- Sublimation
- Dry ice
- Lab safety
Dry ice never melts — at −78.5 °C it goes straight from solid to gas, a jump called sublimation, and that is where all the fog comes from. It is also the episode where the pumpkin doubles as a lesson in what not to do.
A place to go when you want to know how something actually works. Demonstrations filmed in a science lab, grouped by the science inside them. Live instruments and working simulations you can open and push on yourself. And a file of true things about the world that sound invented, with the numbers to check them.
Two doors out of this page
Weather
Lightning is about five times hotter than the surface of the sun.
True things that sound invented. Read them all
If you have never seen the show, open one of these first.
Dry ice never melts — at −78.5 °C it goes straight from solid to gas, a jump called sublimation, and that is where all the fog comes from. It is also the episode where the pumpkin doubles as a lesson in what not to do.
Rubbing two materials together does not make electricity — it moves electrons from one surface onto the other. One side ends up short, the other ends up with extra, and opposite charges pull. The cling, the shock and the hair standing up are all the same effect.
Air is invisible, so it is easy to treat an empty container as actually empty. It is not — and the mystery in this episode only works because your brain quietly assumes otherwise.
A clip show pulling the best moments from the first half of season one — the fastest way to see what the series is before committing to a full episode. Fair warning: the studio is decorated for December.
This site is not the last stop. These are the places worth an afternoon — live instruments, real research and working simulations, all free and none of them asking you to sign up.
Everything here is tied to a published list of what a science student should actually be able to do, quoted word for word rather than paraphrased. That is the difference between a course and a pile of interesting videos.
Episode strand
Solids, liquids, gases, and the changes that cannot be undone. Density, polarity, phase change, polymers, enzymes and reactions — including the two most-watched episodes the show ever aired.
10 episodes · 1 h 28 m
SC.5.P.8.1 · SC.5.P.8.4
Nothing matches that. Try a broader word — air, heat, water.
Episode strand
Gravity, heat, charge and radiation — the things that move other things. Why a metal spoon burns you, why a doorknob bites in winter, and how turning a handle becomes sound.
7 episodes · 1 h 04 m
SC.5.P.10.1
Nothing matches that. Try a broader word — air, heat, water.
Episode strand
Air is a substance with mass, and it is pressing on you right now. Atmospheric pressure, condensation, the water cycle, and how a tornado gets its spin.
6 episodes · 1 h 08 m
Nothing matches that. Try a broader word — air, heat, water.
Episode strand
The two long-form episodes: a Halloween dry-ice hour and a season-one clip show. Looser, funnier, and the fastest way to get the flavor of the whole series at once.
4 episodes · 1 h 03 m
Nothing matches that. Try a broader word — air, heat, water.
One topic at a time
Short films that take a single science topic and explain it properly — what it is, how it works, and how anyone would know. They follow a fifth grade course, but nothing here is only for fifth graders. If a topic is new to you, this is a good place to start, whatever age you are. More arrive as the year goes on.
4 episodes · 9 min
SC.5.N.1.1 · SC.5.N.2.1 · SC.5.N.2.2
SC.5.P.8.1 · SC.5.P.8.4
SC.5.P.10.1
Nothing matches that. Try a broader word — air, heat, water.
Check every one
Every one of these is true, and every one of them sounds like it could not be. Open one and you get the real numbers, a plain explanation of why it works, and a place you can go to check it for yourself. You do not have to watch anything first. A few connect to an episode of the show. Most just connect to the world.
Real numbers · all of them checkable
The scale that does not fit inside a head.
The systems you are standing inside right now.
What things are made of, and what heat does to them.
Heat, charge and sound - and what your senses are really measuring.
Bodies, including the one you are reading this with.
Thirty-three destinations
Doors out of this website and into the actual instruments: NASA's live solar system, the wind moving over the planet right now, working simulations from the University of Colorado, and cameras pointed at animals who do not know you are watching. Every link checked by hand.
33 links · all verified 29 July 2026 · every one opens in a new tab
No episode of the show reaches this far yet, so every door here is one NASA or an observatory built.
Live instruments. What the atmosphere and the ground are doing at the moment you load the page.
