Cruz’N With Science

Find out
for yourself.

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

On air CH 05

Weather

Lightning is about five times hotter than the surface of the sun.

The Wow Files 01 / 15

True things that sound invented. Read them all

Start here4 episodes

If you have never seen the show, open one of these first.

Doors out of here33 destinations

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.

Live 3D NASA Eyes on the Solar System Fly the actual solar system, with every planet at the position it occupies right now, built on real NASA mission data. Grab time and drag it forward to watch the orbits run. Open it Live data nullschool Live global wind map Every wind on Earth, moving, drawn from live forecast models. Switch the overlay to temperature or pressure and weather stops being weather and becomes a system you can read. Open it Live cam Monterey Bay Aquarium Live animal cams Live cameras inside the kelp forest and open sea tanks. Pick one animal, watch it for ten minutes, write down what it actually does — you have just made a systematic observation. Open it Tour Smithsonian Natural History Museum virtual tour Walk the halls of the Smithsonian from a laptop, room by room, stopping in front of whatever you like for as long as you like. No queue, no crowd, no closing time. Open it Live data NOAA National Weather Service The live forecast for your zip code, straight from the source instead of from a television. Click the map and read the actual discussion the forecasters wrote. Open it Build it Exploratorium Science Snacks Hundreds of real demonstrations from San Francisco's Exploratorium, each with a materials list you can mostly raid from a kitchen. Filter by subject and pick a fight with one. Open it Simulation PhET, University of Colorado Balloons and Static Electricity Rub the balloon on the sweater and watch individual electrons move across. Then hold it near the wall and see attraction happen with no contact whatsoever. Open it Citizen science Zooniverse Zooniverse: real research, open to you Working scientists post data they cannot get through alone — galaxy shapes, penguin counts, century-old weather logs — and anyone may help classify it. Your work ends up in real papers. Open it

Every destination, by subject

Built on real standards

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.

Open the standards map

Episode strand

Matter & Chemistry

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

  • Food science
  • Asking a testable question
  • Chemical change
  • Reaction rate
  • States of matter
  • Phase change
  • Dissolved gas
  • Pressure
  • Polymers
  • Absorption
  • Enzymes
  • Decomposition reaction
  • Density
  • Polarity
  • Chemical change
  • Combustion
  • Demonstration
  • Science communication
  • States of matter
  • Particles

SC.5.P.8.1 · SC.5.P.8.4

Episode strand

Forces, Heat & Energy

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

  • Thermal conduction
  • Insulators
  • Gravity
  • Free fall
  • Air resistance
  • Energy transformation
  • Induction
  • Static electricity
  • Electric charge
  • Microwave radiation
  • Conductors
  • Forms of energy
  • Light & sound

SC.5.P.10.1

  • Solar energy
  • Radiant energy

Episode strand

Air, Weather & Earth

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

  • Air pressure
  • Properties of matter
  • Water cycle
  • Condensation
  • Air pressure
  • Volume
  • Atmospheric pressure
  • Weather
  • Vortices
  • Tornado formation
  • Air pressure
  • Atmosphere

Episode strand

Specials & Seasonal

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 flavour of the whole series at once.

4 episodes · 1 h 03 m

  • Sublimation
  • Dry ice
  • Lab safety
  • Season one highlights
  • Air pressure
  • Atmosphere
  • Solar energy
  • Radiant energy

One topic at a time

The Classroom

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

  • Course trailer
  • 2026–2027
  • Scientific investigation
  • Evidence vs. opinion

SC.5.N.1.1 · SC.5.N.2.1 · SC.5.N.2.2

  • States of matter
  • Particles

SC.5.P.8.1 · SC.5.P.8.4

  • Forms of energy
  • Light & sound

SC.5.P.10.1

Check every one

The Wow Files

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

Space & the Solar System

The scale that does not fit inside a head.

Water, Weather & Earth

The systems you are standing inside right now.

Matter & Chemistry

What things are made of, and what heat does to them.

