Young Davy Crockett (MP3 audio & PDF study guide) – Today’s resource is this excellent, quite moving half hour audio dramatization of the early life of the legendary frontier hero and teller of tall tales, Davy Crockett, and his experiences growing up on the American frontier. This dramatization of Crockett’s own remembrances of his early life on the frontier was adapted for radio by Earl Hamner, who later went on to create the TV program “The Waltons”. Great stuff!
Included with this mp3 audio is a short PDF “listening guide” to use for further discussion and study after listening to the audio. You’re welcome!
A quick tech note about these video clips for those of you who have asked: These are streaming videos embedded from youtube. They are NOT downloadable to your computer. If you are having problems viewing these, please check to make sure that both Flash and javascript are enabled in your browser. That is the sum total of tech support we are able to give you on these. Finally, we’ll be keeping these up all through Labor Day weekend. Enjoy!
Continuing our “Movie Week”, let’s first look at some short fascinating videos on “How Things Work” by Marshall Brain, and then we’ll go on to today’s main feature. Ready? Let’s go!
How Doughnuts Are Made
How Drawbridges Work
How Dry Cleaners Work
How A Movie Projector Works
How Water Jets Cut Steel
How Air Conditioning Works
And now, for our “feature presentation”!
How Stuff Works: From Trees to Houses
Here’s a great series of four videos from the Discover Channel’s “How Stuff Works” program showing what it takes to get the wood used to build your house.
Getting the Trees
Trees can grow anywhere. This can sometimes cause a problem for harvesting. Watch how loggers airlift the timber from hard to reach areas.
Lumber Workers
Learn what wood hookers and widow makers do and also hear about the occupational dangers that exist for these lumber workers.
Log Cutting
In order to get the highest yield of the timber harvest, the lumber industry relies on circular saws and laser beams to turn the logs into square boards.
Wood and Nails
The relationship between wood and nail is a very unique one, and most houses are a product of this relationship. Learn more about this special bond in this episode.
Continuing our “Movie Week”, today we bring you a great “triple feature”.
First up, the amazing “Gallopin’ Gertie” bridge.
This is on-the-scene documentation of the 1940 collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Slender, elegant and graceful, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge stretched like a steel ribbon across Puget Sound in 1940. The third longest suspension span in the world opened on July 1st. Only four months later, the great span’s short life ended in disaster. “Galloping Gertie,” collapsed in a windstorm on November 7,1940.
The bridge became famous as “the most dramatic failure in bridge engineering history.” Now, it’s also “one of the world’s largest man-made reefs.” The sunken remains of Galloping Gertie were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 to protect her from salvagers.
The story of the failure of the 1940 Narrows Bridge and the success of the Current Narrows Bridge is a great American saga. When Galloping Gertie splashed into Puget Sound, it created ripple effects across the nation and around the world. The event changed forever how engineers design suspension bridges. Gertie’s failure led to the safer suspension spans we use today.
Bicycle Gymnastics
Next, we have five minutes of pure wonder for you as two girls performing at a German gymnastics meet get on their bicycles and defy all sorts of laws of physics… or so it seems. Check this out!
Our Mr. Sun (1956) – Finally today is this excellent and popular scientific film directed by Frank Capra that launched the Bell System Science series back in the 1950s. Combining animation and live action, Our Mr. Sun uses a scientist-writer team to present information about the sun and its importance to humankind. Lots of interesting history and scientific facts in this. Produced in Technicolor, the film was originally telecast in 1956 and 1957 to 9 million homes; some 600 16mm prints were distributed to schools and community organizations through the Bell Telephone System film libraries. A great example of the “school films” of the 1950s that were widely viewed by earlier generations of school kids before the advent of VCRs and in-class TVs. (55 minutes)
Note: Just FYI, this is a pretty neat and interesting film, but it was not produced from a specifically creationist viewpoint. Also, some of the science included here is a bit dated. You may wish to preview this or discuss with your kids where it differs from your own convictions. Glean.
Viewing Options: You can watch it all here, just by clicking the play button on the video. If you want to view it as fullscreen, click that little expanding screen icon below the video. Want to download a copy? You can do that on this one since this is a Google video. Click on the little Google Video logo at the bottom of the screen. There is also a download link on that page if you wish to download this for use on an iPod or your computer’s Quicktime player.
