Top 20 Activities in Chemistry
At this website, Quia furnishes 20 interactive activities to educate students about chemistry. Students can play matching, word, and concentration games to learn the names and formulas of binary ionic compounds, element symbols, common names of chemicals, and other basic chemistry concepts. The website also offers a quiz about chemical bonds, a chemistry Jeopardy game, a Battleship game about balancing equations, and much more. While users can subscribe to customize the activities, the free acti
Scientific American Frontiers: Make Up Your Mind
This Web site is the online complement to Make Up Your Mind, a recently aired episode of the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers. This site would be a great addition to classroom material on brain anatomy and function, and could be tailored for a broad range of grade levels. Features include a Teaching Guide with downloadable activities and a quiz (for grades 5-8), plus Web links and other references. Users can also watch the entire documentary online, and view related stories from earlier
Multiflyer
Multiflyer is an interactive game "for anyone who is trying to learn or 'brush up on' their multiplication." The user is in a virtual space ship and is faced with several missions on the moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, and more. To advance to each subsequent mission, the correct coordinates need to be calculated. This is where multiplication is necessary, and the user is provided with an excellent opportunity to practice the multiplication tables. The game is complete with attractive space enviro
Seaworld: Water
An educational lesson plan entitled Water is offered by the Seaworld teacher resources Web site. Objectives of the unit include having students identify the three phases of water, discuss the hydrologic cycle, describe the structure of the water molecule and the properties of water, explain ocean currents, and more. The well designed lesson allows students to study various topics by reading provided text and completing the activities described such as measuring salt content in water and estimati
Music Acoustics
The Music Acoustics Web site is maintained by the University of New South Wales School of Physics. General topics covered include what a decibel is, what interference beats are, what a sound spectrum is, what acoustic impedance is, and others. Specific instrument questions are also answered, such as waves in strings, flute and clarinet acoustics, Helmholz resonance, and pipes and harmonics. This very interesting site, with its many illustrations and animations, along with its easily-read text, a
Two Updates on Stem Cell Research
In a recent press briefing, stem cell research pioneers James Thomson and John Gearhart announced that, despite political obstacles and limited funding, stem cell research is progressing and clinical trials on human beings should begin within the next five years. The Why Files chronicles the first five years of embryonic stem cell research, covering the science, the politics, and the ethical issues behind this contentious topic (and a closer look at the both the promise and doubt in adult stem c
Frontline: Dangerous Prescription
In the recent PBS broadcast Dangerous Prescriptions, Frontline "investigates the integrity of America's drug safety system." The documentary (viewable in its entirety online) explores "the FDA's handling of several drugs that were approved but later were pulled from the market after causing injuries and even deaths." The companion website offers a look at how the FDA works and details of its recent record, based on interviews with current and former FDA officials. Also, readers may share their t
Wildlife Conservation Society: In the Wild
In the Wild is a Web feature of the Wildlife Conservation Society, a nonprofit organization working to conserve "wildlife and wild places by working on all fronts through its international conservation programs, living institutions, and pioneering environmental education programs." This Web site presents a new, comprehensive map of the human footprint, or "patterns of human influence across the land's surface." Recently published in Bioscience, the study reveals that human beings "directly influ
net.TUTOR
This site from Ohio State University offers fifteen interactive tutorials that teach effective Internet practices and research methodologies. The tutorials can require up to 30 minutes each, since they provide many good examples and activities. The first few cover basic Internet tools, like Web browsers and email. Essential searching skills are introduced in the next section. A particularly valuable tutorial describes ways to evaluate a site's credentials and determine if the material is accurat
The Chesapeake Bay Program
This Web site is the online presence of the Chesapeake Bay Program, "a unique regional partnership that has led and directed the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay." The site offers a wealth of information regarding the region's flora and fauna, habitats and ecosystem processes, restoration efforts, current events, and much more. For instance, click on Animals and Plants to access pages and pages of well-organized information about the area's shellfish, reptiles, mammals, insects, bay grasses, in
