The National Science Foundation has partnered with NBC Learn (the educational arm of NBC News) to release the 'Science and Engineering of the 2014 Olympic Winter.
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Science of the Olympic Winter Games 2. NBC Learn, the educational arm of NBC News, has teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to produce Science of the Olympic Winter Games, a 1. Olympic events, including Downhill and Aerial Skiing, Speed Skating and Figure Skating, Curling and Hockey, and.
Ski Jumping, Bobsledding and Snowboarding.
This groundbreaking project between the NSF and NBC Learn uses the global spotlight of the Olympics to make. Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius- -Swifter, Higher, Stronger. Read more about the "
Each video is complemented with lesson plans which include fun classroom activities. The lesson plans were written by teachers at Academic Business Consultants for grades 6- 9 and are aligned with California State Standards. Get your lesson plans and activities at
The United States hasn't won an Olympic medal in cross- country skiing since 1. If they're. successful, you can be certain it's due to their incredible endurance- -cross- country skiers are among the fittest athletes in the world. Deborah King, an associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences at Ithaca College and Joseph Francisco, president of the. American Chemical Society, look at the biochemistry of human endurance.
Olympic athletes have long worn special competition clothing to gain an edge. Science and technology continue to improve on what they wear.
Hear from Olympians Chad Hedrick, Steve Holcomb and Erin Hamlin, and Melissa Hines, the director of the Cornell University Center for Materials Research, about how the latest in competition suits will go to work for Team USA in Vancouver.
(5: 0.The Science of Skates
The ice skates worn by this year's hockey players, figure skaters and speed skaters are vastly different from what were once used. Melissa Hines, the Director of the Cornell University Center for Materials.
Research, and Sam Colbeck, a retired scientist from the U. S. Army Cold Regions Lab, explain how innovations in boot and blade design help. View video
(5: 5. Figuring Out Figure SkatingEvery four years, we watch the stakes for Olympic figure skaters get higher, as they try to increase rotation in the air with their triple axels and quadruple toe loops. How do they do that? It's a scientific principle that we asked Olympic hopeful Rachael Flatt, and Deborah King, an.
Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences at Ithaca College, to help explain.
(5: 3. Banking on Speed (Bobsled)
The winter games in Vancouver provide a chance for the United States' four- man bobsled team to win its first gold medal in more than 6.
And with the help of Paul Doherty, senior scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Deborah King, associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences at Ithaca College, physicist George Tuthill of Plymouth State University, and bobsled designer Bob Cuneo, the team explains how they hope to accomplish this feat.
(3: 5. Air Lift (Ski Jump)
This year, the U. S. team is a serious medal contender in Nordic.
Combined, a sport that combines ski jumping with cross- country skiing.
Olympic Games - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (French: Jeux olympiques[1]) are the leading international sporting event featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games are considered to be the world's foremost sports competition with more than 2. The Olympic Games are held every four years, with the Summer and Winter Games alternating by occurring every four years but two years apart. Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Olympia, Greece, from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1.
The IOC is the governing body of the Olympic Movement, with the Olympic Charter defining its structure and authority. The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 2. Olympic Games. Some of these adjustments include the creation of the Winter Olympic Games for ice and winter sports, the Paralympic Games for athletes with a disability, and the Youth Olympic Games for teenage athletes. The IOC has had to adapt to a variety of economic, political, and technological advancements. As a result, the Olympics has shifted away from pure amateurism, as envisioned by Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes.
The growing importance of mass media created the issue of corporate sponsorship and commercialization of the Games. World wars led to the cancellation of the 1. Games. Large boycotts during the Cold War limited participation in the 1.
Games. The Olympic Movement consists of international sports federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs), and organizing committees for each specific Olympic Games. As the decision- making body, the IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Games, and organizes and funds the Games according to the Olympic Charter. The IOC also determines the Olympic program, consisting of the sports to be contested at the Games. There are several Olympic rituals and symbols, such as the Olympic flag and torch, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. Over 1. 3,0. 00 athletes compete at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in 3. The first, second, and third- place finishers in each event receive Olympic medals: gold, silver, and bronze, respectively. The Games have grown so much that nearly every nation is now represented.
This growth has created numerous challenges and controversies, including boycotts, doping, bribery, and a terrorist attack in 1. Every two years the Olympics and its media exposure provide unknown athletes with the chance to attain national and sometimes international fame. The Games also constitute an opportunity for the host city and country to showcase themselves to the world. Ancient Olympics.
The Ancient Olympic Games were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece. Competition was among representatives of several city- states and kingdoms of Ancient Greece. These Games featured mainly athletic but also combat sports such as wrestling and the pankration, horse and chariot racing events.
It has been widely written that during the Games, all conflicts among the participating city- states were postponed until the Games were finished. This cessation of hostilities was known as the Olympic peace or truce.[3] This idea is a modern myth because the Greeks never suspended their wars. The truce did allow those religious pilgrims who were traveling to Olympia to pass through warring territories unmolested because they were protected by Zeus.[4] The origin of the Olympics is shrouded in mystery and legend; one of the most popular myths identifies Heracles and his father Zeus as the progenitors of the Games.[6] According to legend, it was Heracles who first called the Games "Olympic" and established the custom of holding them every four years.[9] The myth continues that after Heracles completed his twelve labors, he built the Olympic Stadium as an honor to Zeus. Following its completion, he walked in a straight line for 2. Greek: ПѓП„О¬ОґО№ОїОЅ, Latin: stadium, "stage"), which later became a unit of distance. The most widely accepted inception date for the Ancient Olympics is 7. BC; this is based on inscriptions, found at Olympia, listing the winners of a footrace held every four years starting in 7.
