NOVA Online: Teachers

Need a good resource for science, math and history? Wander over to NOVA Online: Teachers. This a free resource tied to standards and includes downloadable video, audio, flash interactives, and teacher guides. You can browse by subject or check out the 'Watch, Interact, Explore' section.

A wonderful place to...

Back in January, I recommended the website for The Exploratorium and talked about it in a broad sense. Today, I want to focus in on the site's Explore page. There's so much on this page, I don't know where to begin...
Let's start with the hands-on activities. Students can learn about seasons and shadows using a basketball and paperclips, make a noisemaker called a sound sandwich , build a solar system , make a telescope ... and that's just a few examples.
Interactive activities include viewing the night sky , the secret life of flowers , and an investigation of what makes animals (and other things) cute.
All of the above come from a multitude of pages and websites they have created. At this writing, there are 523 Things to Make and Do and 146 websites. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you could probably use this site with the entire year of your science curriculum. If you haven't explored this site yet, please make time to do so. You won't regret it!

Thinkfinity

Thinkfinity is part of the Verizon Foundation's literacy, education and technology initiatives to improve student achievement. Content is provided by various partners - John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Council for Economic Education, The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science are just a few. The database can be searched by keyword, subject, grade level, resources type and content partners - individually or any combination of those areas.

The site is broken up into 4 tabbed resource areas - Educator, Student, Parent, and Afterschool. There are standard-based lesson plans for the educators and access to free training opportunities. The student area contains a homework help area with online maps (including an interactive map of Marco Polo's route to China and back), and a letter generator to practice letter writing skills. The parent area has resources that will help them help their children, including free online courses on selecting and sharing books with their kids. The afterschool tab showcases selected activities, organized by grade level, with descriptions and tips written especially for the afterschool educators.

Right now they are featuring lessons on Black History Month, the Olympics, and earthquake resources.

I couldn't find anything I didn't like about this site even though I was skeptical when I saw the Verizon logo - corporation sites make me suspicious. It's a highly useful site. Give it a try!

Exploratorium : the museum of science, art and human perception

The Exploratorium is a museum website brought to you by San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts containing (according to them) 18,000 pages. That's pretty overwhelming and I will never actually view all of them. It is a kind of busy website but, that said, it has lots of cool stuff useful to you and your students.

Under Educate is their page of Tools for Teaching. Currently this page is spotlighting Cow's Eye Dissection which includes a video of a dissection (no, I didn't watch it as I have just had my dinner), eye diagrams, and activity instructions (yes, including how to dissect a cow's eye). Other Tools for Teaching include how-to videos of after school/at home activities, hands on activities, a Digital Library containing resources pertaining to their exhibits, Webcasts and Podcasts, and Educator Newsletter and Online Exhibitions. They even have videos of Iron Science Teacher, which is like Iron Chef but with, yes you guessed it, Science Teachers having to design a science or math activity using the "secret ingredient". Pretty entertaining, I must say.

I enjoyed this site and think it has lots to offer. I'm going to definitely explore it more another day and maybe even watch that eye dissection video...