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences presents its work in three main topics: environmental geochemistry and hydrology, geochemistry of the Earth's interior, and solid-earth geophysics. For each topic, the website offers summaries of the faculty's successes and current projects as well as links to the latest research news stories. Visitors can discover the equipment and technology available at the Jonsson-Rowland Science Center and the Materials Re
Louisiana State University: Tourmaline Today
This Louisiana State University website features its research of the mineral tourmaline, which can provide "information on the thermal and fluid history of rocks in which it develops, is intimately associated with some of the world's premier metallic ore deposits, retains chemical signatures of the sources of tourmaline detritus in clastic rocks", and has many additional valuable petrogenetic features. Researchers can find downloads of abstracts and publications of the University's investigation
Jantar Mantar: The Astronomical Observatories of Jai Singh II
This website, created by the Cornell University Professor of Art, Barry Perlus, presents the five astronomical observatories in west central India. After reading a short introduction to the observatories, users can explore interactive panoramas of the observatories, built in the 18th century, using QuickTime. The website also offers still images and animations of the Samrat Yantra. Visitors can learn about the latest design plans and additions to the website. The website features downloads of ar
Research Abstracts from the DOE Genome Contractor-Grantee Workshop IX
Research abstracts from a recent Department of Energy (DOE) genomics workshop are now available online. Researchers presented updates on DOE-funded genome research at this January 2002 workshop. Abstracts can be viewed within topical categories or by author name. Abstracts include title of the talk, author name, and contact information.
Brookhaven National Laboratory: National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC)
The National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory "collects, evaluates, and disseminates nuclear physics data for basic nuclear research and for applied nuclear technologies." Researchers can find eight databases containing information on nuclear structure, decay, and reaction, and also references. The website also offers numerous nuclear structure, decay, and reaction tools. Users can find links to both United States and international nuclear data centers. Students and e
Ultrascale Simulation for Science
When Japan's Earth Simulator supercomputer eclipsed its US counterparts in terms of speed and processing power, America was faced with a challenge to regain its dominance of supercomputing capability. The Ultrascale Web site studies this challenge, and the implications it has on the nation's scientific objectives. Several short documents about the importance of and applications for ultrascale simulation are given on this page. Generally between one and two pages, the papers are mostly from the U
Curriculum Guide for the Climate Impacts Map
This Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) guide was produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists to accompany the Global Warming: Early Warning Signs Web site (last mentioned in the March 14, 2001 Scout Report for Science & Engineering). The activities are designed to involve 9-12 grade students in learning about real world issues using recent data. The activities focus on the following four topics: analyzing climate data from a selected city, collecting and comparing data on perceptions of climate with histor
Consensus CoDing Sequence Database
The Consensus CoDing Sequence (CCDS) Database "project is a collaborative effort to identify a core set of human protein-coding regions that are consistently annotated and of high quality. The long-term goal is to support convergence toward a standard set of gene annotations on the human genome." CCDS project collaborators include the National Center for Biotechnology (NCBI), European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI), and University of California, Santa Cruz
Japanese Ant Image Database
The 2003 revised edition of the Japanese Ant Image Database was developed under the direction of the Japanese Ant Database Group (JADG). The website, which merges taxonomic information and stunning photographs, will no doubt delight myrmecologists and others. Information about different types of ants can be accessed through browseable, hyperlinked lists organized by subfamily, genus, and species. Genus and species profiles include images, references, descriptive information, simple distribution
Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in U.S. Streams, 1999-2000: A N
A recent study released by the US Geological Survey is the first in a series of reports that looks at 95 contaminants from industrial, human, and agricultural wastewater sources. Looking in 139 streams during 1999-2000, the study has found that surprisingly high levels of household chemicals, pharmaceuticals, detergents, and disinfectants have found their way into US streams. The complete report and accompanying news article is available from the Environmental Science and Technology online journ
