A teacher in Virginia has created a science curriculum based on re-creating the magic from the Harry Potter books using chemistry, aerodymics, magnetism, and other scientific principles.

"Find some books that they like to read," she said. "And say 'Do you think this could actually happen in the real world? Well, here it is."' For a discussion on the flying broomsticks used in the game of Quidditch, Haviland said, "We can even go into Bernoulli's principle and explore how we can take that from flying on a broom to ... how airplanes work ... and why some fly better than others...."

Haviland and her colleague, Plitnik, even have explanations for some of the more far-out occurrences in the Harry Potter books. Levitating a frog, for example. Haviland cites the work of Dutch and British scientists at the University of Nijmegen who were able to make a frog levitate using magnets.

No word on whether the frog will stick to the refrigerator after this experiment, but anything that gets kids reading and doing science is aces in my book!