Frankenstein Comes Alive

"It's alive!"
That memorable line was in Frankenstein the movie, but it wasn’t in the book. 




I prefer this version.

And many think of Frankenstein as the stiff-armed, fabricated monster, but that was actually the doctor’s name.

Boris Karloff as the monster

 In this episode of “Crash Course,” John Green introduces your class to Mary Shelley's famously frightful novel. Students will learn about the Romantic movement in English lit, of which Frankenstein is a GREAT example, and how Frankenstein might just be the very first SciFi novel. As it often does, literature comes down to just what it means to be human. John will review the plot, take the class through a couple of different critical readings of the novel, and discuss the final disposition of Percy Shelley's heart. WATCH: http://to.pbs.org/1RhBa7E

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BRRRAAAAIIINS!

Why is it important to protect the brain? Are boy’s brains different than girl’s brains? How does your brain interact with your body? 

Zombie wants to know this : Why are brains so yummy?

Your students can explore these and other important discussion questions as they probe the power and mystery of the brain. In this video from The Human Spark, Alan Alda talks with Dr. Todd Preuss on the subject of the brain and how it functions. Preuss studies the brain with the help of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI machines, which reveal the sophisticated circuitry of the brain’s cortex. 

Students will learn how the cortex differs in individuals and how those differences could relate to how people think or act. WATCH: http://to.pbs.org/1j60gf5

The Eyes Have It

Humans, like most other mammals, are primarily sight oriented, which means that our eyes are our dominant sense organs. The reason we rely so heavily on vision most likely lies in our evolutionary history. Millions of years ago, the way of life of the ancestors of Homo sapiens favored those with good vision and selected against individuals who could not see as well. 

Nice eyes!

Frightened eyes

Alice Cooper eyes

What the heck???

In this lesson based on NOVA’s "Mystery of the Senses: Vision,” students explore how their eyes receive visual information from the world around them, and how our brain makes sense of it. This lesson pieces together the components of human visual perception, and includes a fun and engaging classroom activity that allows your class to view optical illusions and further investigate the human visual system. WATCH: http://to.pbs.org/1M15DXU