Super Power Physics Lessons Debut on TED-Ed

Calling all science teachers! Today, TED-Ed launches a new series of physics lessons, Super Power Physics Lessons, and these are definitely lessons worth sharing!
The videos are beautifully produced inside a “comic book” theme that students will love. They address six different super powers: Super Speed, Super Strength, Invisibility, Body Mass, Immortality and Flight. Each video lasts about 5 minutes and basically answers the question of what would happen to our bodies if the laws of physics that govern these capabilities truly took effect.
Just a few examples of the essential questions being addressed in these “super” engaging flipped lessons are: Did you know that if you were invisible then you also technically could not see because no light would reflect off your retina? If you had super strength and actually ran and caught the damsel in distress, that you’d do more damage to her body than the ground would? Or bugs would destroy your face if you could fly? Is it scientifically possible to  be invisible?
“Each short is brilliantly animated and performed… with voice over work done by none other than James Arnold Taylor, the voice of Fred Flinstone and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Leonardo, among countless others. And each lesson was written by Joy Lin—a high school science from Austin, TX.”
If you have not explored TED-Ed yet, teachers need to know it does not just provide high quality content videos and lessons. Anyone can tweak, or completely redo any lesson featured on TED-Ed  (or create lessons from scratch based on any video from YouTube) directly inside the site, and then share those lessons with your students and other educators.  As more and more teachers explore the benefits of flipping their classroom, quality resources like these are essential. Flipping lessons is not necessarily a simple process or something that teachers master the first time around, as one of our incredible teacher bloggers, Susan Lucille Davis, just addressed last week, in her post, Why I Haven’t Flipped… Yet. But, luckily, resources like TED-Ed are continually adding to their library of incredible resources so that teachers to have the means to succeed as they continue updating lessons for digital learning.
This brand new series on TED-Ed will certainly help middle school and high school physics students decide if they really would truly like to sign up as a one of the Avengers… but after checking out these videos, there might not be many takers.
Happy summer lesson planning to all the great physics teachers out there!