly have access to our full library of ExploreLearning Gizmos.

Thank you for your support and we wish all of you Happy Holidays.

Scientific Classics

The end of the year has arrived for the Gizmo coders! During 2006 the two main goals were 1) to update the important "Classic" science Gizmos, and to build new Gizmos to broaden our collection in the sciences.

The Classic Gizmos were created many years ago (some as far back as 1997). Several that we updated include: Shoot The Monkey, Inclined Plane, Density Lab, Air Track, and Doppler Shift. Several screen shots comparing the Classic Gizmo to the modernized Gizmos are shown below. Needless to say, we are excited about the new and improved versions. Besides just the graphical enhancement, a tremendous amount of work went in to improving the overall user friendliness and the feature set of each Gizmo.

Our other goal was to increase our coverage in the sciences. Several of our new Gizmos include Phase Change, Pulley, Refraction, Star Spectra, Evolution: Natural and Artificial Selection, RNA and Protein Synthesis, and Orbital Motion - Kepler's Laws.

All in all we modernized 20 Gizmos, and created 22 new Gizmos. It has been a very busy year and we are looking forward to creating a wealth of new Gizmos next year. We always hope you are finding the Gizmos a great benefit to your teaching. We love getting feedback from teachers so that we can continue to make improvements to current Gizmos, as well as make new Gizmos from your ideas.

We are looking forward to an exciting 2007, and we hope you are as well. See you then.

New Inclined Plane Gizmo

Anybody who has carried furniture into a moving van, wheeled a chair up an access ramp, driven on a switch-back road or skied down a bunny-slope understands the usefulness of inclined planes. Inclined planes can reduce the effort needed to lift an object up or slow the descent of a falling object.

Both aspects of inclined planes can be investigated in our new Inclined Plane - Simple Machine Gizmo. Observe the forces acting on a brick as it slides down a ramp, then measure the force required to push the brick back up. This Gizmo can be used at a variety of levels, from middle-school to AP Physics. (For a real challenge, check out the proof at the end of the Exploration Guide - feel free to write to customer support if you need a hint!)

Our library now boasts three Gizmos that can be used to study simple machines (the other two are Pulley Lab and Torque and Moment of Inertia), and more are planned for the future. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Holiday -- Office Closed November 23rd and 24th

ExploreLearning's offices will be closed Thursday, November 23rd and Friday, November 24th in observance of Thanksgiving Day (US).

We will respond to customer service and technical support calls on Monday, November 27th.

We sincerely appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience during this time.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Great science fair Gizmos updated

As science fair season is rolling around and students are hunting for topics, we have recently updated several Gizmos your students might consider using for a project. These are also among our most exciting and "gamelike" Gizmos to try.

In Reverse the Field, students can see how well they adapt to reversing the direction that the cursor moves when they move the mouse. Students can measure their reaction times in Sight vs. Sound Reflexes, and test their time-estimation skills in Time Estimation and Real-Time Histogram. The new Exploration Guides for these Gizmos highlight data-analysis skills and are full of tips for creating excellent science fair projects as well.

Many people know the famous story of Archimedes running naked through the streets of Syracuse yelling "Eureka!" But few can explain what Archimedes' Principle actually says. To find out, check out our new Gizmo Archimedes Principle, which mimics a popular lab of placing weights into a rectangular boat and measuring how far it sinks. By combining lab observations with the precise data available in the Gizmo, the beautiful symmetries of Archimedes' Principle will be revealed.

New Math Gizmo - Adding and Subtracting with Chips

It's been a busy year on the science side for ExploreLearning, but I'm happy to announce that we've uploaded a brand new math Gizmo...

Adding and Subtracting Integers with Chips

Using chip models can make adding and subtracting integers more visual and tangible for students... and with this Gizmo you can use chips without dealing with the post-lesson clean-up!

The trickiest concept that this Gizmo can help with is subtracting negatives. By using "zero pairs" in the Gizmo, students can really understand (rather than just memorize) why "minus a minus is a plus."

Enjoy... We hope this helps you and your students!

Teacher ideas incorporated into updated Gizmos

Since beginning work here in Charlottesville a year ago I haven't had much chance to get out of the office, so I jumped at the chance to do several teacher training sessions lately. One of the really nice things about training sessions is the chance to talk to teachers about Gizmos. Several recent teacher ideas have been incorporated into our Gizmos. For example, two teachers from Dekalb County, Georgia, requested more specific information about the role of enzymes in our Building DNA and RNA and Protein Synthesis. Their suggestions have been added.

A teacher in Iowa was bothered by the fact that the parent mice were housed in separate cages in our two genetics Gizmos: Mouse Genetics (One Trait) and Mouse Genetics (Two Traits). So we put them in the same cage, and revised the Exploration Guide and Assessment Questions of the Two Traits Gizmo as well. (For a bit of fun, try holding the "Shift" key down while pressing "Breed". Nothing bad, we promise!)

