How do you bring in science news stories into your science classroom? Instead of just bringing in science articles as an example of something we’re learning in class, I like to connect the story to as many science concepts and stories as possible. It’s sort of like what James Burke did on his show Connections, where he once suggested “suggests that telecommunications exist because Normans had stirrups for horse riding which in turn led them to further advancements in warfare.” These science connections show how discoveries are not islands unto themselves but a part of many ideas across many disciplines. So, what’s an interesting story with equally interesting science connections we can use today?

In this post, I share how I connect a news story about proton radius to the name of the biggest search engine today (ie. Google). My grade 8 science students found it interesting (and I think a few light bulbs went off too). Handouts are available for download at the end.

Science Connections: From the small to the very big

Recently, scientists were able to measure the radius of a proton. This obscure piece of knowledge fits in with a lesson on atomic structure, but how might we connect it to everyday life? We outline the connections below:

Start: A new proton radius has been measured

According to researchers, the radius of a proton is 0.831 fm, which is smaller than the previous measurement of 0.88 fm.

Connection 1: What is a fm (femtometer)?

I ask students if they know what fm stands for. Many do not. I say it’s a unit of measurement for length – like kilometer and millimetre. All measurements have a base unit: meter is the base unit for length, seconds for time, and grams for mass.

Connection 2: What are prefixes and what do they mean?

Prefixes represent factors of 10 for a base unit. For example, I ask students how many meters are in a kilometer. Most say 1000. When I ask why, most students have no response. Then I show them a table of prefixes and say point out that kilo always stands for 10^3 (ie. 1000). Thus a kilometer is 1000 metres connected end to end. The prefix mega (m) stands for 10^6. Thus, a megameter is 10^6 or 1000000 meters connected end to end.

On the flip side, milli means 10^-3 (ie. One-thousandth). Therefore, if I take a meter stick and cut it into one thousand equal parts, then what I have left is a millimeter. Similarly, nano means 10^-9 (one billionth). Thus, if we take one meter and cut onto one billion equal parts, then one of those cuts will equal a nanometer.

And what about a femtometer? Femto stands for 10^-15. Thus, if we take a meter stick and cut it into a million parts and then take one of those parts and cut it into a billion parts, then we have a femtometer.

Connection 3: What else are prefixes used for?

What’s interesting about prefixes is that they’re often used to name products or businesses. For example, when Apple came out with the iPod, they also created a smaller version called the iPod Nano. Nano represents 10^-9, which means a nanometer is one-billionth the size of a meter or a meter that has been cut into one billion equal parts.

We can find another example in the beer brewing business. We call large corporations like Anheiser-Busch InBev (who own Budweiser and Stella Artois and brew 355 million barrels of beer annually) breweries. However, we call smaller companies that produce less than 15,000 barrels of beer annually microbreweries. Micro is a prefix meaning 10^-6. For even smaller breweries that brew less than 2,000 barrels of beer annually, we call them nanobreweries.

Connection 4: Prefixes named one of the world’s largest companies?

A Googol is equal to 10^100. In other words, a Googol is a 1 with one hundred zeros following it. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin were looking to change the name of their search engine (at the time named Backrub), they used the idea of a Googol and created the name “Google”.

The Googol is more of an abstract idea than it is an actual value. There is nothing in the universe that is equal to a Googol. The Googol is typically used to compare large values or give large quantities some context. For example, according to Wikipedia, if the observable universe were filled with grains of sand, it would still only equal 10^95. And, if we compare the mass of the universe to the mass of an electron, the universe would still be 10^90 times bigger.

Perhaps a better question is why Bryn and Page named their search engine after such a big mathematical number? And, when will the amount of data or searches that Google processes reach a Googol.

Wrap Up

There are science articles and stories published everyday that may appear to appeal to only a small subset of people. Making science connections between these isolated stories makes what we’re doing in our classrooms more interesting and helps paint a fuller picture of what science is. That is, science is in our everyday life. Click the link below to download our handouts (where we give a copy of the science connections above and include a copy of the news article). Please share our blog with your colleagues (we want to connect with as many colleagues as possible). And, you can also connect with us by joining our Facebook discussion group (Super Science Teachers Co-Lab).

Until next time, keep it REAL.

Resources

Handout(s): 56 – REAL Science – Protons and Prefixes

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