WGBH Podcasts

I just finished watching a couple of the WGBH podcast videos I watch one about Cancer research and I also watched one about planets. Both of these videos were very educational. The first one about cancer was about a researcher name Dr. Fulkman who believed that blood vessels helped tumors grow. He believe Angiogneisis occurred when a tumor was present. Many people were sceptical and did not believe him but he did a couple different studies that finally proved his theory. The first study was to take a cornea of the eye that had no blood vessels and implant a piece of tumor and sure enough the blood vessels grew to the tumor and it expanded in size very rapidly. But then he went beyond that to prove his theory and found the particular molecule out of thousands that would cause this to happen. He then had people on his side now understanding what he had proven.
The second video I watched was about what makes a planet a planet and all of the controversy that has surrounded that the last couple of years. Many planets have been added to the solar system to later be removed to be either re-named a dwarf planet, an asteroid, or a comet. The most recent to be removed was Pluto. The one thing that made it different from the other planets was that it did not clear its own orbit. They are also trying to add a new planet named UB 313.
These videos that I watched is a great free learning tool that you could use in the classroom to help go along with the material which is being learned. The great thing is that the children can pull up these podcast videos for free. This again will be something that I add to my list of teaching tools in the future. It is so nice to have so many free tools at our fingertips that we can use to further our students learning as well our own.
I am very thankful to have this class which is opening my eyes to the vast array of possibilities for my teaching future. I had no idea how many things were out there for teachers to learn. It would be a shame for teachers not to take advantage of these types of learning opportunities when there is so much that it can add to what we are teaching in the classroom.