National 5 – Satellites

We’ve started looking at telescopes and this BBC programme from 2 years ago featured the replacement for Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope.  The presenter, Maggie Aderin Pocock now hosts The Sky at Night on BBC4.

Please take some time to watch both parts of the film.  Maggie covers the basic idea of satellites, how we achieve geostationary orbit, looks at examples of Earth observation and the manufacture of the James Webb’s massive 6.5m mirror.  In part 1, around 17 minutes in, you’ll see satellite footage over the Highlands, can’t quite see Thurso though.

Satellites-part1 from mr mackenzie on Vimeo.

Satellites-part2 from mr mackenzie on Vimeo.

If you want to download a copy of the video to watch later, use the download link below.  Please be patient, the file is about 660MB in size.

national 5 assignment – part 2

The second programme is all about the current state of car safety.

We follow a car safety team at Volvo as they prepare to crash two cars together to collect forces data, learn how emergency medicine procedures are changing to improve outcomes for car accident casualties, and learn how sensors are used to monitor the human body’s response to a collision.

Please watch both programmes before Thursday 18th February.

As with the first video, please check you are connected to wifi before downloading as the video file is quite big.

national 5 assignment – part 1

We’re going to start work on the assignment task next week.  You’ll spend 2-3 periods researching car safety online and choosing a particular topic to explore in more depth.  Before we go into the ICT room, I’d like you to watch two videos about car safety.

The first programme looks back at the history of car accidents and the work that has been done to reduce deaths on the road.  While many of the clips shown are quite old, they show just how far we have come in our understanding of the science behind making cars more safe.

Please right click on the link below and save your own copy of the file, rather than streaming it.

Check you’re using wifi before downloading – it’s a big file!