Instructional Materials

 

Acid Rain Program. Acid Rain Program is part of the EPA efforts to reduce emissions responsible for acid deposition. It provides for middle grade science student resources featuring a collection of classroom experiments and activities for exploring acid rain effects on the environment.

Air Travelers. Air Travelers, provided by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), contains resources for teaching the science of balloons and lighter-than-air flight in grades 4-6. The site includes four student investigations/activities, teacher and science background materials, and a picture gallery, and movies of balloons and blimps.

Amazing Environmental Organization WebDirectory! Amazing Environmental Organization WebDirectory! provides a collection of school projects and classroom activities for teaching about environmental education in grades K-12.

Anatomy and Physiology Database. Anatomy and Physiology Database features ten systems of our human body where students in grades 7-12 can explore them online. The systems include the circulatory, the respiratory, and the nervous. Note: click on the text links and not the image map with the pictures. For other anatomy sites useful to students in grades 4-12, click on the MedMan, Nature's Best: The Human Body , and the Cranial Cruise.

Animal Information Database. Animal Information Database, provided by Sea World/Busch Gardens, is an online encylopedia of animals for grades K-6. Among its resources are: Animal Bytes , quick and fun facts about selected animals; Animal Quizzes , matching sounds with the animals who make them; Animal Resources, detailed animal information; and a topic Index of your questions answered about animals, called "Ask Shamu".

Animals in Literature. Animals in Literature, for grades K-6, is an alphabetical collection of Internet resources of various animals that appear in literature. The animals range from ants to wolves, and the resources include information, fairy tales and fables, and photos & pictures.

Animal Tracks Kid's Page. Animal Tracks Kid's Page, provided by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), offers a variety of online activities for grades K-8 including interactive games and quizzes, environmental tours, and an Web edition of the Ranger Rick magazine.

Bad Science. Bad Science, maintained by Alistair B. Fraser, corrects the myths and misconceptions about science often taught in schools and found in popular articles and even school textbooks. K-12 teachers can find "good" science explanations for the following subjects: Bad Astronomy, Bad Chemistry, Bad Meteorology, and Bad Physics.

Bang! Boing! Pop! Bang! Boing! Pop! is an online guide to high school physics. Students can explore the topics of energy, linear momentum, and angular momentumand take interactive quizzes. The site also includes a glossary to help students learn physics.

Beakman's Electric Motor. Beakman's Electric Motor provides simple illustrated directions for showing kids in grades 4-8 how to make an electric motor out of ordinary household items.

Benjamin Franklin: Glimpses of the Man. Benjamin Franklin: Glimpses of the Man from the Franklin Institute Science Museum is an online exhibit containing electricity and weather activities for grades 4-8.

Beverly Lynds' Home Page. Beverly Lynds' Home Page offers two online illustrated tutorials, about rainbows and about temperature for students in grades 7-12. For classroom demonstrations on rainbows, click here.

BioChemistry 321. BioChemistry 321, taught at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, provides 12 student laboratory exercises for developing further identification of pigments in leaves and investigations into anthocyanins. Although this is an university level course, the materials are useful for high school biology students.

Brain Poke for the World Wide Web. Brain Poke for the World Wide Web provides an interactive anatomical map of the brain for students in grades 6-12. Students click on a part of the map to learn its name or function.

Bubbles. Bubbles, provided by the Exploratorium's ExploraNet, explores the forces that mold soap bubbles. The site answers the question: Why a bubble forms a sphere and not a cube, tetrahedron, or another geometrical shape? The site includes the following topics: Sticky Water, The Shape of Bubbles, When Bubble Meets Bubble, Soap, Bubble Colors, Bubble Formulae, Bubbliography, and Internet Resources. Also, enter the Bubblesphere where you will learn how to make terrific bubbles and find answers to Professor Bubbles' questions. To still learn more about the science of bubble making, click on bubble activites.

