Lesson video

Hi, everybody.

It's Miss Simkin here for your next science lesson.

We are going to learn about another notable and very impressive scientist today.

I hope you are as excited as I am and ready to begin.

Let me show you who we're going to learn about today.

Today we are going to learn about Stephen Hawking.

We're going to learn who he is, what his major discoveries are, and we're actually going to have a go at being a presenter, just like Stephen Hawkings has been at certain points in his career.

So here is our lesson agenda today.

So star words, life story, major discoveries.

Then we're going to be a science presenter.

At the end of the lesson, I'm so excited to begin, I keep tripping over my words.

At the end of the lesson, we will, well, not me, you'll have a chance to do your exit quiz and see how much you have remembered.

For this lesson, you will need a piece of paper, a pencil, a coloured pencil if you want to mark your work in a different colour, and a ruler.

If you don't have those things, pause the video and go and get them now, please.

Fantastic.

These are our star words for today, so our key vocabulary.

I'm going to say them, and then you're going to say them.

Black hole.

Presenter.

Big Bang theory.

Paralysed.

Good job.

Let's talk about what they mean.

So a black hole is something that you would find in space, and it's actually an area or region of space that has a gravitational field that's so strong and so intense that nothing can escape from it, not even light.

That's what's called a black hole, 'cause no light can escape from it.

Okay, so gravity is a force that we know about.

Gravity is the force that acts when I drop this pencil.

What's going to happen when I let go of this pencil? It's going to drop.

That's the force of gravity acting on it.

Okay? So the force of gravity is so strong inside a black hole that nothing can escape, not even light.

The Big Bang theory you might have heard of before.

It's an explanation of how our universe began.

A presenter is a type of job, and a presenter is a person who introduces and appears in a television programme.

And paralysed means a person or a part of the body that cannot move.

So if, for example, your arm was paralysed, then you wouldn't be able to move your arm.

If you were to describe a person as paralysed, then that means that they wouldn't be able to move their body.

Let's learn about Stephen Hawkings and his life.

So this is Stephen Hawking, and he was born in 1942 in the UK.

And he actually died only a few years ago.

So he would have been alive in your time.

In 1963, Hawking was very sadly diagnosed with a disease called, a motor-neuron disease, called ALS.

What was the name of the disease? ALS, and this disease is one that gradually paralysed him over time.

So that's why you can see Stephen Hawking in his wheelchair, and he was very well known.

Most pictures of him you'll see in his wheelchair because it started to affect him quite early in his life.

And because he became paralysed gradually over time, that means it got worse and worse.

So his movement became more limited, and more parts of his body stopped being able to move.

At one point in his life, he stopped being able to speak because the muscles that he needed to speak became paralysed.

However, due to some really good technology, he was able to communicate through a speech generating machine, but like a robot, that was initially made of like a handheld switch, so he could use his hands to control it and tell it what words to say.

But eventually his hands became paralysed as well.

And so it was such a clever machine that it could actually tell the instructions that he was giving it just by the movement of one of his cheek muscles.

So very impressive bit of technology that allowed Stephen Hawkings to communicate through almost like a robotic voice when his own voice equipment became paralysed.

So that's also something that he's quite well known for.

You'll often see images of him, you can actually see it in front of him in his wheelchair there, this like screen that he's using to speak from.

Despite these challenges, And these are really big challenges for anybody in their life to face, Stephen Hawkings still manages to be one of the best-known scientists and a really, really incredible scientist.

So he studied physics at Oxford, and he got a PhD from Cambridge.

Those are the two best universities in the country, and Stephen Hawkings went to both.

And these are some of the amazing things that he achieved in his lifetime.

He was voted number 25 of the 100 greatest Britons of all time.

So of all the billions of people who have lived in Britain, he's been voted number 25.

It's pretty good.

He is considered by many to be one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century.

He starred over 10 documentaries.

He's won over 20 prizes and awards.

And he's written over 15 books.

Now let's take a look at some of his major discoveries and achievements, but just before we do, I'm going to test your memory.

How many books did he write? It was over, say it to your screen, 15.

Well done if you remembered.

And how many documentaries did he star in? Say it to your screen.

10.

Great.

And can you remember he was number what of the greatest Britons of all time? 25.

Good job.

So, Stephen Hawking spent most of his scientific career studying black holes.

