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Click on the image to listen to the full story!

Thank you Radiolab, WNYC, & NPR for producing these amazing podcasts
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The purpose of this page is to inspire students and teachers to ask questions about relevent scientific issues. Below are some amazing stories shared by RadioLab (click the RadioLab Logo for more info). 
Guts

Guts

Grade 8 - body systems

For the Birds

For the Birds

Grade 10 & 11- Biology & Conservation

Shrink

Shrink

Grade 8 to 12 - Biology & Evolution

Crispr

Crispr

Grade 8 to 12 - Viruses & Genetics

Los Frikis

Los Frikis

Grade 8 to 12 - Viruses and Disease

Patient Zero

Patient Zero

Grade 8 to 12 - Viruses and Disease

Guts

Grade 8 - body systems 

 

A look at the messy mystery in our middles, and what the rumblings deep in our bellies can tell us about ourselves. This story gives us a window into how scientists and doctors would use live humans to conduct experiments. We will see one doctor discover the function of the stomach!

 

Questions to keep in mind:

 

  • How does the stomach work?

  • How does the digestion work?

  • What types of things do you eat that can affect your mood?

  • What did you eat today and how do you feel?

  • What are some of the foods you eat?

 

Find out what effects it has on your body.

Crispr

Grade 8 to 12 - Viruses & Genetics 

 

Hidden inside some of the world’s smallest organisms is one of the most powerful tools scientists have ever stumbled across. It's a defense system that has existed in bacteria for millions of years and it may some day let us change the course of human evolution. 

 

Questions to keep in mind:

 

  • how CRISPR does what it does?

  • should be worried about a future full of flying pigs?

  • Should we be using CRISPR to tweak the genes of human embryos?

  • Should we bring extinct animals back?

Elements

Grade 10 & 11 Chemistry

 

Scientists took about 300 years to lay out the Periodic Table into neat rows and columns. In one hour, we’re going to mess it all up.  This episode, we enlist journalists, poets, musicians, and even a physicist to help us tell stories of matter that matters. You’ll never look at that chart the same way again.

 

  • What elements or compounds do we put in our body? 

  • Do you think understanding the patterns of elements are important?

For the Birds

Grade 10 - Biology & Conservation 

 

Today, a lady with a bird in her backyard upends our whole sense of what we may have to give up to keep a wild creature wild. When the conservationists showed up at Clarice Gibbs’ door and asked her to take down her bird feeders down for the sake of an endangered bird, she said no. Everybody just figured she was a crazy bird lady. But writer Jon Mooallem went to see her and discovered there was much more to this story.

 

Questions to keep in mind:

 

  • What are some conservation efforts you have talked about where you have not considered the complexity of the situation?

  • How much time and money should we spend to keep endangered species alive?

  • How would you balance human and society interests with nature and conservation? 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

 

Los Frikis

Grade 8 to 12 - Viruses  

 

How a group of 80’s Cuban misfits found rock-and-roll and created a revolution within a revolution, going into exile without ever leaving home. In a collaboration with Radio Ambulante, reporter Luis Trelles bring us the story of punk rock’s arrival in Cuba and a small band of outsiders who sentenced themselves to death and set themselves free.

 

Questions to keep in mind:

 

  • Why is scientific knowledge so important?

  • What does Aids & HIV do to the body?

The Rhino Hunter

Grade 8-11 Biology & Conservation

 

Back in 2014, Corey Knowlton paid $350,000 for a hunting trip to Namibia to shoot and kill an endangered species.  He’s a professional hunter, who guides hunts all around the world, so going to Africa would be nothing new. 

This episode, we try to uncover what conservation really means in the 21st century.

 

  • What is the right way to conserve endangered species?

  • What do you think interactions between humans and other species will look like in the future?

Shrink

Grade 8 - 12 - Biology & Evolution

 

Viruses are supposed to be sleek, pared-down, dead-eyed machines. But when one microbiologist stumbled upon a GIANT virus, hundreds of times bigger than any seen before, all that went out the window.  The discovery opened the door not only to a new cast of microscopic characters with names like Mimivirus, Mamavirus, and Megavirus, but also to basic questions

 

Questions to keep in mind:

 

  • How did we miss these until now?

  • Have they been around since the beginning?

  • What if evolution could go … backwards?

  • How does this effect the way you think about human evolution?

Patient Zero

Grade 8 to 12 - Viruses and Disease 

 

We start with the story of perhaps the most iconic Patient Zero of all time: Typhoid Mary. Then, we dive into a molecular detective story to pinpoint the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, and we re-imagine the moment the virus that caused the global pandemic sprang to life. After that, we update the show with a quick look at the very current Ebola outbreak in west Africa. In the end, we're left wondering if you can trace the spread of an idea the way you can trace the spread of a disease and find ourselves faced with competing claims about the origin of the high five.

 

Questions to keep in mind:

 

  • How does disease spread?

  • How does disease affect society and health?

  • Are the diseases described bacteria or virus?

  • How do we deal with contagious patients?

Notable Episodes

 

Colors

Grade 8 & 12 Optics and Biology

 

A War We Need

Grade 9 - 11 Biology and Ecology

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Cellmates

Grade 9 - 11 Biology and Evolution

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