Bug Club. Bug Club, maintainted by the University of Exeter students in England , provides a quarterly 16 page newsletter with activities and puzzles for kids in grades K-6, a pen pal page , and a list of care sheets for insect pets. For other related links, click on Insects Hotlist from the Franklin Science Institute and Ask Orkin.

Canada's SchoolNet Gopher Menu. Canada's SchoolNet Gopher Menu contains science activities for grades K-6. Among these are Did You Know?, Neat Tricks You Can Do, and Cool Things to Try.

Cardboard Cognition. Cardboard Cognition is a collection of 200 learning games designed by Bernie Dodge's students at San Diego State University for different subject areas. To find games for grades K-12 in health and science, click on a Content and Age Group Chart and scroll to these subjects.

Carolina Online: Tips. Carolina Online: Tips is a newsletter, published by the Carolina Biological Supply Company, offering ideas and activities for teaching biology in grades 6-12. For additional Carolina Tips, click here. To be added to the mailing list for the newsletter (school addresses only), click on Subscribe to Carolina Tips , scroll down the page, and check the Carolina Tips box.

Cell. Cell is an interactive tour of the world of cells for high school microbiology students. The site includes five lessons, quizzes, cell gallery, a glossary, and online resources.

ChemCom: Chemistry in the Community. ChemCom is a chemistry curriculum with eight units and test questions written for secondary school students by the American Chemical Society (ACS). The site also offers teachers and students a list of Web sites for exploring ChemCom on the Internet, Mansel Nelson's ChemCom resources , and science teacher's resource center with chemistry sites.

25 chemistry experiments for grades 9-12 can be found at Chem101 and CyberChemistry.

ChemMystery . ChemMystery, an exhibit in the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley, contains a list of online chemistry experiments that elementary school students can do at home or at school.

Children's Butterfly Site. Children's Butterfly Site, for grades K-6, provides a gallery of beautiful photos of moths and butterflies, printable coloring pages of the Monarch butterfly's life cycle, facts about butterflies and moths, and links to other butterfly Web sites.

Cells Alive! Cells Alive! features a fascinating collection of pictures and animations including clear explanations to help you understand cells. You can see how penicillin destroys bacteria, how cells keep their shape, how they communicate, view microscopic parasites, and learn much more. The site is suitable for grades 4-12.

Cell Biology Laboratory Manual. Cell Biology Laboratory Manual, useful for high school biology classes, contains a variety of topics including the microscope, histochemistry, cell fractionation, electrophoresis, ezymes, and membranes. For the complete list of topics in the manual, click on its table of contents.

Chemistry Demonstration Instructions. Chemistry Demonstration Instructions are given for chemistry experiments that will amaze primary grade children. The experiments include separating the dyes in felt pens, making slime, making invisible ink, and launching rockets with Alka Seltzer tablets.

Chemistry Problem Sets. Chemistry Problem Sets, developed by Scott Van Bramer at Widener University, cover a wide range of introductory topics and solutions are provided. Although this material is intended for university students, many of the topics are well-suited for high school chemistry students too.

Chemistry Teacher Resources. Chemistry Teacher Resources, created by James Aldridge, provides an introduction to chemical reactions and ten chemical demos for grades 9-12. To find the demos, click on Chemistry I and scroll to "Demonstrations" near the bottom of the page.

Chemistry Teaching Resources. Chemistry Teaching Resources, maintained by Knut Irgum of Umeå University in Sweden, is a comprehensive list of online resources for teaching chemistry in grades 2-12. Among the resources are courses and hypertexts, curriculum material, demonstrations and experiments, graphics and visualizations, periodic tables, and suppliers.

Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Children's Museum of Indianapolis offers a collection of online exhibits featuring fun science activities for students in grades K-5. Among the resources are Bat Facts and Amazing Trivia, Bats are Beautiful with art activities, Dinosaur Information Sheets with printable coloring pages of dinosaurs, and a list of Flight Activities including making an Origami butterfly, paper airplanes, a butterfly garden, and a variety of Flight Experiments. In addition, the museum provides Science Activities showing what scientists do.

Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden offers a curricula with conservation and diversity activities for grades K-12. In addition, student can play online three interactive games or participate in a weekly animal photo quiz.

Classroom Activities. Classroom Activities offer activities from John Wiley's popular science children's books for grades 3-6. Be sure also to visit Wiley's Exploratorium Science Snackbook Series for more science ideas.

Clickable Heart Anatomy Tutor. Clickable Heart Anatomy Tutor is where students in grades 4-8 can click on a part of the heart to learn its name. For learning about other parts of the body, click on Anatomy provided by the Levitt Radiologic-Pathologic Institute.

Cloud Catalog. Cloud Catalog from the University of Illinois Department of Atmospheric Sciences (UIDAS) features classroom activities, background information, pictures and descriptions of the different cloud formations. UIDAS also includes an Online Guide to Meteorology containing a collection of multimedia instructional modules that introduce and explain fundamental concepts in meteorology for students and teachers in grades 5-8. Another good site for learning about clouds is Cloud Boutique, contributed by Plymouth State College in New Hampshire.

Computer as Learning Partner (CLP). Computer as Learning Partner (CLP) project provides an energy curriculum and integrated units on heat, light, and sound, with each containing experiments and activities for middle school students.

Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP). CPEP, a non-profit organization of teachers, educators, and physicists worldwide, provides instructional materials to aid in the understanding of particle physics for high school students. The site features an interactive tour of the inner workings of the atom including reproducible classroom activities for students. The teacher pages for these activities are password-protected. Contact CPEP to obtain your password. In addition, the site offers an online course on fusion .

Critical Thinking Activities. Critical Thinking Activities by Sylvia Mader is a collection of activities useful to high school biology teachers.

Cow's Eye Dissection. Cow's Eye Dissection, provided by the Exploratorium for grades 5-8, is an online step-by-step demonstration of what is inside a cow's eye.

Curious Kids Science Newsletter. Curious Kids Science Newsletter offers online science activities for kids in grades K-8.

Current Science. Current Science , published by the Weekly Reader Corporation for students in grades 6-10, offers an online edition with sample articles and links to related Web sites.

Curriculum Maximizer. Curriculum Maximizer from Teacher.Net offers a collection of learning materials and Web sites for teaching science in grades K-12.

Dan's Wild Wild Weather Page. Dan's Wild Wild Weather Page is where kids in grades 3-6 can learn how the weather works, find out interesting facts, and follow links to other good weather sites.

Dem Dry Bones. Dem Dry Bones is an interactive skeleton that helps kids in grades K-12 learn the names of the major bones and see where they are connected. To hear the names of certain bones, click on a part of the skeleton, wait for its enlargement, and then click on that body part again.

Demonstration List By Outline Topic. Demonstration List By Outline Topic, provided by the University of Maryland Physics Lecture-Demonstration Facility, features an annotated list of physics demos with photos organized by topic. To browse the list by titles, click here. These demos offer a fund of knowledge and activities for teaching physical science in grades 6-12.

Digital Anatomist Program. Digital Anatomist Program, provided by the University of Washington in Seattle, contains four online interactive atlases where students in grades 6-12 can see 2-D and 3-D views of the following structures: the brain, the neurosystem, the thoracic organs, and the knee.

Digital Learning Center for Microbial Ecology. Digital Learning Center for Microbial Ecology Michigan State University provides online microbiology resources for high school students and teachers. The site includes links to the Microbe of the Week, the Microbe Zoo, Microbes in the News, Meet the Scientists, and much more.

Dinosaur Dictionary. Dinosaur Dictionary is an interactive version of The New Illustrated Dinosaur Dictionary published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books and provided by Spectrum, an online magazine for kids in grades K-6. It includes 19 different dinosaurs where kids can click on the name of a dinosaur to see a picture of it, hear its name pronunced, and read facts about it. Kids can also find dinosaur pictures to color (scroll to "Dinosaur Information Sheets") and have their dinosaur questions answered at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

Discovery Channel School. Discovery Channel School is an educational service of Discovery Channel Online for grades 6-12. It offers a wealth of supporting classroom materials including student activities, discussion questions, related links, vocabulary pages, and academic standards to accompany its television programs. For science, there is Earth to Mars and H2Oceans programs for spring, 1997.

