National Geographic: Forces of Nature
This National Geographic offers entertaining Macromedia Flash Player enhanced tutorials about natural disasters. Students can make their own earthquake, discover why a volcano erupts, build a tropical cyclone, find out the characteristics of a tornado, and more. The website offers facts on historically large events as well as key information about earthquakes, volcanoes, tornados, and hurricanes. The simple glossary helps users understand the scientific terms presented throughout the modules. Ed
Come Grow With Us
This is an online collaborative project from the Lakeland Central School District that allows students to observe the process of a seed becoming a plant, collect data, and communicate results with other participating classrooms. Teachers can register their students to participate in the activity this fall, or simply use the lesson plans independently. The site is well organized, provides information in a simple format, and outlines the educational standards addressed by the project.
South Carolina Seismic Network
The University of South Carolina offers data from the seismic network that stretches from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Atlantic coast. Users can view maps of earthquake activity in South Carolina since 1996. The website offers a synopsis of the Charleston Earthquake in 1886, which was the largest historic earthquake in the Southeastern United States. Visitors can find a catalogue of the earthquakes occurring between 1698 and 1998 and a map of the East Coast seismicity from 1973 to 2000 as wel
University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Department: The Gellman Group
The Gellman Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison presents its research "focused on understanding the interactions involved in the folding of natural and unnatural amide polymers." After learning the basics of the Group's unnatural amino acids and beta-peptide foldamers work, users can discover its biological applications. The website offers helpful figures to explain the protein-protein interactions and Beta Hairpins and Sheets. Researchers can find downloads to Gellman's numerous public
Technology and Religion
This issue of Topic in Depth explores the relationship between technology and religion in today's world. This first website, from PBS, features interviews with "a skeptic, a devout Muslim scientist, and an expert in the sociology of religion" who address the question, Can Religion Withstand Technology? (1). This blog from the Institute for the Future discusses how religion is making use of technology (2). One way that religion and technology interact, of course, is through the use of the Interne
Bionic Eyes
Both Web sites come from Science@NASA, an online source for news and information about NASA-funded research. The first article describes the work of researchers at the Center for Commercial Applications of Combustion in Space, who are developing artificial bones for long-lasting, pain-free hip and knee replacements. These ceramic bones are touted as "so much like the real thing that they could actually meld with living bone." Earlier this year, researchers at the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center in H
Institute for Mathematics and Applications: Mathematics of Materials and Macromolecules: Multiple Sc
The Institute for Mathematics and Applications (IMA) developed this website to promote its conferences and workshops dealing with the applications of mathematics in the study of materials and molecules. Visitors can find information on a particular event's schedule, participants, and accommodations as well as abstracts. The events dealing with the physical sciences include workshops dealing with atomic motion, macroscopic models, and biophysics as well as a program about environmental and geophy
Alabama A&M University-Howard J. Foster Center for Irradiation of Materials
The Howard J. Foster Center for Irradiation of Materials at Alabama A&M University "was established in response to the growing need for surface modification and characterization capability in North Alabama." Researchers can find images and concise explanations of the numerous material characterization and materials processing activities at the Center. The website allows users to search the Center's publication by keyword. Visitors can find out the latest meetings, conferences, and other events.