BC.[1. 0] The Ancient Games featured running events, a pentathlon (consisting of a jumping event, discus and javelin throws, a foot race, and wrestling), boxing, wrestling, pankration, and equestrian events.[1. Tradition has it that Coroebus, a cook from the city of Elis, was the first Olympic champion. The Olympics were of fundamental religious importance, featuring sporting events alongside ritual sacrifices honoring both Zeus (whose famous statue by Phidias stood in his temple at Olympia) and Pelops, divine hero and mythical king of Olympia. Pelops was famous for his chariot race with King Oenomaus of Pisatis. The winners of the events were admired and immortalized in poems and statues. The Games were held every four years, and this period, known as an Olympiad, was used by Greeks as one of their units of time measurement. The Games were part of a cycle known as the Panhellenic Games, which included the Pythian Games, the Nemean Games, and the Isthmian Games.[1.
The Olympic Games reached their zenith in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, but then gradually declined in importance as the Romans gained power and influence in Greece. While there is no scholarly consensus as to when the Games officially ended, the most commonly held date is 3.
AD, when the emperor Theodosius I decreed that all pagan cults and practices be eliminated.[1. Another date commonly cited is 4. AD, when his successor, Theodosius II, ordered the destruction of all Greek temples. Modern Games. Forerunners. Various uses of the term "Olympic" to describe athletic events in the modern era have been documented since the 1. The first such event was the Cotswold Games or "Cotswold Olimpick Games", an annual meeting near Chipping Campden, England, involving various sports.
It was first organized by the lawyer Robert Dover between 1. The British Olympic Association, in its bid for the 2. Olympic Games in London, mentioned these games as "the first stirrings of Britain's Olympic beginnings".[1. L'Olympiade de la RГ©publique, a national Olympic festival held annually from 1. Revolutionary France also attempted to emulate the ancient Olympic Games.[2. The competition included several disciplines from the ancient Greek Olympics.
The 1. 79. 6 Games also marked the introduction of the metric system into sport.[2. In 1. 85. 0 an Olympian Class was started by Dr. William Penny Brookes at Much Wenlock, in Shropshire, England. In 1. 85. 9, Dr. Brookes changed the name to the Wenlock Olympian Games. This annual sports festival continues to this day.
The Wenlock Olympian Society was founded by Dr. Brookes on 1. 5 November 1.
Between 1. 86. 2 and 1. Liverpool held an annual Grand Olympic Festival. Devised by John Hulley and Charles Melly, these games were the first to be wholly amateur in nature and international in outlook, although only 'gentlemen amateurs' could compete. The programme of the first modern Olympiad in Athens in 1. Liverpool Olympics.[2. In 1. 86. 5 Hulley, Dr. Brookes and E. G.
Ravenstein founded the National Olympian Association in Liverpool, a forerunner of the British Olympic Association. Its articles of foundation provided the framework for the International Olympic Charter. In 1. 86. 6, a national Olympic Games in Great Britain was organized at London's Crystal Palace.[2. Revival. A postage stamp from the first Greek Olympic stamp set. Greek interest in reviving the Olympic Games began with the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1.
It was first proposed by poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem "Dialogue of the Dead", published in 1. Evangelos Zappas, a wealthy Greek- Romanian philanthropist, first wrote to King Otto of Greece, in 1.
Olympic Games. Zappas sponsored the first Olympic Games in 1. Athens city square.
Athletes participated from Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Zappas funded the restoration of the ancient Panathenaic Stadium so that it could host all future Olympic Games.
The stadium hosted Olympics in 1. Thirty thousand spectators attended that Games in 1.
Games. In 1. 89. 0, after attending the Olympian Games of the Wenlock Olympian Society, Baron Pierre de Coubertin was inspired to found the International Olympic Committee (IOC).[3. Coubertin built on the ideas and work of Brookes and Zappas with the aim of establishing internationally rotating Olympic Games that would occur every four years.[3. He presented these ideas during the first Olympic Congress of the newly created International Olympic Committee. This meeting was held from 1. June 1. 89. 4, at the University of Paris. On the last day of the Congress, it was decided that the first Olympic Games to come under the auspices of the IOC would take place in Athens in 1. The IOC elected the Greek writer Demetrius Vikelas as its first president.
Games. The first Games held under the auspices of the IOC was hosted in the Panathenaic stadium in Athens in 1. The Games brought together 1. Zappas and his cousin Konstantinos Zappas had left the Greek government a trust to fund future Olympic Games.
This trust was used to help finance the 1. Games.[3. 7][3. 8]George Averoff contributed generously for the refurbishment of the stadium in preparation for the Games. The Greek government also provided funding, which was expected to be recouped through the sale of tickets and from the sale of the first Olympic commemorative stamp set. Greek officials and the public were enthusiastic about the experience of hosting an Olympic Games.
This feeling was shared by many of the athletes, who even demanded that Athens be the permanent Olympic host city.