7 Useful YouTube Channels for Science Students and Teachers

Last month I posted a list of useful YouTube channels for history teachers and students. That list proved to be popular so I thought I'd follow-up with a list of useful YouTube channels, not named Khan Academy, for science teachers and students.

The Periodic Table of Videos is a YouTube channel produced by The University of Nottingham. One of the more useful playlists in the channel is The Elements. The table features a video demonstration of the characteristics of elements in the Periodic Table of Elements. In all there are 390 videos divided into 24 playlists about the work of chemists at the university.

Science Bob is a helpful website featuring science fair project ideas for elementary school and middle school students. Science Bob also has a YouTube channel that offers some demonstrations of science experiments and science lessons.

I covered this a couple of weeks ago, but it's worth mentioning again. The Spangler Effect is a new YouTube channel from Steve Spangler Science. Unlike his popular Sick Science videos which are no more than short demonstrations of science experiments students and parents can do at home, The Spangler Effect videos offer longer (15 minutes or so) explanations of science experiments. The Spangler Effect videos explain the science of do-it-yourself experiments and how you can recreate those experiments at home or in your classroom.

Science/Math Concepts with Mr. P is a teacher-produced channel of more than 600 video lessons organized into 40 playlists. You can learn more about Mr. P at Chemistry PapaPodcasts. Don't let the name fool you, the channel is more than just chemistry lessons.

Bright Storm is a company that I've covered before when writing about online mathematics help. Bright Storm's YouTube channel offers video lessons for biology, chemistry, and physics. The videos are nothing more than an instructor lecturing with a whiteboard for a few minutes which could be adequate if a student just needs a refresher on a science topic.

NASA has a few different YouTube channels, but the one that has the most universal utility for teachers and students is NASA eClips. NASA eClips is organized according to grade level with playlists intended for elementary school, middle school, and high school. I've embedded one of the eClips below.

The Open University another resource that I've previously written about in other contexts. Most recently I wrote about their free Frozen Planet feature on the arctic and antarctic regions. The Open University YouTube channel contains many playlists on a wide variety of topics in science. Here's one of their science playlists about DNA and RNA.

Do you have a favorite YouTube channel that should be added to this list? If so, please leave a comment. 

Learn Chemistry - Videos, Lessons, and an Interactive Periodic Table

Learn Chemistry is a production of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The purpose of Learn Chemistry is provide educators with resources for teaching chemistry lessons to students of all ages. The database of instructional resources has more than 2700 entries organized according to topic, age of students, and media type.

 A couple of resources for middle school and high school lessons that stand out are the Faces of Chemistry video series and the Visual Elements Periodic Table. The Faces of Chemistry is a set of short videos that explain how chemistry is an integral part of three fairly common activities; hair coloring, farming, and car exhaust control. The Face of Chemistry videos are targeted toward students between eleven and fourteen years of age. The first video in the series is embedded below.


The Visual Elements Periodic Table is an interactive display of the Periodic Table of Elements. Click on any element in the table to reveal important information about that element. Many of the element information pages include short videos.

Applications for Education
Whether you teach elementary school, middle school, or high school students, Learn Chemistry seems to have something for everyone. Check out the Learn Chemistry Wiki to see materials developed by other teachers, share your own materials, and find partners for collaborative lessons.

Gooru - Great Collections of Science and Math Resources

Gooru is a new service (still carrying the Alpha label) that aims to provide teachers and students with an extensive collection of videos, interactive displays, documents, diagrams, and quizzes for learning about topics in math and science.

As a Gooru member you have access to hundreds of resources according to subject areas such as chemistry, biology, ecology, algebra, calculus, and more. Within each subject area you can look for resources according to media type such as video, interactive display, slides, text, and lesson plans. When you find resources that you want to use, drag them to the resources folder within your account. Gooru also offers you the option to add resources to your folders even if you did not find them within Gooru.

Applications for Education
Gooru could be a great place for math and science teachers to locate lesson plans and other materials to use in their classrooms. Students can create Gooru accounts to find useful review materials and take practice tests on the subjects they're studying.