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| Alien Empire |
| Leonardo da Vinci |
| Nuremberg Trial |
| Jazz Age Culture |
| Arab Human Development Report 2002 |
| Index of Civil War Naval Forces |
| Rich Language Resources |
| Giggle Poetry |
| BBC Animated History of Books |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Natural Inquirer |
| SandlotScience.com |
| Tales from the Hive |
| Doodlebug Behavior |
| Mom, There's a Plasmoid in the Microwave |
| Science and Math Clearinghouse |
| NewsBatch |
| CyberSleuth Kids Student Homework Helper |
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| Netsurfer Digest |
TEACHER'S PET
Editor's favorite
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/alienempire/
SOCIAL SCIENCES
History, geography, political science, sociology, law, anthropology, philosophy, and archeology
http://www.mos.org/leonardo/index.html
Nuremberg. In 1935 'race' laws created there provided a legal framework for the attempted destruction of the Jewish people. Through the '30s it was the scene of many Nazi propaganda rallies. How fitting that the victorious allies chose it as the place to try captive Nazis, trials with which the name Nuremberg will forever be associated. Historian Doug Linder has gathered an amazing assortment of source material, including testimony and pictures. A chart provides an overview of the cases, which is helpful because the trials went on for about four years, and many cases were tried. The attention to detail, like the diagram of the courtroom with linked pictures of each area, is incredible. This is actually part of a much larger site that Prof. Linder has put together, called Famous Trials.
Nuremberg: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/nuremberg.htm
Trials: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm
Jazz Age Culture is a personal act of love and devotion. This site offers students and teachers at all levels access to Web sites devoted to the '20s with special emphasis on the Harlem Renaissance and the role of women, especially the concept of the flapper. Some of the sites that it links to are down, but most are still available and being updated. Especially interesting are the links to sites about various authors and artists. This is a rich resource that you can use in the classroom and as a source of lessons and lectures.
http://faculty.pittstate.edu/~knichols/jazzage.html
Arab Human Development Report 2002
One in five Arabs live on $2 per day or less. The gross domestic products of the combined 22 Arab League nations are less than that of Spain. There are plenty of other examples of the gap between the Arab world and other regions - the Arab world surpasses only Africa in economic and other indicators - and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) recently published a report on the causes and effects of the poverty, the lack of development, and the authoritarian nature of Arab politics. The Arab Human Development Program 2002, prepared by Arab scholars, is refreshingly free of anti-Western or anti-Israel cant and concentrates rather on the lack of freedom, the dearth of modern knowledge, and the status of women in the Arab world. The Economist has a good summary, if you don't care to wade through the entire report.UNDP Report: http://www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr/
Economist: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1213392
Index of Civil War Naval Forces
With the salvage of the USS Monitor and the raising of its turret (the first on any naval vessel) on August 6, there is renewed interest in the navies that fought the Civil War on America's rivers and inlets, as well as on the world's oceans. This directory of online historical resources on the subject is as good a place as any to begin research into the subject. Organized by topic, there are links to pages on all major and many minor battles and operations (excerpts from the weighty but indispensable Official Records feature heavily here), officer biographies, and genealogical information, including links to Web pages on ordering the military records of family members. The ships are not neglected; links to appropriate pages from "The Dictionary of American Fighting Ships" - itself a superb resource - are listed, and to make the experience of the war more personal, one can read about the lives of the sailors themselves at sea. CNN has the story about the Monitor turret.Index: http://www.tarleton.edu/~kjones/navy.html
CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/08/05/uss.monitor/index.html
LANGUAGE ARTS
English studies, grammar, poetry, prose, and second language studies
Language arts: http://www.col-ed.org/cur/lang.html
CEC: http://www.col-ed.org/
Well, it sure ain't Shakespeare, Yeats or Plath, but it's immeasurably more fun. Teachers of kids in kindergarten through grade 4 could be as entertained as their students will be by this introduction to poetry. Reminiscent more of Robert Munsch than Dr. Seuss, the selections here are strong on meter and rhyme. Where they fail miserably is in keeping a straight face. Even the site owner's biography is a good natured , albeit prose, recounting of mis-steps and winking fibs. If, like us, you love the sound of children laughing as they learn, you'll find a lot to like at Giggle Poetry.
