Science of the Winter Olympics - Ski Jumping

This year, the U.S. team is a serious medal contender in Nordic Combined, a sport that combines ski jumping with cross-country skiing. U.S. hopefuls Todd Lodwick and Bill Demong, along with NSF-funded scientists Paul Doherty, senior scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and physicist George Tuthill of Plymouth State University explain the principles of physics that are used to get high scores in the long jumps. 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 16-part video series that explores the science behind individual 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 science more accessible and more interesting to students by showing how science helps athletes fulfill the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius--Swifter, Higher, Stronger. Read more about the "Science of the Olympic Winter Games" at http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/olympics/.