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Tired of teaching from the text book? Having a hard time fitting environmental science instruction into the school day? Well EcoKids can change all of that!

EcoKids is a Canadian interactive website created to engage students in environmental activities. This site is full of resources for teachers such as lesson plans, printable resources, and helpful links. It even has specifically designed lessons for ESL (English as a Second Language) students using the different environmental themes. Teachers can access information on Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, The North, Waste, Land Use, and Earth Day to initiate any environmental or science lesson, or provided a great follow up to an end-of-unit study. This site even has a Fact of the Day that teachers can use to initiate classroom discussions or writing activities about the environment. Looking for an environmental project for your classroom or school? You can visit different links on the site that show different types of environmental projects students and schools are involved in for ideas.

Students can access the site and engage in games to practice what they have learned in the different areas of Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, the North Pole, and Land Use. The games integrate the environmental themes with reading, math, science, problem solving, and social studies. Students can work on their writing skills by responding to questions posted periodically on the site, or commenting on the blog. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

EcoKids

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Kids enjoy science most when it’s a hands-on experience. Words like “experiments” and “laboratory” (preferably pronounced la-BORE-ah-tory) mean getting out of your seat and doing something, whether that entails imploding steel drums or launching water rockets.

TryScience knows the value of the hands-on approach. That’s why they boast fun experiments and games, as well as a guide to field-trip-worthy science centers around the world. For a fun class activity, have everyone create boats from aluminum foil and see how seaworthy they. Need to find a scientastic outing for your next field trip? Search by country and state to find a trip near you. If you can’t find anything nearby, TryScience has live webcams of exhibits at science centers all over the world, so you can take a look at human-sized soap bubbles in Japan, a Tyrannosaurus skeleton in Maryland, or the Butterfly Cam at the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science.

If you’re looking for a way to get your students interested in science, TryScience is a terrific place to start. Science is best experienced through action and investigation, and TryScience has both of these in bunches. Send your students there and start experementing. -BILL FERRIS

TryScience

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Former US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor wants to do for civics what John Madden did for video game football. That’s why she’s speaking on behalf of Our Courts, an still-in-development video game that will let students learn about government by tackling true-to-life legal issues online.

In a recent Reuters article, former Justice O’Connor said students aren’t learning enough about how government works. “[O’Connor] said the only way to preserve an independent judiciary was through public education, which she said was failing to produce citizens with enough knowledge about the three branches of U.S. government — legislative, executive and judicial.” To help make up the difference, Our Courts will provoke student debate on issues such as the 1st Amendment rights of a student wearing a controversial T-shirt to school.

Though Our Courts isn’t yet complete, you can already find useful resources like information on state governments,the structure of the state and federal court systems, plus key definitions that will translate legal mumbo-jumbo into plain English.

Once Our Courts is complete, make sure to send your students there. If they play it even a fraction as much as they play Madden football, they’ll become veritable experts on the workings of government. -BILL FERRIS

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Read at Work is deceptive, underhanded and sneaky. Fortunately, its also very educational and fun. Designed to look and act like a Windows desktop, this application goes widescreen and mimics everything on a normal desktop, and presents folders containing various short stories, poems, and classic works. The fun comes in when you click on one of the titles and a fake PowerPoint presentation pops up. The original texts are placed in various blocks of graphs, bulleted lists and charts for your reading pleasure.

It appears that the application was developed by bibliophiles at the NZ Book Council who had no time to read classic works of literature at their desks. Nonetheless, it’s well constructed and an interesting way to read literature. If anything, you might be able to use this to inspire your students to new ways of approaching literature. Or if you are, yourself, an overworked bibliophile desk jockey, you might like to catch up on your reading without getting caught. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Read at Work

Today’s young people are tomorrow’s diplomats. That may be a hard concept to internalize as you watch your students duel over a bag of Hot Cheetos in the cafeteria, but it’s true. To get them off to a good start, send them to Future State, the U.S. Department of State’s website for youths.

The site introduces students to the secretary of state, shares stories from the children of diplomats living overseas, provides starting places for those interested in careers in diplomacy, and links to fact sheets about every country in the world. Games for younger students teach them about world flags and test their geographic smarts.

The most compelling part of the site may be the news and events section, which seems to be targeted toward middle and high school students. As any social studies teacher knows, it can be difficult to make distant countries seem important to a 15-year-old who’s never touched a newspaper. But posts like “An American Girl in Riyadh” can make a far-off place like Saudi Arabia seem real – and even interesting – to the most apathetic American student.

The site can go a long way toward making students feel like the federal government is accessible to them, and that the wide world is not so far away. -EMILY JACK

Future State

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Not everyone is a wizard of the qwerty keyboard. Your students may be able to thumb their way around a cell phone keypad, but still can’t find the home keys on a computer keyboard. Here are some resources for you (or your students) to work on typing speed and accuracy while having fun. I love doing them even with a solid 50+ wpm speed.