Working simulations for the things too small, too fast or too hot to put on a table in front of you.
Build the circuit, move the electrons, and follow energy through every form it takes without losing track of it.
Set the forces yourself and watch the sum. Gravity with a number attached to it.
Organs, adaptations, and animals being watched live by cameras they are unaware of.
The part that outlasts fifth grade: evidence, replication, and real research you are allowed to join.
Why this list exists
A science standard is an agreed statement of what someone should actually be able to do — describe the water cycle, identify a control group, explain why a circuit needs a complete loop. Writing it down is what turns “learn some science” into something you can actually check. This page takes that list and connects every item on it to something you can watch or go and do.
Quoted exactly as written · every one with somewhere to go next
Eight benchmarks about how knowing anything actually works — testable observations, repeated trials, control groups, and the difference between evidence and a confident opinion. This is the part of fifth grade science that outlives fifth grade.
SC.5.N.1.1
Define a problem, use appropriate reference materials to support scientific understanding, plan and carry out scientific investigations of various types such as: systematic observations, experiments requiring the identification of variables, collecting and organizing data, interpreting data in charts, tables, and graphics, analyze information, make predictions, and defend conclusions.
SC.5.N.1.2
Explain the difference between an experiment and other types of scientific investigation.
SC.5.N.1.3
Recognize and explain the need for repeated experimental trials.
SC.5.N.1.4
Identify a control group and explain its importance in an experiment.
No episode covers this one yet.
SC.5.N.1.5
Recognize and explain that authentic scientific investigation frequently does not parallel the steps of "the scientific method."
SC.5.N.1.6
Recognize and explain the difference between personal opinion/interpretation and verified observation.
SC.5.N.2.1
Recognize and explain that science is grounded in empirical observations that are testable; explanation must always be linked with evidence.
SC.5.N.2.2
Recognize and explain that when scientific investigations are carried out, the evidence produced by those investigations should be replicable by others.
Five benchmarks on what matter is and what heat does to it. The show's two most-watched episodes live here, and so does the strangest idea in the whole grade: that everything is built from parts nobody can see.
SC.5.P.8.1
Compare and contrast the basic properties of solids, liquids, and gases, such as mass, volume, color, texture, and temperature.
SC.5.P.8.2
Investigate and identify materials that will dissolve in water and those that will not and identify the conditions that will speed up or slow down the dissolving process.
SC.5.P.8.3
Demonstrate and explain that mixtures of solids can be separated based on observable properties of their parts such as particle size, shape, color, and magnetic attraction.
No episode covers this one yet.
SC.5.P.8.4
Explore the scientific theory of atoms (also called atomic theory) by recognizing that all matter is composed of parts that are too small to be seen without magnification.
SC.5.P.9.1
Investigate and describe that many physical and chemical changes are affected by temperature.
Six benchmarks on energy: the six forms it takes, how it changes from one into another, and why electricity needs a complete loop. Four episodes cover this ground, including the one with no battery in it anywhere.
SC.5.P.10.1
Investigate and describe some basic forms of energy, including light, heat, sound, electrical, chemical, and mechanical.
SC.5.P.10.2
Investigate and explain that energy has the ability to cause motion or create change.
SC.5.P.10.3
Investigate and explain that an electrically-charged object can attract an uncharged object and can either attract or repel another charged object without any contact between the objects.
SC.5.P.10.4
Investigate and explain that electrical energy can be transformed into heat, light, and sound energy, as well as the energy of motion.
SC.5.P.11.1
Investigate and illustrate the fact that the flow of electricity requires a closed circuit (a complete loop).
SC.5.P.11.2
Identify and classify materials that conduct electricity and materials that do not.
Four benchmarks on pushes, pulls, mass and balance. The gravity episode covers the first three; the fourth — why a thing can have enormous force on it and not move at all — is the whole point of The Bone Crusher.
SC.5.P.13.1
Identify familiar forces that cause objects to move, such as pushes or pulls, including gravity acting on falling objects.
SC.5.P.13.2
Investigate and describe that the greater the force applied to it, the greater the change in motion of a given object.
