Children Education System

The Way Things Work - Heat & Other Amazing Discoveries (Vol 2)

"Humorous, informative and very educational. Explanations are clear and relevant, with necessary diagrams to explain exactly how things work...These are exceptional physics videos that merit a place in all educational collections." - USA School Library Journal

The Way Things Work is an animated children’s series based on the award-winning international best-selling book by David Macaulay. Each fun-filled episode enables children to understand how the principles of physics affect daily life. On the mythical Mammoth Island, a group of Islanders and their indigenous mammoths are caught up in a series of entertaining adventures which are motivated and inspired by their need to find solutions to various everyday problems. Our guide and interpreter, the Inventor, offers the islanders friendly advice and as they make their amazing discoveries we learn how these fundamentals apply to us today.

The series poses questions such as “Have you ever wondered what a wheelbarrow and a bottle opener have in common? “Did you know that a dentist's drill is a direct descendant of the first windmill?” and sets about explaining the answers using animation. From aircraft to zippers and axles to zoom lenses, The Way Things Work brings to life core principles of physics in a fun and engaging way for children.

SCIENCE CONCEPTS:

HEAT: The inventor discovers just how useful the island mammoth population is in keeping things warm one freezing winter day on Mammoth Island! He reveals that heat can travel from place to place in three ways: conduction, convection and radiation.

COOLING: Creating contraptions to keep cool on Mammoth Island proves to be hot work for Olive and her family. Together with the inventor, they apply what they learn about how refrigerators work and wind up building some machines that are really cool -- with no mammoths necessary!

WHEELS & AXLES: The inhabitants of Mammoth Island decide to use the concept of a wheel and axle to create a feather machine that will help them dry their mammoths. Aside from their feather wheel, the islanders discover that the wheel and axle is at work all around them -- from waterwheels and windmills to turbines and doorknobs.

SCREWS: Inhabitants of Mammoth Island are in the process of building a new observation tower out of stone blocks when one of the islanders gets trapped at the top of the tower. With the help of a visiting gallant knight and his trusty mammoth, they are able to build a ramp around the circular structure and create a giant simple machine known as a screw.