Winter Olympics

I admit it- I am an Olympics Geek. I will plan the next two weeks of my life around the Winter Games schedule. If you are interested in any of what will be taking place in Vancouver, following are ways to bring the Games into the classroom

• NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, has teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to produce a 16-part video series focusing on the science behind the games. Scientific principles are explored in the new video series, called "The Science of the Olympic Winter Games." The videos illustrate how scientific principles apply to competitive sports. In each video segment, an NSF-supported scientist explains a particular scientific principle, while Olympic athletes describe how these principles apply to their respective sports. The science is explained by capturing the athletes’ movements with a state-of-the-art, high-speed camera which has the ability to capture movement at rates of up to 1,500 frames per second. This allows frame-by-frame illustrations of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum, friction, drag, speed, velocity, and other scientific concepts
  
  
• Canadian Olympic School Program has been providing teachers with free classroom resources since 1988.



• The New York Times has two sites that are pretty cool:
  

One takes a look at the Olympic torch over time
The other takes a look at venues of the Games

• The Associated Press has/will have a great highlight/recap site
  
  
• Winter Olympics: Sport By Sport” is a feature from ESPN. It provides a short, accessible slideshow and description for each sport played at the Olympic games.
  
  

(Thanks to Linda Casey and Larry Ferlazzo)