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Home Subscriptions Netsurfer Digest E-Zine Netsurfer Science E-Zine Netsurfer Books E-Zine |
| Investing for Kids |
| The Hunger Site |
| Focus on Summarizing Information |
| Book Club Lesson Plan for Number the Stars |
| Youdraw.com |
| Refrigerator Art Contest |
| Molecular Expressions. |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Explore the Wide World of Butterflies |
| Hands-On Universe |
| Ocean Planet |
| Awesome Science - Any Day of the Week |
| Museum of Menstruation |
| Melpomene Institute: Girls' and Women's Health |
| Wanna Grab Your Teenage Students' Attention? |
| The Household Cyclopedia |
| A Dissertation on Dissertations |
| Parent Time: Your Personal Parenting and Pregnancy Advisor |
| A Comprehensive Netsurfer Reference Guide |
| Blackboard.com |
| Check Out the Kaleidoscapes! |
| Make a Wise Discovery |
| PinkMonkey.com |
| FunSchool is a Blast! |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
| Netsurfer Digest |
SOCIAL SCIENCES
History, geography, political science, sociology, law, anthropology, philosophy, and archeology
http://library.thinkquest.org/3096/
On the other side of the coin from investment advice, we have thehungersite.org. It's an independent project, but one endorsed by the United Nations World Food Program, which benefits from the project. Charity of spirit has never been simpler. Go to the site, click on the icon, and there you go; you've just donated a quarter cup of a food staple to the site's food bank for distribution around the world. Go back tomorrow, repeat the click, and you've done it again. (You can make only one donation each per day.) High-profile corporate sponsors include Sprint, iVillage, Gourmet magazine and Arizona State University, but there's a host of Third World artisan sites, and even a few individuals' names. Documentation at the site talks about world hunger and efforts combat it. This is the first site we visit every morning when we sit down to our keyboard. It's a fine ongoing class project to bookmark it and visit every day.
http://thehungersite.org/
LANGUAGE ARTS
English studies, grammar, poetry, prose, and second language studies
Focus on Summarizing Information
From the AskERIC Lesson Plan Collection, this lesson plan focuses on skills students need to develop to write various forms of summaries such as abstracts, précises, minutes, abridging digests, and restructuring digests. (ERIC is the Educational Resources Information Center funded by the US Department of Education.) The lesson plan offers examples of various kinds of summaries that students can be introduced to in grades 2 through 8 to develop skills such as distinguishing important information from unimportant, selecting the major ideas, understanding the relationship between ideas, condensing ideas, and generalizing about related ideas. The information includes a list of academic references.http://ericir.syr.edu/Virtual/Lessons/SLMAM/Sharing_Skills/summarizing.html
Book Club Lesson Plan for Number the Stars
BookClub Online links classrooms in a discussion of Lois Lowry's novel "Number the Stars". The pupils are assigned to read this novel of the rescue of Danish Jewry in World War II and the site features 16 lesson plans for classroom work and discussion - but the site's primary purpose is to introduce pupils to online give and take with other students studying the book. There is a Student Comment Form to be completed and the pupils are encouraged to respond to the thoughts and ideas of others. A tale of courage and friendship, especially of the two young protagonists, "Number the Stars" is a gripping story that should lend itself to the kind of exchange a good English teacher wants to hear in his/her high-school class. The curriculum in the lesson plans is structured to encourage and support student-led discussions. There is a teacher's handbook and an explanatory video that can be ordered.http://www.smplanet.com/bookclub/interactive/archive/stars3.98/starsintro.html
FINE ARTS
Visual arts, music, theater, and dance
http://www.youdraw.com/home1.html
This is clearly a unique kind of contest. There are no prizes with real monetary value, just a way for kids under the age of 18 to display their artistic inspiration and talent on a Web site where the public votes on its favorite art. The site even comes complete with its own Hall of Fame. It's an interesting site for younger children since they can both see their peers' work and perhaps be inspired to produce their own. Teens might not be attracted to a contest that lacks a tangible award for a winning drawing, so interest among older students may be minimal. By the way, just to be sure, we tried "stuffing" the ballot box by voting more than once on a particular drawing. Busted! Good. We like that. Not only would it not let us vote more than once, it wouldn't accept our vote without an associated comment, even something as simple as a single word like "excellent".