They were a bit of an obsession of his, and before he started studying them, and even now, they were a very, very mysterious thing.

They were something that people did not know a lot about.

So remember they're a region in space that has a gravitational field that's so strong that no matter can escape.

And Stephen Hawkings found out some really interesting things about black holes during his career.

So in the 1960s, Hawking set out to describe the physical characteristics of black holes.

And he showed that when a star collapses, this is when a black hole is born.

So it's born, or it's formed, when a star collapses, and Stephen Hawkings proved that.

So that's his first major discovery about a black hole, formed when a collapses.

Can you repeat that back to me to help it stick in your head? What was his first discovery? Formed when a star collapses.

Great.

Then, about 10 years later, his next major discovery was an unusual one.

He discovered that black holes are actually not black at all.

They're, in fact, white hot.

So he discovered that they're so hot, they're white hot.

And then his third discovery about black holes that he showed was that all black holes eventually evaporate or boil themselves away, and they expire.

That means they end.

They come to the end of their life in a brilliant burst of energy that's the equivalent to a million one-megaton hydrogen bombs, so an explosion that is almost too big for us to imagine.

So that was the third thing that he discovered, that they eventually evaporate, and when they expire, it's in a burst of energy.

What happens when they expire? Can you do the action to help you remember? Great.

They expire in a burst of energy.

So those are Stephen Hawking's three major discoveries, formed when a star collapses, white hot, and evaporate and expire in a burst of energy.

We're going to try and learn things now.

Can you please read each of the discoveries on the screen and count them on your fingers, just like I just did? Great.

Now can you see if you can do it with your eyes closed? So see if you can remember all three.

I'm going to go fast.

Formed when a star collapses, white hot, ooh, I might have to have a tiny little peek, evaporate and expire in a burst of energy.

So I needed to peek a little bit there, but now next time I do it, I'll find it easier.

Okay? We're trying to learn these three things.

So can you do the same? Can you try and do it with your eyes closed? If you need to have a little peek that's okay, just be sneaky about it.

Off you go.

Good job.

Did you remember all three? Great.

So he also studied something called the Big Bang theory, and although Stephen Hawking didn't come up with this theory himself, he did prove some things about it.

So remember the Big Bang theory is an explanation of how our universe began.

And with another Oxford mathematician called Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking showed, he proved that if there was a Big Bang, it must have started from an infinitely small point, from a singularity.

So he proved that about the Big Bang theory, that it must have started from a singularity, an infinitely small point, which is a really important part of the theory.

Tell your screen, what did he discover about the Big Bang theory? Yes, that it must've started from an infinitely small point.

Say that with me, infinitely small point.

Great.

He also wrote a book called "A Brief History of Time." This is one of his over 10 books that he wrote, but this is probably one of his most famous.

It was published in 1988.

And he explains, in this book, a range of subjects like the Big Bang theory, like black holes, and other elements of the universe that he was studying.

And this book became a best-selling book that broke records.

It was on the best-seller list for 237 weeks, which is very, very impressive.

That's that spanning years.

So it was on the best-seller list for years.

And one of his greatest achievements was actually taking really complicated science, like black holes and the Big Bang theory, and making it easy for other people to understand and making it enjoyable to read about.

So that was one of his biggest successes.

And it's why his book was so successful, because he was taking these really tricky concepts and making them easy to understand.

Okay, I've got some questions for you.

Can you please answer these questions on your piece of paper? What three things did Stephen Hawking discover about black holes? What is the Big Bang theory, and why was his book so successful? Try and answer them without going back to the video.

And then if you're really stuck, you can always rewind a little bit and hear the explanation again.

Don't worry.

We'll go through the answers too.

Pause the video and answer these questions for me now, please.

Great.

Let's mark our answers.

So what three things did Stephen Hawking discover about black holes? I'm going to tell you the three things.

I'm going to test myself and see if I can remember.

And if you got each one correct, then you can give yourself a tick.

So the first one was that they form, or they're made, when a star collapses.

Give yourself a tick if you've got that one, right.

The second one is that they're white hot.

Give yourself a tick if you got that one right.

And the third thing was that they eventually evaporate, and when they expire, they come to the end of their life, they release a huge burst of energy.

Give yourself a tick if you got that one right.

The answer to number two, the Big Bang theory is an explanation of how the universe began.

