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What are microbes?

What are microbes? What are the four major groups that most microbes belong to? Listen as Dr Taghrid Istivan explains where microbes are found. What is the name of the group of microbes she describes as beneficial to our health? Can you explain what happens when people get food poisoning?

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Catalyst: Quoll rescue

Discover what threatens a native Australian predator and how scientists are hoping to save it from extinction. This clip about quolls in the Northern Territory describes the causes of its decline and a rescue strategy to save it from extinction. The strategy has a surprising twist - it features the very thing that is threatening ...

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Where does water go after it rains?

What happens to rainfall in Australia? Water usually flows downhill, and because we know where the hills are, scientists have been able to divide the country into drainage divisions, or catchments. Find out which drainage division you're in, and learn what happens to rainwater that doesn't make it to the sea. |Learn more ...

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How does the retina work?

When electrons in your retina absorb photons of light they don't emit light, they cause a molecule to change shape - and that lets you see colour!

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Atoms Alive: Cells and energy

Cells are like chemical factories. Discover the different ways cells get energy to carry out their daily operations. Learn about the different types of metabolic processes inside cells, such as those that break down molecules to release energy and those that assemble building blocks to make more complex components.

Online

Coral bleaching

This is a detailed plan for teaching a unit on coral bleaching. It includes a unit outline, overview and aim, learning outcomes, inquiry questions, background information about coral bleaching, lesson plans and a guide to assessment. The lesson sequence is based on the inquiry based 5Es approach to teaching Science, with ...

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Spark: A better way to predict the spread of bushfires

In recent years, new technologies have helped us respond to natural disasters more quickly by providing up-to-date information as it becomes available. What if we could take this one step further with new technologies that can also predict disasters? Learn how Spark, which uses our existing knowledge of bushfire behaviours ...

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Testing the 5-second rule

When it comes to dropping food, have you heard of the 5-second rule? Or the 3-second rule? Watch this video to learn what really happens when you drop food. In order to cause disease, what must bacteria do? What circumstances allow bacteria and viruses to contaminate food more successfully?

Online

Heat changes everything

In this learning sequence, students explore a simple particle model for matter, heat energy and thermal expansion. They apply their learning to the context of expansion and contraction of rail lines and investigate ways that this is mitigated in real situations involving rail lines. They subsequently explain this to young ...

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Towards food security in Afghanistan

This is a video about the progress towards food and water security in Afghanistan. It includes images and information about how the global economic crisis has affected the people of Afghanistan; the value of investment in agriculture production to reduce poverty in this region; and a water security project that is jointly ...

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Marla Spivak: Why bees are disappearing

This is a video of a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk by Professor Marla Spivak about the dramatic decline in the number of bees. The 16-minute video begins with a discussion of why humans should care about bees, including their critical importance for the world's food supply. Professor Spivak explains that ...

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The Conversation - issues concerning self and identity - organ donation

This resource contains a series of articles about organ donation, including ethical consideration of the role of family; research methods available to increase donor rates; and examples from other countries (e.g. Spain) that have high organ donation rates. It can be used to consider a wide range of issues, evidence, and ...

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Water reservoirs as climate change adaptation

This is a video about water availability for people living in the Peruvian Andes. It includes vision and information about water scarcity in this region and details of a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations funded project involving the creation of a sustainable water management program. The program involves ...

Online

Balloon car challenge

In this practical activity, students design and build a balloon-powered car and race it to better understand the ideas related to rocket propulsion. The resource includes a step-by-step teacher guide and student worksheets.

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TEDMED: What is the source of all life?

This is a video clip of a TEDMED speaker, Howard Shapiro, presenting ideas about improving the nutritional value of plants to address malnutrition and the food requirements of a growing world population. The clip emphasises that poor nutrition has negative health and developmental effects on children, particularly those ...

Interactive

Renewable Energy Sources - iTunes app

Find out about renewable energies such as wind, water, solar and biomass energy including how they provide energy, development of energy technology and environmental impacts in the electronic book. scientists and inventors involved. Explore some real-world engineering feats involved in producing today's energy supplies, ...

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Returning water to Hattah Lakes

The two short videos in this series highlight the value of Hattah Lakes and the importance of ensuring that sufficient water replenishes the lakes during dry times. The videos explain how dams and weirs upstream store flood water that would otherwise fill the lakes. A collaborative engineering project reduced the environmental ...

Interactive

Kamay – looking up

This resource explores the navigation techniques used during the journey of the Endeavour and contrasts these with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander navigational and astronomical systems that have been in place for many thousands of years. This learning sequence contains activities suitable for Year 7 - Year 10 science ...

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Cotton Australia photo library

This is a library of freely reusable photos and videos of the modern Australian cotton industry. Photos and videos are of the farms, practices, crop and the technology used to grow and process the cotton crop. They include the plant at various stages, flowers, bolls, farm machinery like pickers and seeders, bales and cotton gins.

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Measuring photosynthesis

This is a colour underwater photograph of marine scientist Candida Savage using a scientific instrument known as the diving-PAM. The diving-PAM is being used to measure photosynthesis in corals in Fiji. Candida Savage is wearing full diving clothing and equipment including mask, wetsuit and oxygen tanks.