SC.5.P.13.3
Investigate and describe that the more mass an object has, the less effect a given force will have on the object's motion.
SC.5.P.13.4
Investigate and explain that when a force is applied to an object but it does not move, it is because another opposing force is being applied by something in the environment so that the forces are balanced.
Seven benchmarks on water, weather and climate — the most Florida-relevant group on the list. Barometric pressure, wind, precipitation, climate zones, and a family plan for the storm that is eventually coming.
SC.5.E.7.1
Create a model to explain the parts of the water cycle. Water can be a gas, a liquid, or a solid and can go back and forth from one state to another.
SC.5.E.7.2
Recognize that the ocean is an integral part of the water cycle and is connected to all of Earth's water reservoirs via evaporation and precipitation processes.
SC.5.E.7.3
Recognize how air temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, and precipitation determine the weather in a particular place and time.
SC.5.E.7.4
Distinguish among the various forms of precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, and hail), making connections to the weather in a particular place and time.
SC.5.E.7.5
Recognize that some of the weather-related differences, such as temperature and humidity, are found among different environments, such as swamps, deserts, and mountains.
No episode covers this one yet.
SC.5.E.7.6
Describe characteristics (temperature and precipitation) of different climate zones as they relate to latitude, elevation, and proximity to bodies of water.
No episode covers this one yet.
SC.5.E.7.7
Design a family preparedness plan for natural disasters and identify the reasons for having such a plan.
Three benchmarks on the solar system and our own galaxy. No episode of the show covers this yet — so this group is entirely external, and every destination in it is one NASA built.
SC.5.E.5.1
Recognize that a galaxy consists of gas, dust, and many stars, including any objects orbiting the stars. Identify our home galaxy as the Milky Way.
No episode covers this one yet.
SC.5.E.5.2
Recognize the major common characteristics of all planets and compare/contrast the properties of inner and outer planets.
No episode covers this one yet.
SC.5.E.5.3
Distinguish among the following objects of the Solar System -- Sun, planets, moons, asteroids, comets -- and identify Earth's position in it.
No episode covers this one yet.
Four benchmarks on bodies and survival: every major organ and what it does, how plants and animals solve the same problems differently, and what happens to a population when its environment changes.
SC.5.L.14.1
Identify the organs in the human body and describe their functions, including the skin, brain, heart, lungs, stomach, liver, intestines, pancreas, muscles and skeleton, reproductive organs, kidneys, bladder, and sensory organs.
SC.5.L.14.2
Compare and contrast the function of organs and other physical structures of plants and animals, including humans, for example: some animals have skeletons for support -- some with internal skeletons others with exoskeletons -- while some plants have stems for support.
No episode covers this one yet.
SC.5.L.15.1
Describe how, when the environment changes, differences between individuals allow some plants and animals to survive and reproduce while others die or move to new locations.
No episode covers this one yet.
SC.5.L.17.1
Compare and contrast adaptations displayed by animals and plants that enable them to survive in different environments such as life cycles variations, animal behaviors and physical characteristics.
No episode covers this one yet.
Why bother with a list at all? Because “learn some science” is not a plan. A benchmark says exactly what a person should be able to do, which makes it possible to find out whether the learning actually happened rather than assuming it did. It is also how anyone notices what has not been covered yet, which is far more useful than a comfortable feeling that everything is fine.
The wording here is quoted word for word rather than paraphrased, so students and families can read exactly what is being asked instead of somebody else’s summary of it. These particular benchmarks come from Florida’s science standards, because that is the course this site grew out of. Other states and countries order things differently and use different words. The science underneath does not change.
Full index
Every public film on the channel, in the order it originally aired. Search by title, topic, or the science inside it.
27 films · 22 show episodes · 4 h 13 m
SC.5.N.1.1 · SC.5.N.2.1 · SC.5.N.2.2
SC.5.P.10.1
SC.5.P.8.1 · SC.5.P.8.4
Nothing matches that. Try a broader word — air, heat, water.
Questions and ideas
If something on this site raised a question, ask it. If there is something you want to understand and there is no film about it yet, let us know. Every message is read by a human.