NSTA has teamed up once again with NBC Learn and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to bring you another exhilarating video series with connected lesson plans that will excite your students and add to your hands-on repertoire. Science of NHL Hockey consists of 10 learning packages that will bring life to your STEM efforts.

“Uh … hockey? I don’t know anything about hockey.”

No need to! You already know the science, or will quickly learn. Just follow the puck around the rink as it ricochetes off the boards and its parabolic path coming off the stick. Learn how a Zamboni® works. Or calculate how much work is done just “playing a game.”

“But I teach in the south! No one plays hockey here. My kids won’t be interested.”
Are you sure? Warm-weather areas such as south Florida and southern California boast NHL teams with loads of fans. If you’re not already one, you might find yourself following one of these teams after watching how cool the game can be. (Pun intended!)

See how NBC Learn filmed NHL players in action and learn from NSF science and math experts. Then use the NSTA-developed middle- and high-school lesson plans that complete the packages. The series is available cost-free on www.NBCLearn.com and www.NSF.gov.

NSTA will also post portions of each package in this blog over the next several weeks, under the NSF Videos and Lessons category, and we hope you will try them out in the classroom. If you do, please leave comments below each posting about how well the information worked in real-world classrooms. And if you had to make significant changes to a lesson, we’d love to see what you did differently, as well as why you made the changes. Leave a comment, and we’ll get in touch with you with submission information.

Get started with Mass, Volume & Density!

—Judy Elgin Jensen

Image courtesy of Stefan Van der Straeten.

Video: In “Mass, Volume & Density,” scientists and ice technicians explain the science and math that goes into building and maintaining the ice surface at a hockey rink through the long NHL season.   

Middle school lesson: In this lesson, students use large regular shaped ice cubes to gain understanding of the physical properties of mass and volume and the relationships among mass, volume, and density.

High school lesson: In this lesson, students will measure physical properties of solids, liquids, and gases to gain a better understanding of the relationships among mass, volume, and density.

You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans:

[contact-form 2 “ChemNow]