Energy & Forces

Heat, charge and sound - and what your senses are really measuring.

Living Things & Bodies

Bodies, including the one you are reading this with.

Thirty-three destinations

Somewhere Else Entirely

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

Water, Weather & Earth8 destinations

Live instruments. What the atmosphere and the ground are doing at the moment you load the page.

Reference The water cycle, mapped U.S. Geological Survey The USGS water cycle diagram with every arrow explained, and the ocean sitting where it belongs — at the centre of the whole system rather than off to one side. Reference Weather and atmosphere collection NOAA Assembled by the agency that actually forecasts the weather: air pressure, humidity, wind, clouds, hurricanes and climate zones, with data and lessons for each. Live data National Weather Service NOAA The live forecast for your zip code, straight from the source instead of from a television. Click the map and read the actual discussion the forecasters wrote. Live data Live global wind map nullschool Every wind on Earth, moving, drawn from live forecast models. Switch the overlay to temperature or pressure and weather stops being weather and becomes a system you can read. Live data National Hurricane Center NOAA The real forecasts Florida runs on. During season you can watch a storm's cone get drawn and redrawn as new evidence arrives — science correcting itself in public. Activity Build a family disaster plan Ready.gov The federal preparedness site's section for students, including a fill-in family plan. This is the one benchmark on the whole list you can finish at your kitchen table tonight. Live data Live earthquake map U.S. Geological Survey Every earthquake detected anywhere on the planet in the last hour, plotted as the readings come in. Check it across a week and the plate boundaries draw themselves. Gallery Scientific Visualization Studio NASA NASA's own studio turns satellite data into animations: ice thickness, ocean currents, carbon moving through the atmosphere over a year. Real measurements, made watchable.

Why this list exists

Benchmark by Benchmark

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

The Practice of ScienceNature of Science

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.

Watch

SC.5.N.1.6

Recognize and explain the difference between personal opinion/interpretation and verified observation.

Watch

Properties & Changes in MatterPhysical Science

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.

Watch

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.

Watch

Forms of Energy & Energy TransferPhysical Science

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.

Forces & Changes in MotionPhysical Science

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.13.4

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.

Watch

Earth Systems & PatternsEarth & Space Science

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.

Earth in Space & TimeEarth & Space Science

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.

Living Organisms & Their EnvironmentsLife Science

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.

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

The Complete Archive

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

  • Food science
  • Asking a testable question
  • Chemical change
  • Reaction rate
  • Thermal conduction
  • Insulators
  • Air pressure
  • Properties of matter
  • States of matter
  • Phase change
  • Water cycle
  • Condensation
  • Sublimation
  • Dry ice
  • Lab safety
  • Gravity
  • Free fall
  • Air resistance
  • Dissolved gas
  • Pressure
  • Air pressure
  • Volume
  • Energy transformation
  • Induction
  • Static electricity
  • Electric charge
  • Season one highlights
  • Polymers
  • Absorption
  • Enzymes
  • Decomposition reaction
  • Density
  • Polarity
  • Atmospheric pressure
  • Weather
  • Chemical change
  • Combustion
  • Microwave radiation
  • Conductors
  • Vortices
  • Tornado formation
  • Demonstration
  • Science communication
  • Air pressure
  • Atmosphere
  • Course trailer
  • 2026–2027
  • Scientific investigation
  • Evidence vs. opinion

SC.5.N.1.1 · SC.5.N.2.1 · SC.5.N.2.2

  • Forms of energy
  • Light & sound

SC.5.P.10.1

  • Solar energy
  • Radiant energy
  • States of matter
  • Particles

SC.5.P.8.1 · SC.5.P.8.4

Questions and ideas

Ask Mr. Cruz

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, say so — that is genuinely how episodes get chosen. Every message is read by a person.

Students: check with a parent or teacher before you send your email address to anyone, including Mr. Cruz. Your message goes to his inbox and nowhere else — it is not published on this site and the address is never shared.