Dole 5 A Day Home Page. Dole 5 A Day Home Page provides nutrition information about fruits and vegetables for elementary school students. It offers a collection of fun interactive activities for kids, teaching suggestions (school), and facts about food in the nutrition center. Teachers can order a free CD-ROM from Dole.

Dragonfly. Dragonfly is a bimonthly science magazine for students in grades 3-6 featuring an online edition with different seasonal themes and interactive activities.

Dr. Internet. Dr. Internet provides hands-on science activities and links to interactive science sites for students in grades 3-8 to explore.

Earth Day. Earth Day, part of the the Wilderness Society's home page provides activities and historical background about Earth Day and encourages us to make Earth Day every day. To celebrate Earth Day, students in grades K-6 can color a coloring book with pictures of animals in ancient forests, take an interactive quiz, and send an email postcard to remind their friends to observe Earth Day on April 22.

Earth Day Groceries Project. Earth Day Groceries Project, sponsored by Arbor Heights Elementary School in Seattle, is a yearly event where over 75,000 students in grades K-6 joined together in 1996 on the Internet to celebrate Earth Day on April 22. Click on FAQ to find out how you and your class can participate in the 1997 online project. For reports on previous projects, click on 1995 and 1996. For a list of other online activities to celebrate Earth Day, click here.

Earth System Science Community (ESSC). ESSC is a consortium of Wasington, D.C.'s Gonzaga College High School teachers and students using the Internet to research earth science phenomena. Its curriculum and library are sources of online instructional materials for the study of earth science in high school.

Edu-Source: Resources for Environmental Education. Edu-Source: Resources for Environmental Education for grades K-12 provides a list of printable sample posters that teachers can use in their classrooms. Currently, the site includes an online ten-page presentation on Red-tailed Hawks and printable clip art for a variety of environmental topics.

Electronic Desktop Project Home Page . Electronic Desktop Project Home Page from California State University at Los Angeles (CSLA) features two online science tutorials for high school students and teachers. The Virtual FlyLab teaches the principles of genetic inheritance, and the Virtual Earthquake teaches the principles of epicenter and magnitude determination.

Elementary Science Program Homepage (ESP). Fred Arnold's ESP site provides a wealth of science resources for the elementary school including a collection of monthly student activities. To view a list of all the site's resources, click here.

Elementary Science This Month. Elementary Science This Month published by the Mankato State University College of Education in Minnesota is an online monthly magazine featuring timely science activities and articles of interest to students in grades K-6. For back issues, click here.

Encarta Schoolhouse.Encarta Schoolhouse from Microsoft Corporation provides a variety of topics containing online learning activities, ask-an-expert feature, and Web links for students in grades 6-12. To browse the complete collection of topics, click here. The science topics include earthquakes, the environment, and life in the ocean. For upcoming topics, click here. The activities can be used without the CD-ROM Encarta.

Endangered Species. Endangered Species, part of the EE-Link Home Page contains an extensive collection of resources for grades 4-12. The site includes classroom activities and projects, lists and profiles of animals and plants at risk around the world, environmental law and policy, a collection of endangered animal images and factsheets, and a U.S. clickable map where you can find out which species are threatened or endangered in each state.

Energizer World Fun House. Energizer World Fun House provides clear instructions for doing electricity experiments with batteries. Students (grades 3-6) will be able to make a clothes pin alarm and an electromagnet.

Energy Quest. Energy Quest, provided by the California Energy Commission, offers a large collection of activities organized by difficulty levels for teaching about energy in grades K-12. Among the activities are Percy's Puzzles, Poor Richard's Energy Almanac, Super Scientists, and Devoured By The Dark.