http://www.gigglepoetry.com/
Trust The Beeb to give us an experience like this. First, acknowledging that many school districts just don't keep their classrooms on the cutting edge of either hardware or software, Auntie offers both a low tech and a high tech version of these pages that explore the history of books all the way back roughly 515 centuries. The presentation, although animated, shouldn't be too taxing, for most machines. The commentary, delivered by celebrity narrator William Shakespeare, is scholarly, wry, and delightful. The story he tells goes from cave walls through Gutenberg right on to e-books and beyond. (Sadly, in the low tech version, it's Shakespeare's voice that's sacrificed.) Very much recommended.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/historyofbooks/
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The Survival Guide for Kids with LD* (Learning Differences)MATHEMATICS, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Mathematics, chemistry, physics, astrosciences, computing, technology, biology, and botany
http://www.naturalinquirer.usda.gov/
Why does the moon appear larger when it's near the horizon than when it's high in the sky? Of course the moon doesn't change size. What we see is an optical illusion. SandlotScience demonstrates many kinds of illusions and visual trickery. Visitors to this site might want to start by reading "What's an Illusion?" and then click on "Moon Illusion" to see how the moon appears to swell and shrink. "Mystery Spots" explains how funhouses are constructed so that people seem to be standing at impossible angles and water seems to run uphill. Some of the material here uses Adobe Acrobat Reader or Macromedia Flash Player, and the site provides links for both of these free downloads. It looks as if the site was created to market the company's products such as books, games, brain-teasers, and art prints. But there's a lot of entertaining and educational material available with no purchase required.
http://www.sandlotscience.com/index.htm
Did you know that bees 'produce' honey by repeatedly regurgitating plant nectar? Maybe you didn't want to know that, but there's plenty more to learn about our fuzzy little friends. The folks over at NOVA have done a bang up job transposing their program of the same name to the Web. Exquisite photos punctuate interesting facts about, well, bees. An interview is included with cinematographer Wolfgang Thaler, who explains how he gets those amazing close up shots, and how he avoids getting stung.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bees/
The adult antlion or doodlebug, post metamorphosis, resembles a dragonfly - although without that insect's carnivorous appetite. But the larval form is a different story altogether. Although some antlion larvae hide under twigs or forest debris and ambush passing insects, other species of the family Myrmeleontidae dig a conical depression in sand or loose dirt, bury themselves deep at its base and wait, jaws agape, for prey to blunder along and slide down to their doom. If the prey seems likely to escape, the antlion can spit sand at it, creating little lethal avalanches that bring it within reach of those deadly mandibles. The Antlion Pit details the fascinating behavior of these ant slayers in four main sections. Videos show how the antlion digs its pit, captures prey and deals with the sucked-dry corpse afterwards. The doodlebug may look cute but if you were an ant or other small insect you really wouldn't want to meet one.
http://www.antlionpit.com/
Mom, There's a Plasmoid in the Microwave
Now you can make a plasmoid in your microwave oven. Finally! Take a glass sphere open at one end, a toothpick, 3 plastic supports and a microwave oven, light the toothpick, put the sphere over it and turn on the oven. Hesto presto, one plasmoid, which hums when it's working properly. Believe it or not, it all may lead some day to an advanced plasma reactor for future aircraft, or so claims Jean-Louis Naudin, who owns the site. Of course, we're not actually recommending that you try this thing for yourself. It's probably much better to play it safe and look at the neat video demo. But, if you do, please remember that it generates toxic gases, so heed the safety precautions. This sure isn't like one of those Kraft or Campbell soup online recipes!http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/oa_plasmoid.htm
Science and Math Clearinghouse
The ENC or Eisenhower National Clearinghouse is one of those big, sprawling places where a newcomer is wise to take the tour to get a feel for the place, and the site map and site search are vital tools. Large enough to park a 747 in, its focus is math and science education for K-12 and it handles that with aplomb. It divides that universe into four main content areas, listed on the left side of the start page. Each has an immense amount of useful and relevant material. The impressive, rich site is an excellent front end to the sometimes overwhelming and highly varied quality of Web-based resources. A good example of the high quality and immensely helpful work by the folks at ENC is the Web links section. Here, as well as simple annotation, they also provide a brief or a full record for each item, giving users a very precise and accurate heads-up about each site. This is definitely a place to bookmark or add to your favorites.http://www.enc.org/
RESOURCES
Encyclopedia, libraries, reference resources, and other places to which teachers can turn
http://www.newsbatch.com/
CyberSleuth Kids Student Homework Helper
Homework, for those of us old enough to remember the olden days before computers, used to be completed with ancient implements called pencils on paper. If the assignment was a research paper of some sort, this meant the added chore of trudging down to the local library to comb through cards and stacks for articles about Genghis Kahn or Pittsburgh's annual steel production. Thank goodness those days are long gone. Modern students need only type the term 'Genghis Kahn' into Google, and thousands of mostly spurious articles will appear with which students can cut and paste to their hearts' content. For students who would like direction to valid sites, however, CyberSleuth Kids has gathered links to pertinent pages, and it's organized them into handy research friendly groupings such as history, math, and computers. There are numerous links in each category, and many are off the beaten path.http://cybersleuth-kids.com/