http://www.artcontest.com/
MATHEMATICS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Mathematics, chemistry, physics, astrosciences, computing, technology, biology, and botany
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/index.html
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Intel Play QX3 Computer Video MicroscopeExplore the Wide World of Butterflies
Part of the ThinkQuest family of sites, the serenely beautiful "Butterflies: On the Wings of Freedom" welcomes visitors into the world of butterflies, with an eye toward education and research. The material is well organized and easy to use, while presenting a massive amount of relevant information about metamorphosis, camouflage, coloring, and anything else related to these majestic creatures. The kids' section offers interactive learning tools, quizzes, films, coloring pages, and more, all in language that kids can understand. In "Butterflies at School", the authors offer tips on keeping butterflies and caterpillars at school. With dozens of pages of high-quality information, this ThinkQuest topic should serve as a one-stop shop for any exploration of the world of butterflies.http://library.thinkquest.org/27968/index.shtml
The next time you're tempted to lament the current state of education, take a look at the impressive papers presented under the Student Research section of Hands-On Universe (HOU), a program that allows high school students to request observations from an automated telescope, then download and study the images. Educators and astronomers from all over the world participate in the program, which is a collaboration of Lawrence Hall of Science (University of California, Berkeley), TERC Inc. (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Adler Planetarium (Chicago), and Yerkes Observatory (Williams Bay, Wisconsin), with financial support from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy. At the HOU Web site you can browse the archive of telescopic images by several different categories or search the archive. The Explorations section contains several online astronomy activities, and there's a listing of Teacher Resources. You'll also find information on participating in a teacher development project funded by the National Science Foundation.
http://hou.lbl.gov/
Associated with the Smithsonian Institute's traveling exhibition of the same name, Ocean Planet is a series of six interdisciplinary marine science activities for middle- or high-school students. The lessons cover ocean geography, marine ecosystems, pollution, sea products, strandings, and the influence of the ocean on culture. Each lesson plan includes background information, a statement of learning objectives, class procedures, student handouts (in Adobe Acrobat format) and additional online and offline resources, including links to the Smithsonian's Ocean Planet site. This is a fine set of lessons for your geography or ecology class.
http://educate.si.edu/resources/lessons/currkits/ocean/main.html
Awesome Science - Any Day of the Week
When it comes to science and exploration, you can't go wrong with NASA, and "Thursday's Classroom" is no exception. Released in a newsletter-like format each Thursday, the scientists and Webmasters aim to bring the space organization's latest research into the classroom environment. Geared specifically toward educators and students, the pages present the most recent scientific discoveries alongside games, links, and activities for students of space and astronomy. Teachers will find plenty of ready-to-use lesson plans, worksheets, graphs, and answer keys that help teach about craters, asteroids, spacecraft, and anything else related to our solar system and the universe beyond.http://thursdaysclassroom.com/
HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Sports and Health
http://www.mum.org/
Melpomene Institute: Girls' and Women's Health
Headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, the "Melpomene Institute helps girls and women of all ages link physical activity and health through research, publication and education". Named after a Greek woman who ran the first Olympic marathon in 1896, the Institute has conducted recent research projects such as "Playgrounds: Encouraging Active Play for Girls and Boys!" funded in part by the Gannett Foundation. The Web site's Library contains short articles - with links, some with lists of more resources - on topics such as body image, aging well, children and physical activity, homophobia in female athletics, and eating disorders. "For Girls" contains a chat room, a section on career choices for sports-minded girls, a listing of books for girls (from babies through age 14), and links to other girl-friendly sites. There isn't much depth here, but the site would be a good starting place for any girl or parent interested in girls' athletics.http://www.melpomene.org/
SKILLS FOR LIVING
Domestic sciences, study skills and other day-to-day skills for getting through life
Wanna Grab Your Teenage Students' Attention?
Since adolescence is, by its very nature, a period when a human is self-absorbed - what would be the best way to get an adolescent's attention? By telling him about what's happening to him, by helping her get an even closer look at herself. The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute provides an excellent curriculum to teach the physiological changes of puberty and the psychological development of adolescence. Use Jean Piaget's psychological development model to create exercises for students to help discover latent strengths crucial to building an identity for a dynamic adulthood. A review of these models just might refresh a sense of the teacher's potential to exert a truly positive impact at a profound stage in peoples' lives.http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1991/5/91.05.07.x.html
The online reprint of the late-19th century manual for rural living, the Household Cyclopedia takes us back to an era when families were more autonomous and self-sufficient. Still, there are many skills here that would be of use to today's farmer, gardener, or crafter. The contents include information on dyeing, brewing, metallurgy, tanning, pottery, glass making, and the making of glues, inks, paints, and candles, and some things that will never change, like horsemanship. Certain sections no longer apply, like the ones on medicine (indeed, there is a disclaimer) or lithography. The site is more easily experienced than described, but the amount of material here is enormous and the number of skills taught runs into many hundreds. Almost anyone will find something of interest, be it as an artist, a historian, an animal lover, or someone who just wants a little more self-sufficiency.