EarthÂ’s Timeline
Provided by MSNBC News Web site, the EarthÂ’s Timeline interactive activity chronicles the history of the earth. The main page describes how radiometric dating and fossils have been used to develop the contemporary geologic timescale. Users can click on one of four major geologic time divisions, including the Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, to get specific information on the individual subdivisions of geologic time and to see how the continents have shifted. These sections then t
Captology: Computers as Persuasive Technologies
"The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab creates insight into how computing products -- from websites to mobile phone software -- can be designed to change what people believe and what they do." This unusual field of study is called captology, and the subject is explored in detail on the lab's homepage. The Key Concepts section provides a brief overview of captology and links to another page with nine topic papers published by researchers at the lab. In a series of examples demonstrating how comp
How the Earth Fared
Environmental Defense, a nonprofit organization that "brings together experts in science, law and economics to tackle complex environmental issues," presents How the Earth Fared, a year-in-review of environmental news in 2002. Available as a 4-page document, How the Earth Fared highlights developments and setbacks in the following areas: climate change and global warming, natural resources, endangered species and wildlife habitat protection, antibiotic resistance and organic foods, toxic chemica
IPGRI: International Plant Genetic Resources Institute
This website is the homepage of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), "an international research institute with a mandate to advance the conservation and use of genetic diversity for the well-being of present and future generations." The site is packed with informative resources on agricultural biodiversity, including IPGRI breaking news, downloadable publications, links to online databases, and much more. The publications library is quite a find, with a number of download
NSTA Webwatchers' Science Guides
The Webwatchers' Science Guides website -- provided by the National Science Teachers Association -- is a portal to educational resources on the Internet. Along with carefully selected links, this website offers a few downloadable lesson plans, as well as audio reviews from fellow teachers and vignettes demonstrating how to use the Guides in the classroom. Navigation can be somewhat tricky -- the site follows an elaborate organizational scheme that requires its own 4-page explanation. For a quick
The Why Files: Virtual Science Comes Alive
At this Why Files website, students can learn about meteorology and physics through four interactive games. Students can adjust the funnel width and the pressure difference to observe how these factors affect the destruction caused by a tornado. At the Play with Lightning link, users can examine how distance affects the dangers of lightening and the loudness of the thunder. The Hit a Homerun game allows visitors view the path of a baseball at different altitudes, speeds, and angles. The website
The Methuselah Mouse Prize
While the average human lifespan has increased markedly over the past one hundred years, the ceiling has hardly been reached. An interesting contest, The Methuselah Mouse Prize -- presumably named after the biblical character who was said to have lived 969 years -- seeks to "promote public interest and involvement in research on mammalian life extension and encourage more such research on mice and other higher animals." Basically, research teams compete to prolong the life of a mouse, _Mus muscu
aspectj.org: Crosscutting Objects for Better Modularity
AspectJ is a Java extension with aspect-oriented functions and programming technology. Continuing with the open source movement, the developers have made AspectJ free for download from this Web site. The software implements "the clean modularization of crosscutting concerns" like performance optimizations, debugging support, and more. The compiler, several accompanying tools, and example programs are all provided in the release. There is also extensive documentation and a tutorial to help new us
Science in Your Watershed
Provided by the US Geological Survey, this Web site is intended to help users "find scientific information organized on a watershed basis" for use in "characterizing, assessing, analyzing, and maintaining the status and health of a watershed." More specifically, Science in Your Watershed "provides rudiments of a decision-support process by making accessible recent case studies of projects that have occurred, publications produced, databases and information assembled, and providing access to free
Koko's World
Koko's World is provided by the Gorilla Foundation, a nonprofit organization created to "bring interspecies communication to the public, in order to save gorillas from extinction, and inspire our children to create a better future for all the great apes." KokoTV, part of the Koko's World Web site, offers video clips of Koko (the famous signing gorilla) communicating with friends. A recently added clip contains footage of Koko purring, an expression of contentment. In watching this and the eight
Study of Menopausal Women with Heart Disease Finds No Benefit, Potential for Harm from Hormone Thera
This site describes a study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which found that postmenopausal women with heart disease did not benefit from high doses of antioxidants vitamins, whether alone or in combination with hormone replacement therapy. In fact, researchers found both treatments to be potentially harmful.
TryScience Field Trip: Be Sense-sational @ Bristol
TryScience is an online "gateway to experience the excitement of contemporary science and technology through on and offline interactivity with science and technology centers worldwide." This TryScience Web site contains interactive activities for younger children from Explore-at-Bristol, a new science center in Bristol, England. One of the featured activities focuses on sensory perception, such as how different sensory connections can result in mixed emotions. The Web site offers tips for parent