Give yourself a tick if you got that right.

If you didn't that's okay.

Correct yourself now.

And number three, his book was so successful because it made complicated science easy to understand.

Give yourself a tick if you got that right.

You might have written it in slightly different words.

That's okay, as long as that main idea is there, taking the complicated and making it easy.

If you need more time to correct these answers, pause the video and do that for me now.

Otherwise, we're going to move on to our next section of the lesson.

Being a scientist is not just about finding out new things, although Stephen Hawking did do a lot of that.

It's also about communicating and teaching those ideas to other people.

So one of the things that actually set Stephen Hawking apart from some of the other scientists that we've learned about in this unit, or that you might have learned back in the past is that he was in the public eye a lot.

He wrote books.

He appeared in movies, TV shows.

He gave regular talks.

He wrote for newspapers.

He gave interviews, and he also presented a lot of science documentaries.

So it's why he was so well known.

So today in the second part of our lesson, we are go into practise being a science presenter, like Stephen Hawking.

So these are the steps you are going to follow to plan your presentation.

The first thing you need to do is you need to choose your topic.

So you have free choice today.

You can choose to do your presentation on any area of science that interests you.

Maybe it could be about black holes that we've learned today or something else that you've studied in school or read in a book.

It could be about your favourite animal.

It could be about electricity, about plants, about habitats, about space, about a famous scientist that you really love, whatever you want, as long as it's science related.

Then step two, you're going to do some research on that topic.

It might be that you already have lots of facts in your head, in which case great.

Maybe you don't have to do very much research, but it might be that you want to learn about a new topic or get some really great facts.

So I would, if you have access to any books on your topic, use books.

You might have some at home, or you might have access to a library today.

And you can also do some research on the internet.

So some websites that are really good to use are BBC Bitesize is great for science searching, and generally just using Google and searching for definitions and things like that will bring you up some good science learning.

So you're going to choose your topic and do some research.

Then you're going to write your script.

And your script is going to be what you're going to say.

So, for example, if I was doing a project, ooh, what would I choose? So many things I love to talk about.

I would probably choose my favourite animal, dolphins.

Okay, so I'd then go and do some research on dolphins, and then I would write a script.

So I'd plan out exactly what I'm going to say.

I'd probably start by writing an introduction, so explaining what I'm doing and what I'm presenting on.

So I'd say something like, "Hi, I'm going to talk to you all about dolphins today." So I'd write that down in my script.

Hi, I'm going to talk to you all about dolphins today.

And then I'd write down my dolphin information that I wanted to present.

The good thing about writing a script means that you plan what you're going to say, and you're not going to get through halfway through your presentation and go, "Um, I can't remember what I was going to say here." And it also means that you can use it to practise from or have a little sneaky look at while you're presenting.

The next thing I would suggest doing is drawing some pictures or making a visual to go with your presentation.

Normally, when people are presenting a topic, it's not just them standing in front of a screen and explaining it.

They will normally have something in the background to help them explain it, or a PowerPoint like in this lesson.

So you might want to make some Google Slides if you're comfortable doing that, or a really simple thing that everybody could do is just to draw yourself a poster that you can stick up in the background while you're presenting.

So for example, if my presentation was on dolphins, I would probably draw a picture of a dolphin.

I'd stick it up behind me, and then I would be able to refer to it while I was giving my presentation.

I'd be able to say, "Dolphins have flippers and fins," and I'd be able to point to the flippers and fins.

And then your next step is to have a practise.

So write your script, draw your visuals, have a run through, a practise, when no one else is around, and then, number six, your challenge for today is to present to somebody else on your topic.

So you could choose somebody in your house to present to.

Or you could film yourself and to show it to somebody who's not in your house at a later date as well.

Can you pause the video and write these steps down now so that you don't forget them? Great.

Well done for all your hard work today and a well done in advance for the presentation that you're going to create once this video finishes.

If you want to share your work that you've done today or a video of your presentation, then I would absolutely love to see it.

You can share your work with Oak National by asking a parent or a carer, it's very important that you don't send it in yourself, and ask your parent or carer to tag Oak National and the hashtag LearnwithOak.

And you can also tag @Teach_STEMinism, and then I will be able to see it too.

Don't forget to take your end-of-lesson quiz and then good luck with your presentation.

Have a fantastic rest of your day.