http://members.xoom.com/mspong/contents.html
A Dissertation on Dissertations
The world of graduate school has its own peculiar geopolitical map, and Dr. Kevin Bucknall can lead you through some of the trickier peaks and valleys. This good-natured, retired university professor's home page may seem slightly goofy, but the free eight-page "Tips for Graduate Students" is an excellent introduction to the way most schools work -and to the foibles of human nature that tend to trip up students as they attempt to write master's and doctoral dissertations. Another 26-page paper titled "How to Study" offers 160 practical tips for better grades on exams. Download it for two dollars.http://www.homestead.com/bucknall/
Parent Time: Your Personal Parenting and Pregnancy Advisor
Anything you could possibly want to know about having and raising children, from pre-conception through age six, is here at the online home of Parenting and BabyTalk magazines. In addition to daily news, the site offers sections devoted to pregnancy, baby, toddler, preschool, behavior and development, health and nutrition, and work and money. A community section includes chat events and message boards, while the tools section provides, among other goodies, a searchable baby name database, an ovulation calculator, and a tuition calculator. You'll also find advice from experts in these areas: behavior and discipline, pregnancy and childbirth, family therapy, finance, breastfeeding, health and nutrition, and education and learning. If, despite all this information, you're still stumped, you can submit your question in the Ask Dr. Sears section, run by a pediatrician and his wife, a registered nurse and childbirth educator, who are themselves the parents of eight children.http://cgi.pathfinder.com/cgi-bin/parenttime/home/homepage.cgi
RESOURCES
Encyclopedia, libraries, reference resources, and other places to which teachers can turn
A Comprehensive Netsurfer Reference Guide
When you're in the field of education, you're held to a much higher standard of knowledge and wisdom than are other normal humans. You're expected to know at least a little bit about almost every topic under the sun. But, no matter how much you study or how long you teach, no one can know everything! And, as you surely tell your students when they ask you how to spell a word, educators must also "look it up" when they aren't sure of the answers. The links we've chosen to include in this standing Netsurfer reference page help save you time when you need facts fast. If you would like to see particular information added in the future, please let us know and we'll consider adding your category. For the moment, we sifted through the chaos of the search engines to include only the most relevant and useful sites in these important reference categories: Search Engines; Books Online; Dictionaries and Thesaurusi; Encyclopedias and Reference; Grammar and Usage; Quotations; Research Papers and Citations; Timelines; Translation Dictionaries; Web Page Translation Tools; and Miscellaneous Tools. We're also in the process of producing reference pages on teaching science and technology to girls and on school violence.http://www.netsurf.com/nse/references.html
If you've been thinking of hosting an online course, or perhaps placing components of your course on the Web, then look no further. Blackboard.com provides a free Web-based service to do just that; no HTML knowledge required, they do it all! Your course will have threaded discussions, real-time chat, assessment tools and gradebook, work groups, content creation (syllabus and course description pages), a note-taking and filing system, an online file exchange, and tutorial. Instructors can post office hours and contact information, requirements, course documents (in several formats), do their quizzes and surveys online (with instant grading), facilitate communication between students, and provide external links. Student tools include a digital drop box to submit work, an online calendar to check for deadlines, an online gradebook to check their grades, or facilities for changing their personal info. There's a plethora of online support, including manuals in HTML, Word or Adobe for downloading and FAQs. It is also possible to enroll in courses that can be found with a site search or the category directory. The service supports Netscape 3.x or IE 4.x or higher. Instructors outside the US should take note that Blackboard.com supports all Roman alphabets.
http://www.blackboard.com/
Intended for an audience of "kids and home education enthusiasts", Kaleidoscapes offers a variety of hosted discussion boards for homeschoolers and other interested parties to share information and support each other. Many home educators don't have time to join a local group, so this site fills the gap by offering a cyber-community of homeschoolers. Topics for the discussion boards run the gamut from curriculum to compliance. Other aspects of the site include a bookstore and an archived newbie board for people new to the area of homeschooling. The children's area of the site features a small gallery of kid-produced animations and a simple tool for designing your own animated Web page that stays on the Kaleidoscapes server for two weeks.
http://www.kaleidoscapes.com/
Discovery School represents much more than your typical corporate Web site trying to break into the lucrative educational market. This massive site from the Discovery Channel offers resources that are in touch the real needs of teachers, students, and parents. Educators will lose themselves in the collection of lesson plans and links, while delighting in the incredible PuzzleMaker tool which lets you create your own math and language puzzles for the classroom. Parents can explore the world of Discovery Channel programming, videos, and books. They will especially appreciate the section called Science Fair Central, which focuses on those indepth projects that inevitably involve parents as well as students. Students can click their way to reliable homework help, games, cams, and links. Discovery School is one of those sites that everyone in your family will want to bookmark and explore on a regular basis.
http://school.discovery.com/
Although you'll have to register and join, the trouble is well worth the effort at PinkMonkey, an excellent online resource center for middle -, high-school, and college students. The Digital Library gives you access to over 2000 literary classics (the longer ones downloadable with Adobe Acrobat) and there are more than 150 literature chapter summaries from their own Monkey Notes as well as 109 Barron's Booknotes titles. There are six online textbooks available (with another eight, including SAT preparation, in development), and a huge list of annotated and rated links to a wide variety of study subjects. Other items include academic resources for reference and research, a study guide for good learning habits and tips for teachers and parents. PinkMonkey will answer specific questions by e-mail and there's even a chat section.
http://www.pinkmonkey.com/
RESIDUE
A little of this, a little of that
http://www.funschool.com/