Environmental Science 3205. Environmental Science 3205, part of the STEM~Net Science Working Group, provides a variety of topics for studying ecology organized by basic concepts, local Canadian issues, and global issues. Although this material is intended for university students, the site is useful for any (6-12) class studying the environment.

Environment Canada's Pacific and Yukon Green Lane. Environment Canada's Pacific and Yukon Green Lane offers a variety of educational (school) resources for grades 3-6. To find activites about the weather, scroll to Learn about the Weather where students can build six of their own weather instruments with simple materials, find out how the seasons work , identify clouds, and get a list of world weather records.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Students and Teachers. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) offers a collection of environmental resources organized by topic for students and teachers in grades K-12. The topics include teaching aids/curriculum guides, facts about the environment, and are schools environmentally safe?

Everest Assault '96: Summit of Dreams and Despair. Everest Assault '96: Summit of Dreams and Despair developed by NBC for middle and high school students presents the story of the scientific expedition to Mount Everest. The site includes "A Tribute to Scott Fischer", "The Latest News", "DIGITAL DAILY" containing a photo scrapbook, "THE JOURNEY", "THE MOUNTAIN", and "RESOURCES". To find a variety of cross-curricular projects related to Everest Assault '96, click on Global SchoolNet Foundation's Activities.

Evergreen Curriculum. Evergreen Curriculum, prepared by Saskatchewan Education Curriculum and Instruction Branch, provides curriculum ideas and activities for teachers in grades 1-12. For science, click here. There are instructional materials for elementary level science, middle level science, grade 10 science, Evergreen Curriculum., and physics.

Exploratorium Exhibits. Exploratorium Exhibits present an online collection of interactive experiments in sound, color, and vision for students in grades 4-8.

Exploring Leondaro. Exploring Leondaro, developed by the Museum of Science in Boston, is where students in grades 4-8 can learn about Leonardo da Vinci, one the greatest minds of the Renaissance. For interactive activities with machines, click on Gadget Anatomy and Leonardo's Mysterious Machinery. The hot list of Leondaro Links features other useful sites including Simple Machines.

Fermilab Education Office. Fermilab Education Office offers instructional materials in physics for K-12 teachers. Click on samplers for a list of the materials and Sciencelines, a quarterly newsletter with classroom activities.

Fish FAQ: A Bouillabaisse of Fascinating Facts About Fish. Fish FAQ: A Bouillabaisse of Fascinating Facts About Fish is provided by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) at the Woods Hole Laboratory. It features more than a 100 of the most frequently asked questions about fish.

Field Museum. Field Museum presents sample online classroom activities about dinosaurs for the elementary school grades. To find the activities, click on Teachers' guide. Students can also take an interactive quiz by selecting which animals went extinct or survived? or what's small and what's big?.

Fisher Teacher Tips. Fisher Teacher Tips is an online service featuring classroom ideas and activities categorized by subjects for high school science. Teaching tip categories include biology, chemistry, earth science, equipment & supplies, and physics. In addition, site provides a science calendar with weekly notable science facts and events.

Florida EXPLORES: Basic Skills and Activities. Florida State University's EXPloring and Learning the Operations and Resources of Environmental Satellites Web site provides instructional activities for meteorolgy in grades 6-12.

Food, Glorious Food. Food, Glorious Food, provided by the Calgary Hearld Online for students in grades K-6, features classroom activities using a newspaper for teaching about nutrition, a balanced diet, and healthy eating.

Food Guide Pyramid. The Food Guide Pyramid from the University of Minnesota's Nutrition Expedition for grades K-6 is an interactive guide to help students choose a healthful diet. Other useful sites are the Food Pyramid Guide and the Food Pyramid which present graphical representations of balanced, healthy diets, complete with short descriptions of each food group.

Food Zone. Food Zone explores nutrition and the digestive system for students in grades 8-12. The site includes intermediate and advanced experiments, quizzes, and a teachers' resource page.

