Science Podcasts

Science Podcasts

There are a large number of science audio podcasts available free of charge on the Internet. A podcast is like a radio show that you can listen to on your computer, transfer to an audio CD, or listen to on an ipod. I started by downloading the podcasts and then burning to an audio CD to listen to in my car. This worked well, but the CD's fill up quickly. A friend suggested purchasing an ipod and a device that broadcasts the ipod to a FM radio, this has worked well for me. Soon I was listening to the podcasts on the ipod while walking and riding my bike, it was like I wasn't alone with the podcast in my ears.

This is a listing of some websites of podcasts I have subcribed to, when you subscribe to a podcast, the iTunes program (free download from Apple) searchs for new podcasts and downloads them. With the links to the websites you should be able to listen to podcasts on your computer without iTunes or an ipod to get started.

If you decide to use an ipod and Itunes, here are a few tutorial videos that should help : Podcast Tutorials

Note: there are also video podcasts available and I plan to explore this in the future.

Science Audio Podcast Websites

EVcast - http://www.evcast.com/members/evcast - electric vehicles
Mr Sly the Science Guy - http://mrslythescienceguy.mypodcast.com/ -

"Mr Sly the Science Guy sites are dedicated to the promotion of science education and involvement" quote website
NOVA Science Now - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/rss/

NPR Science Friday - http://www.sciencefriday.com/feeds/radio/
The Naked Scientist - http://www.thenakedscientists.com/
This Week in Science - http://www.twis.org/

Science Video Podcasts & Embedded Video

EcoGeeks - The Wild Classroom - http://www.thewildclassroom.com/home/nav/subscribe.html - some very good quality videos available in several video types.
PBS Podcasts - http://www.pbs.org/podcasts/ - not all science podcasts from this link but good stuff for sure.
Secret Life of Scientist - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/secretlife/ - I thought these videos were well done and interesting, gives scientists a more normal human side.
Junior Solar Sprint - http://www.usaeop.com/videos/JSS/Junior_Solar_Sprints_2009.html - this video explains this middle school competition for building electric solar powered model cars very well.
Edutopia - http://www.edutopia.org/video - links to the video section of a fantastic educational website inspired by George Lucas.
MN Video Vault - http://www.mnvideovault.org/index.php - huge selection of videos as a service of tpt PBS.
Newton's Apple - http://www.newtonsapple.tv/ - over 300 streaming videos from popular TV show, teacher guides also.
explore - http://explore.org/videos/ - not all science related but many excellent videos on this website from all over the world.

Listing of PBS Station Websites - http://www.janson.com/media/2008/12/29/us-pbs-station-website-links/

NASA Videos

NASA is a wonderful video resource for a variety of age groups and a variety of subjects but all science-related. The videos can be found in a streaming format or as files that can be downloaded. It is possible to purchase the videos and TV schedules can be found for upcoming NASA TV shows. Presently NASA has over a dozen YouTube Channels. Educators will also find downloadable curriculum material. NASA eClips and NASASciFiles probably would be the most interesting to kids. Video files can be downloaded from multiple sites, the one I preferred was NASA’s Educational Media Archive Langley Research Center because the videos were available in five different file types (mpeg-1, mpeg-2, mpeg-4, Quicktime, and Real).
http://nasa.ibiblio.org/program.php?program=NASA-CONNECT

Some NASA Websites
http://www.nasa.gov - this would probably be the main NASA website

http://education.nasa.gov/edprograms/core/home/index.html - where you can order NASA videos
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/nasaeclips/index.html - NASA eClips website
http://scifiles.larc.nasa.gov - NASA Sci Files website
http://connect.larc.nasa.gov - NASA Connect website
http://destination.larc.nasa.gov - NASA Destination Tomorrow website
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/nasa360/index.html - NASA 360 website
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/schedule.html - NASA TV Schedule

http://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision - NASA YouTube Channel
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/freesoftware_page.htm - free software downloads for simulators

Dnatube Scientific Video Site - http://www.dnatube.com - "DnaTube is a non-profit video site which is aiming to be a visual scientific resource for its visitors." quote from website Many of the videos deal with biology.

Teacher's Domain - http://www.teachersdomain.org/ - "Teachers' Domain is an extensive library of free digital media resources produced by public television, designed for classroom use and professional development." Teachers' Domain website

Miro Video Viewer
I downloaded the Miro Video Viewer today which is a free download from: http://www.getmiro.com/download/
The viewer seems to work well for many types of files and is an option for video feeds from many places. With a video podcast, an Internet connection is not needed once the file has been downloaded, playback should always be smooth with this method.