Updated Gizmos

Other recently updated Gizmos and/or Exploration Guides include Greenhouse Effect, Electron Configuration, DNA Fingerprint Analysis, Additive Colors v2, and Subtractive Colors v2.

New Gizmos

Ray Tracing - Lenses is beautiful to look at and is a big addition to our optics offerings. Inclined Plane - Rolling Objects complements the new "Inclined Plane - Sliding" Gizmo and allows students to compare a variety of rolling objects - rings, disks, solid balls and hollow spheres.

In the coming weeks, we will be working on several other customer requests, including a new math Gizmo that covers adding and subtracting integers with algebra tiles. So keep on telling us your great ideas for Gizmos!

Labor Day Holiday -- Office Closed Sept 1st and Sept 4th

ExploreLearning's offices will close at 3pm EST on Friday, September 1 and will be closed Monday, September 4 in observance of U.S. Labor Day.

We will respond to customer service and technical support calls on Tuesday, September 5.

We sincerely appreciate your business and apologize for any inconvenience during this time.

Have a safe Labor Day weekend.

New and Revised Gizmos

Over the past few weeks we have updated and released several Gizmos. Here is a list:

New Gizmos

Pulley Lab: Explore the dynamics of pulleys in this new Gizmo, our first on simple machines.

Orbital Motion - Kepler's Laws: Adjust the starting velocity and position of a planet, release it and see what happens! Special features of this Gizmo will allow students to discover each of Kepler's Laws.

Doppler Shift Advanced: This Gizmo, which complements Doppler Shift, has a quantitative focus. Students use the data they gather to write equations for wave frequency in front of and behind a moving source, or for a stationary source and a moving observer.

Updated Gizmos

Freefall Laboratory : We have added new objects, a free-body diagram to show forces, and a variety of manual settings to accomodate a wide variety of experimentation. The Exploration Guide now allows students to calculate the final velocity for objects falling in a vacuum from a known height.

Air Track: We have updated the graphics and interface of this classic Gizmo, and added an exploration guide and assessment questions. Students can discover conservation of momentum and energy for elastic and inelastic collisions.

Limiting Reactants: We have updated the layout and curriculum materials for one of our most visually stunning Gizmos. Not only is this a great Gizmo for teaching about limiting reactants, but it is an exceptional depiction of a chemical reaction as well.

Inclined Plane - Sliding: Our old Inclined Plane Gizmo is in the process of being replaced by a series of Gizmos. In this Gizmo, the focus is on energy conversions for sliding objects. Future related Gizmos will focus on rolling objects, vector diagrams, and simple machines.

Pluto demoted

Well the verdict is in, and Pluto is out. In a vote last Tuesday, the International Astronomical Union voted on a new definition of "planet" that would exclude Pluto and other icy objects in the outer parts of the solar system. Ironically, the new definition stipulates that a planet has "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit," which would exclude the gas giant Neptune as well (Pluto's orbit  overlaps the orbit of Neptune). However, Neptune was officially reinstated as a planet by special footnote. Pluto (and other newly discovered bodies, such as Xena and Sedna) is now a "dwarf planet."

Unlike textbooks, ExploreLearning was able to respond to the change quickly by adding a few notes to our Solar System Explorer Gizmo. We left Pluto in because it has such an interesting orbit, but made sure we referred to it as a "dwarf".

On the topic of planets, check out our brand-new Orbital Motion - Kepler's Laws Gizmo. In this spectacular new Gizmo, you can change the position, mass, and velocity of a planet, then observe its motion around a central star. It was a great surprise to me that almost any starting configuration results in a stable orbit - things don't gradually spiral in to the star as you might expect. Just as Kepler did in the 17th century, you will discover that the planetary orbits conform to some very interesting laws.

Golf Range Gizmo Updated

This week we have updated one of our oldest and most popular Gizmos, Golf Range! The unique combination of sports and projectile motion makes this a fun and vital physics lesson. Along with great-looking new graphics and a complete set of curriculum materials, we have added several new features:

• Horizontal and vertical velocity vectors, allowing students to see which component of velocity changes as the ball travels through the air.
• A grid and crosshairs, allowing students to plot the parabolic trajectory of the ball.
• An adjustable cliff, allowing the golfer to tee-off from any height.

With all of these new features, the Gizmo can be used for an informal exploration of the factors affecting flight, or for an in-depth, quantitative physics lesson on projectile motion. Check out the Exploration Guide for more suggestions on how to approach this fundamental topic.

Of course, the one feature we didn't change was the sound clip of Gizmo inventor Raman Pfaff announcing, "Hole in one!"

