Secrets Within: The Power Of 10 is a really good look at the sheer magnitude of the universe and the smallness of atoms, by doing a step by step zoom in/out. It does require java to run. It is provided by the Florida State Univ via their Molecular Expression website.
The Powers of 10 Film: From the website "Powers of Ten is a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Ray Eames and her husband, Charles Eames, rereleased in 1977. The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten (see also logarithmic scale and order of magnitude)." "Powers of Ten takes us on an adventure in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago, this famous film transports us to the outer edges of the universe. Every ten seconds we view the starting point from ten times farther out until our own galaxy is visible only as a speck of light among many others. Returning to Earth with breathtaking speed, we move inward- into the hand of the sleeping picnicker - with ten times more magnification every ten seconds. Our journey ends inside a proton of a carbon atom within a DNA molecule in a white blood cell."
Cell Size and Scale: Just a real quick visual example. Students can see the differences in size between a sheet of paper with 12 pt font on it, all the way down to a Carbon atom. The website is simple enough they can zoom in on their own, for a "find the size of" activity, or you can lead them through it together as a class. Provides every day points of reference, such as a grain of rice, a sesame seed, or a coffee bean. Also includes organelles, and molecules. Neat way to do this is to provide sheets of paper with "Times Regular 12 pt" on it, rice, sesame seeds and coffee beans to students so they can keep the perspective in mind.
The Powers of 10 Film: From the website "Powers of Ten is a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Ray Eames and her husband, Charles Eames, rereleased in 1977. The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten (see also logarithmic scale and order of magnitude)." "Powers of Ten takes us on an adventure in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago, this famous film transports us to the outer edges of the universe. Every ten seconds we view the starting point from ten times farther out until our own galaxy is visible only as a speck of light among many others. Returning to Earth with breathtaking speed, we move inward- into the hand of the sleeping picnicker - with ten times more magnification every ten seconds. Our journey ends inside a proton of a carbon atom within a DNA molecule in a white blood cell."
Cell Size and Scale: Just a real quick visual example. Students can see the differences in size between a sheet of paper with 12 pt font on it, all the way down to a Carbon atom. The website is simple enough they can zoom in on their own, for a "find the size of" activity, or you can lead them through it together as a class. Provides every day points of reference, such as a grain of rice, a sesame seed, or a coffee bean. Also includes organelles, and molecules. Neat way to do this is to provide sheets of paper with "Times Regular 12 pt" on it, rice, sesame seeds and coffee beans to students so they can keep the perspective in mind.