Posts on “ health ”

Dr. Kari Stubbs, Vice President of 21st Century Learning, is heading west to Redmond, WA to visit the Microsoft Headquarters for the 2012 Partners in Learning US Forum.  This BrainPOP-sponsored event will take place July 31-August 1 and is an exciting, professional learning experience that spotlights and allows superstar educators from all over the US to share their innovative teaching expertise.  As a keynote featured speaker, Kari will have the honor of addressing 102 amazing educators from 25 states.  Additionally, she’ll be hosting Got Game?,  a BYOL session that focuses on educational games, at which attendees will have the opportunity to explore video case studies and play some quality STEM, Social Studies, and Health games.  If you’re one of the lucky Forum attendees, be sure to visit Kari in the exhibitor space to learn more about BrainPOP and our GameUp games.  

Guts and Bolts?  It may sound gross, but it sure is fun!  Our newest BrainPOP developed game on GameUp leads students as they help Moby construct a cyborg Tim with a combination of organic tissue and re-purposed household objects.  Students will learn about the human body while arranging and connecting organs and systems into their complex configurations. This 11 level game encourages players to apply the scientific method while exploring the circulatory system, respiratory system, and digestive system.  A number of the movies in our Body Systems Unit, especially the Circulatory System and Digestive System topics, can assist students in successfully completing the game.  We’ve even created a lesson plan that outlines how to use the game in your classroom and includes some valuable teaching resources.  

At BrainPOP we update the site with new movies, quizzes, games and teaching materials all the time.  To ensure that everything we release is of the highest quality, we call on our esteemed education advisors for their guidance and wisdom.  Today we welcome the newest member of our BrainPOP advisory board,  former Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Dr. Henry Adam.  Dr. Adam has an impressive bio that you can read here. BrainPOP educators recently contacted Dr. Adam to hear his thoughts about his newest appointment here at BrainPOP.  He writes, “As a pediatrician I’ve been trained to believe that prevention trumps treatment, and prevention of course depends on education. My work both as a clinician with patients and their families, and as an academic with students and house staff has largely been focused on education.  So joining BrainPOP seems natural for me.”  Well said doc! We are honored to have Dr. Adam join our board, and we look forward to receiving his guidance as we develop more health related content.

If you’ve been following the news lately, you know that a massive outbreak of harmful E.coli bacteria has had ripple effects in Europe over the past week. We’ve already heard from kids who are concerned and have questions – how this can happen, and whether Americans are at risk. For those educators and parents who want to bring their students and children up to speed on the science behind superbugs like this E.coli strain, we recommend showing our movie on Antibiotic Resistance. In it, Tim and Moby describe what can happen when environmental pressures lead to genetic mutations that thrive despite scientists’ best efforts to control them. You may also wish to show our Genetic Mutations and Bacteria movies for primers on the cell biology behind outbreaks like these. Finally, we encourage you to watch and share our Food Safety topic, which explores precautions to take to help prevent getting ill from food contamination. Has this topic come up in your class? How are you explaining it to students? What resources do you find most helpful to ease students’ fears and answer their questions?