New Doppler Shift Gizmo

The ExploreLearning development team is proud to present a new Doppler Shift Gizmo. This new Gizmo offers several features that transform a very popular Gizmo into one of our best. Students can listen to a sound file of an ambulance passing by, then manipulate the source speed, wave frequency, and speed of sound. A ruler is provided to measure wavelength in front of and behind the source, and the observed frequency can be displayed as well. Altogether an eye-catching and ear-opening activity!

We have also released an updated version of Photosynthesis - Activity A (the new version is called Photosynthesis Lab). Among other changes, we have added a temperature slider and updated the Exploration Guide and assessment.

New Gizmos Released!

As Summer officially begins this week and most of you are relaxing after a long school year, we are as busy as ever at EL. This week we have released three new Gizmos and have enhanced several others. In the Refraction Gizmo, students can observe and measure the bending of light as it moves from one medium to another. Evolution: Natural and Artificial Selection is a follow-up to the current Evolution: Mutation and Selection Gizmo. Together, these two Gizmos provide an unbeatable simulation of evolution, as students can see how favorable mutations gradually accumulate in a bug population.

To complete our strong suite of evolution Gizmos, we have created the Human Evolution - Skull Analysis Gizmo. Many kudos go to our talented graphic artist, Beth Hollen, for creating the accurate drawings of real fossils you can see in this Gizmo. By measuring and analyzing the skulls like real paleoanthropologists, your students can come to their own conclusions about what this evidence shows. (By the way, check out the latest issue of National Geographic for an excellent article on the development of bipedalism, or walking on two legs.)

We have also continued to work on enhancing older Gizmos as well. First on our list was the classic Density Laboratory Gizmo, which has been updated with new graphics and several new objects to measure, including three "gold" crowns. (Can you find the two fakes?) This Gizmo is a great example of our new Gizmo "skin", which includes a larger display area, larger and darker text, and a cleaner look that is specially designed for projection. Keep your eyes open for more of these Gizmos coming in the next few weeks!

Other enhanced Gizmos include Tides, Distance-Time Graphs and Distance-Time and Velocity-Time Graphs.

Enjoy!

Ongoing Gizmo Enhancements

This spring we have continued to modify and enhance our Gizmo library. Last week a user pointed out that the view of the Moon portrayed in the Moon Phases and Moonrise, Moonset, and Phases Gizmos was actually a photo taken from space, showing the Moon from an angle not possible to see from Earth. Luckily, our own Raman Pfaff is something of an amateur photographer, and he had on file a beautiful photo he had taken of the Full Moon. We all agree it adds a nice personal touch to a popular Gizmo!

Raman can also take credit for a fantastic new animation on Cell Division , and we have improved several other Gizmos as well, including Solar System Explorer , Rainfall and Bird Beaks, Food Chain , and Beam to Moon. Enjoy!

ExploreLearning Evolves: New and Enhanced Gizmos

As the school year is winding down, we at EL are gearing up with new Gizmos and enhancements of some of our existing Gizmos. We are very excited about our new Evolution: Mutation and Selection Gizmo, in which you can see a population of bugs adapt to any background color you choose through random mutation and natural selection. Play the Gizmo slowly, and you will see individual mutations appear and slowly accumulate, as some bugs with favorable mutations have a slightly higher chance of survival. Play the Gizmo fast, and you will see how a near perfect match to the background is achieved over a hundred or so generations. It's the perfect tool for teaching a difficult concept.

On the topic of natural selection, we have also updated our popular Natural Selection Gizmo, spreading the moths out over several trees and making the well-camouflaged moths much harder to find. We have been making changes to several other Gizmos and their associated Exploration Guides and Assessment Questions as well, including:

• Disease Spread
• Rabbit Population by Season
• Water Cycle
• Rock Cycle
• Building DNA
• RNA and Protein Synthesis

Enjoy!

New Chemistry and Astronomy Gizmos

After a bit of vacation from our busy 2005 publishing schedule, we are pleased to announce the release of our first batch of 2006 Gizmos.

One of the most basic ideas in physical science is the connection between temperature and particle motion. Three new Gizmos investigate different aspects of this connection. Temperature and Particle Motion explores the relationship of particle velocities to temperature for an ideal gas. In Phase Changes, students can observe phase transitions at the molecular level. In the Collision Theory Gizmo, temperature is one of several factors that influence the rate of a chemical reaction.

The other new Gizmos relate to astronomy. 2D Eclipse is a companion to last year's 3D Eclipse, allowing students to investigate the geometry of eclipses in a more basic setting. In the Star Spectra Gizmo , students are asked to match the spectrum produced by a star to those of known elements. Not only is this a fun challenge, but a surprising amount of information can be gained by analyzing these stellar spectra.

Enjoy using these new Gizmos, and keep your eyes open for more to come!

Assessment Results Color Code Change

Please note the following change in the Assessment Questions Results table available to teachers: We've removed the color coding from the total results column. (Refer to the image.)

We felt the colors were visually over-emphasizing the totals at the cost of drawing attention away from the right/wrong shading of the columns for the individual questions.