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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Why Elephants Never Forget

For Students 9th - 10th
Alex Gendler takes us into the incredible, unforgettable mind of an elephant. [5:25]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Could Comets Be the Source of Life on Earth?

For Students 9th - 10th
While comets were historically thought to be ill omens of war and famine, recent science has revealed that these celestial wonders actually contain amino acids, the building blocks of life on Earth. Justin Dowd explores the implications...
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Einstein's Brilliant Mistake: Entangled States

For Students 9th - 10th
When you think about Einstein and physics, E=mc^2 is probably the first thing that comes to mind. But one of his greatest contributions to the field actually came in the form of an odd philosophical footnote in a 1935 paper he co-wrote-...
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Schrodinger's Cat: A Thought Experiment in Quantum Mechanics

For Students 9th - 10th
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, posed this famous question: If you put a cat in a sealed box with a device that has a 50% chance of killing the cat in the next hour, what will be the state...
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Light Seconds, Light Years, Light Centuries: Measure Extreme Dist

For Students 9th - 10th
Yuan-Sen Ting shows us how trigonometric parallaxes, standard candles and more help us determine the distance of objects several billion light years away from Earth. [5:29]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: How Do We Study the Stars?

For Students 9th - 10th
Yuan-Sen Ting takes us into deep space to show how astronomers study the stars beyond our reach. [4:46]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: If Matter Falls Down, Does Antimatter Fall Up?

For Students 9th - 10th
Chloe Malbrunot investigates matter and anti-matter by placing two atoms- one made of matter, and the other antimatter- in the cockpit of a plane, ready to jump. What do you think will happen? [2:54]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Cloudy Climate Change: How Clouds Affect Earth's Temperature

For Students 9th - 10th
As the Earth's surface temperature gradually rises, it has become vital for us to predict the rate of this increase with as much precision as possible. In order to do that, scientists need to understand more about aerosols and clouds....
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: How Cosmic Rays Help Us Understand the Universe

For Students 9th - 10th
Veronica Bindi explains what cosmic rays are, and how they transmit information about our universe from the great beyond. [4:40]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Where Do Genes Come From?

For Students 9th - 10th
When life emerged on Earth about 4 billion years ago, the earliest microbes had a set of basic genes that succeeded in keeping them alive. In the age of humans and other large organisms, there are a lot more genes to go around. Where did...
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: What Is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?

For Students 9th - 10th
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you can never simultaneously know the exact position and the exact speed of an object. Why not? Because everything in the universe behaves like both a particle and a wave at the same time....
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Particles and Waves: The Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics

For Students 9th - 10th
One of the most amazing facts in physics is that everything in the universe, from light to electrons to atoms, behaves like both a particle and a wave at the same time. But how did physicists arrive at this mind-boggling conclusion? Chad...
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Two Objects Same Room Two Different Temperatures?

For Students 9th - 10th
How can two objects have the same temperature but feel like they have different temperatures? Veritasium explores this phenomenon. [4:00]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: The Science of the Game of Thrones

For Students 9th - 10th
The popular television show, Game of Thrones, and the novel series it is based on, A Song of Fire and Ice, take place in another world. Joe Hanson explores possible scientific explanations of the phenomena exhibited on the show. [8:01]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: What if the Earth Stopped Spinning?

For Students 9th - 10th
Michael Stevens of Vsauce looks at what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning. He also explores how we construct time as a function of the Earth's rotation and why atomic clocks are so precise. [9:44]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Why Does the Sun Really Shine?

For Students 9th - 10th
Our assumptions about the world often evolve. The rock band, They Might Be Giants, discovered this firsthand. The band has covered the 1950s song, Why Does the Sun Shine?, since 1983. In 2008, they discovered the 1950s science, which the...
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Feedback Loops: How Nature Gets Its Rhythms

For Students 9th - 10th
Anje-Margriet Neutel describes some common positive and negative feedback loops, examining how an ecosystem's many loops come together to make its 'trademark sound.' [5:11]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: What Can Schrodinger's Cat Teach Us About Quantum Mechanics?

For Students 9th - 10th
One great example of quantum physics' weirdness can be shown in the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment. Josh Samani walks us through this experiment in quantum entanglement. [5:24]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: How Do Tornadoes Form?

For Students 9th - 10th
Meteorologist James Spann sheds light on the lifespan of tornadoes as they go from supercell thunderstorms to terrible twisters before eventually dissolving back into thin air. [4:11]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: The Secret Lives of Baby Fish

For Students 9th - 10th
The larvae of coral reef fish are capable of drifting thousands of miles on ocean currents, far from the reefs where they were born. Amy McDermott describes how these tiny trekkers travel across vast oceans, searching for the far-flung...
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: What's Hidden Among the Tallest Trees on Earth?

For Students 9th - 10th
Wendell Oshiro tells the story of Stephen Sillett's bold exploration of the canopy of an ancient redwood and details some of the fascinating discoveries he made. [4:47]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: What Light Can Teach Us About the Universe

For Students 9th - 10th
Pete Edwards outlines the six unique messages that light carries which, when put together, disclose a stunning amount of information to astronomers about the universe. [4:07]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: The Coelacanth: A Living Fossil of a Fish

For Students 9th - 10th
Erin Eastwood details the surprising "back from the dead" discovery of the coelacanth and explains how this fish's fins shed light on the evolutionary movement of vertebrates from water to land. [4:17]
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Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: Building a Dinosaur From a Chicken

For Students 9th - 10th
Renowned paleontologist Jack Horner has spent his career trying to reconstruct a dinosaur. He's found fossils with extraordinarily well-preserved blood vessels and soft tissues, but never intact DNA. So, in a new approach, he's taking...