A Physics Lesson at the Pool Table
“Rack’em up!” MIT Professor Joe Formaggio and his high school friend, Jose Machuca, have a good time demonstrating several physics concepts in this newest BLOSSOMS lesson from MIT. The objective of the lesson is to illustrate how a common everyday experience (such as playing pool) can often provide us with a learning moment. It examines concepts such as the conservation of linear momentum, angular momentum, torque and friction. All this— and students will also learn the rules of pool, with several pointers from Jose on how to strategize the game! Watch it now!

MIT Resource – Highlights for High School
Highlights for High School organizes more than 70 introductory level courses from MIT’s OpenCourseWare site, and indexes over 2,600 individual resources to the AP curricula for calculus, physics and biology, helping United States AP students and educators to find resources quickly. Highlights also includes dozens of demonstrations, competitions and other activities from MIT classes that show how fun and challenging science and technology subjects can be, inspiring the next generation of US engineers and scientists. Check it out!

Two New Lessons from Saudi Arabia
Our partners in Saudi Arabia - Saudi Aramco and the Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz Science & Technology Center (Scitech) - have brought us two more BLOSSOMS video lessons. These include: “The Mailman and the Five Packages: Data Packets and Data Transfer Speed” by Hanan Al Arfaj, an IT supervisor in the Ministry of Education – Eastern Province; and “The Physics of Racing Cars” by Dr. Khalil Ziq, Professor of Physics at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM). While both video lessons are currently available only in an Arabic version, we look forward to introducing an English version soon.

MIT BLOSSOMS Lessons Now Searchable by Education Standards
BLOSSOMS is pleased to announce that all video lessons are now searchable by educational standards, including the standards of each state as well as the Common Core Standards. Searches can be made in two ways: a Content Unit Search identifies a BLOSSOMS lesson by title, key word or topic and then matches that lesson to a state’s standard; a Standards Search identifies a particular state standard and then matches it to BLOSSOMS lesson/lessons. Take a look now.

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