Franklin Institute Spotlights. Franklin Institute Spotlights cover a wide variety of science topics that include classroom activities and related Web sites for grades 4-8. Among the topics are simple machines, living things, rocks and minerals, and animal migration.

Fremont Science Department. Fremont Middle School Science Department offers for grades 6-8 award-winning science fair projects, a collection of Web sites organized by topic for doing a research report, a collaborative science fiction writing project, rainforest and tornando activities, and links to science sites.

Frogland. Frogland contains interactive activities, photos, and information about frogs for grades K-12. Primary grade students can color frogs in a coloring book and teachers can visit teachers corner to find classrom activities.

Fun Science Gallery. Fun Science Gallery, for grades 6-12, contains instructions on how to build your own telescope, microscope and other instruments using easily-obtainable materials. If you need more detail than the site provides, you can send for a leaflet costing $6.00.

Future Scientists and Engineers of America (FSEA). FSEA is a nonprofit organization that promotes science and engineering for students in grades 4-12. To find a list of projects organized by grade level, click on catalog.

Genetics Education Center. Genetics Education Center, sponsored by the University of Kansas Medical Center, provides instructional materials and activities for high school biology classrooms. There are online resources for the Human Genome Project , genetic education, networking, and miscellaneous sites such as the MendelWeb.

Genetics Source. Genetics Source is an on tutorial with six lessons about genetics for high school biology students. In addition, the site provides two easy-to-do labs for the students.

Good Green Fun. Good Green Fun provides songs and activities for grades K-6 to learn about the environment and conservation. Audio bytes and lyric sheets help the kids to learn songs, and the activities include easy-to-follow instructions.

Gordon's Entomological Home Page. Gordon's Entomological Home Page contains an alphabetical list of all his pages about insects for grades 6-12. Among the resources useful to students and teachers in grades 6-12 are an introduction to insect anatomy, the school page, the insect orders and the insect page.

Goose Holler. Goose Holler provides hands-on lesson plan ideas for middle school science.

Green Valley Recycling Coloring Book. Green Valley provides an online coloring book where primary grade kids can learn about recycling. Each page can be can be printed out and copied for the whole class to use.

Green Teacher. Green Teacher, a quarterly environmental magazine, provides cross-curriculum activities for grades K-12. To find the activities, click on online articles, scroll to "The Planet Earth Pages", and select a topic of interest to you from an issue.

Guess What?. Guess What?, provided by WNET/PBS, is a set of six interactive nature puzzle games for students in grades 2-6. To play, you click on a square in the grid to get a clues. You try to unscramble the picture and guess the animal in as few turns as possible. There is also "Show me the answer" button.

Hands-On Activities in the Physical Sciences. Hands-On Activities, contributed by Rick Bady, contains a wide variety of physical science experiments useful for grades 5-12. The categories include observation and measurement, physical and chemical properties, forces and their effects, and energy, and each category offers a large collection of activities.

Happy Earth Day Coloring and Activities Book. Happy Earth Day Coloring and Activities Book contains 11 pages of science fun for students in the primary grades. You must download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print out the pages.

Henk's Page. Henk's Page offers online illustrated, worksheet activities for biology high school students.

Heart Preview Gallery. Heart Preview Gallery, created by Franklin Institute Science Museum, presents an online interactive tour showing how the heart works. The tour also includes activities and a glossary useful for grades 4-8. In addition, there is a list of Things to do and a list of Things to See during the tour of the heart.

High Plains: Land of Extremes. The High Plains: Land of Extremes, based on a September 1996 article in NSTA's magazine, Science and Children , features classroom activities and color pictures to help students in grades 3-6 to learn about this great ecosystem.

HistoWeb. HistoWeb or Histology on the Net, provided by the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Kansas Medical Center, presents hundreds of microscopic anatomical slide images for cell structure, glands, nervous, bone, and eye & ear. The site is appriopiate for high school biology students.

Home Page for Physics. Home Page for Physics offers interesting physics projects for high school students.