One thing I have learned from working with the virtual school is that are an infinite number of websites available that can complement science lessons. Sometimes the most difficult challenge is finding them, organizing them, and utilizing them. I have already written about the virtual labs, this portion is dedicated to a review of some of the other websites I have found that could be used by a virtual science classroom. I chose to review Earth Science websites, as I am sharing this page with two of my colleagues as well.
Geology Labs Online
http://www.sciencecourseware.org/eecindex.php
This website allows the user to study virtual rivers, dating, and earthquakes, setting up locations and data. Global warming and earthquake labs are also available.
Mineralogy Database
http://webmineral.com/
This mineral database contains 4,442 individual mineral species descriptions with links and a comprehensive image library.
Largest Mineral Database
http://www.mindat.org/
This database is the largest mineral database and mineralogical reference website on the internet. This site contains worldwide data on minerals, mineral collecting, mineral localities and other mineralogical information.
High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
http://marsoweb.nas.nasa.gov/HiRISE/
The HiRISE Online Image Viewer allows on-line users to select HiRISE imaged sites off a global map of Mars and "zoom in" and pan on the HiRISE image to see the surface of Mars as we've never seen it before.
University of California Museum of Paleontology
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/index.php
The UCMP website contains thousands of pages of content about the history of life on Earth.
The Geo-Time Machine
http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/~charding/GTM/GTM.html
The Geo-Time-Machine (GTM) is a 3D computer-graphics learning tool that helps you understand relative geologic time.
Web Geologic Time Machine
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/timeform.html
Here you can journey through the history of the Earth, with stops at particular points in time to examine the fossil record and stratigraphy.
The Universe-Animation and Video
http://bcs.whfreeman.com/universe6e/pages/bcs-main.asp?s=00110&n=01000&i=01110.03&v=category&o=0200001000&ns=0&uid=0&rau=0
The animations and videos are designed to enhance the understanding of the astronomy concepts presented in Universe.
Kid Wind Project
http://www.kidwind.org/materials.html
This guide is designed to help a beginner, or an expert, explore wind energy science through a wide a variety of engaging activities and materials.
Learn About Volcanoes
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Outreach/AboutVolcanoes/framework.html
This website addresses frequently asked questions about volcanoes.
USGS and Science Education
http://education.usgs.gov/
The U.S. Geological Survey provides scientific information intended to help educate the public about natural resources, natural hazards, geospatial data, and issues that affect our quality of life. Discover selected online resources, including lessons, data, maps, and more, to support teaching, learning, education (K-12), and university-level inquiry and research.
Water Environment Federation
http://www.wef.org/AboutWater/ForEducators/CurriculumMaterials/
Designed for use by teachers, non-formal educators, and water quality professionals, The Water Sourcebook series covers today's most important water environment topics.
Energy Kid's Page
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/index.html
A website full of energy facts, energy fun and games, energy classroom activities, and energy links.
Planet Science
http://www.planet-science.com/home.html
Free online science resource cite for students, teachers, and parents.
Soil Science Basics
http://soil.gsfc.nasa.gov/basics.htm
Website that introduces soil, soil chemistry, soil physics, and soil microbiology.
The Encyclopedia of Earth
http://www.eoearth.org/
A website devoted to "everything on earth" written by experts in various fields.
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration
http://noaa.gov
This is my favorite website, especially for tracking hurricanes.
These websites would be useful in studies of earth science, and related topics. In most cases, the websites would be suitable for elementary, middle, and high school virtual (or other) science courses. I intentionally left out websites I felt were more suitable for the college level science courses.
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4 comments:
What an amazing wealth of information! I started at the sciencecourseware website and loved it. I went through the River Discharge Simulation. It included instant feedback for the questions it asked. Although I did not find similar activities as easily with the other websites I checked out, I did enjoy seeing all the activities available on them. The Energy Kids website was great as well. I love the sudoku using the different types of fuels! I try to find things like these to have my own children participate in so they do not become TV zombies. I am hoping to share your blog with a colleague of mine who is a science teacher. He always does an activity with his students to test the stream near our school.
Thank you so much for posting all of these valuable links. I'm going to be teaching AP Human Geography next year. I especially like the Geology Labs online from a geographical perspective. I can see how all of these sites would be useful for Earth Science classes.
I love these sites. The HiRISA site has incredible images of Mars and has activities for K-14. The descriptions provided under tutorials for how they capture the images is very informative.
I just finshed discussing scale factors in Geometry. I would love to use some of these images next year and have the students calculate the scale factors. That makes 1 inch per 100 miles seem tiny.
Great resources! I have marked some of them in my del.icio.us account that will serve as great resources for a geography class as well!
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