1. Aunt Lee Dot Com is a collection of different typing games (some of which are featured below). My favorite is under Typing words that has Type, Type, Revolution (yep, just like the dancing game, only with typing).
2. Dance Mat Typing is probably the most well-known online interactive typing program, and is brought to us by the BBC. The narrator (a goat) does have a pretty heavy Scots burr, but it just adds to the flavor of the place.
3. TypingTest.com and Online Typing Games - Bubbles Game let you assess yourself, then play a really great game of typing letter bubbles. I’m addicted.
4. Custom Typing Training has a training module, and a fun soccer typing game. You need to sign up to get the full version, but it’s still free.

Add fun - and more words per minute - to your typing repertoire with these online typing games. -ALICE MERCER

Aunt Lee Dot Com
Dance Mat Typing
TypingTest.com
Online Typing Games - Bubbles Game
Custom Typing Training
Best sites to learn typing skills via Larry Ferlazzo

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Photo credit: ollily on flickr

I saw the new Indiana Jones movie last weekend, so I’m suddenly keen on history and archeology. That’s what drew me to BBC Ancient History. This site provides a close-up look at several ancient civilizations, including the Mayan Empire, Mesopotamia, Rome, Greece, India, and several others.

BBC Ancient History packs the usual resources like images, time lines and scholarly articles, along with animated demonstrations of architecture, like an Iron Age Roundhouse from British prehistory. You can also find some surprisingly fun games. I recommend Viking Quest, which is like Oregon Trail, except instead of migrating to the west, you’re trying to loot a monastery in Britain. It’s not easy - for bringing home a paltry 150 pieces of silver and eight slaves, I was banished to a fishing village in Norway.

If you cover any of these civilizations during your world history course - and it’s hard to imagine world history without the Greeks or Egyptians - your students will want to check out BBC Ancient History for additional resources. They’ll get a lot more knowledge, and they won’t even have to bring a bullwhip or fedora. -BILL FERRIS

BBC Ancient History

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Tired of hearing the crash of math manipulatives hitting your tile floor? Do you ever wonder if your students are engaged in the math lesson while they are building the tallest tower of manipulatives possible? Then the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is for you.

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is a free website that allows you access to a multitude of interactive virtual manipulatives. They range from pre-kindergarten up to twelfth grade. This allows for differentiating instruction for students’ different learning levels. The manipulatives are arranged into five categories - Number & Operations; Algebra; Geometry; Measurement; and Data Analysis & Probability. In each category you can find numerous interactive math manipulatives and activities for many different math concepts.

With the use of an interactive white board or projector these munipulatives can be used for discovery and inquiry-based learning by all your students. Your pupils will become actively involved as they see, hear, and do different math activities with the use of the manipulatives. This site can also be used to allow learners to make connections, and review concepts taught on individual classroom computers, in computer labs, or on home computers. In addition the site can be displayed in English, French, or Spanish, a great resource for our ELL (English Language Learners) populations. The days of manipulatives taking up shelf space are coming to an end. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

National Library of Virtual Manipulatives

So I’m not the greatest at state capitals, or geography in general for that matter. I’m especially terrible at the Midwestern US, which is why I can definitely never remember the capital of Kentucky (Frankfort) or Missouri (Jefferson City). Also, Nevada’s just sounds wrong to me (Carson City?). If you’re anything like me, though, you have more of a photographic memory, so a visual game helps immensely when attempting to recall information.

With the State Capitals Game from Vector Kids your elementary and middle school kids can review their state capitals by selecting a state and choosing the correct capital from three options. I think the best part about this game is that the options they give you are all other capital cities. That way, those 50 cities stay fresh in your students’ brains rather than letting their noggins get cluttered with thinking that maybe Chicago is the capital of Illinois (it’s really Springfield) or Seattle the capital of Washington (Olympia, actually). See, I’m learning already!

Plus - and I think your students would agree - it’s always more fun to learn when you get to play games! -LAUREN FROHNE

State Capitals Game
Vector Kids

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I’m terrible at Risk, which probably has something to do with the fact that I’m terrible at geography. My main problem, though, is that I end up with terrible territories:

Opponent: “I’m sending an army into Irkutsk.”

Me: “Meh. You can have it, Nanook.”

Perhaps I’d do better if I got to defend a place I actually cared about, or could at least locate on a map. The New York Times reports a few Ivy Leaguers apparently felt the same way when they created GoCrossCampus.

Like Risk, the goal in GCC is to recruit and position your armies to take over your opponents’ territory. Unlike Risk, the territory consists of college campuses, or U.S. cities and states, and your armies consist of you and your friends. Working as a team with people within your social network, dormitory, whatever, you coordinate your movements to defeat your rival, as well as develop teamwork, collaboration and leadership skills. You can also nominate commanders, and remove nefarious spies from your ranks.

The game’s creators - a small group of Yale students - designed the game to be compatible with existing social networks, both online and face-to-face. They also play up the game’s small time-commitment - only a few minutes every day.

GoCrossCampus isn’t available to the general public just yet, but the founders plan to expand into high schools, as well as corporate team-building exercises. If you can’t wait that long and you’d like to participate at your school ASAP, you can contact them via the GoCrossCampus website. It’s a good way to bolster school spirit, as well as inject a little energy into your next geography lesson. -BILL FERRIS

Storming the Campuses via the New York Times
GoCrossCampus

If you watch Lost, you’ll be familiar with some of the references I’m about to throw your way. Who wouldn’t want to explore an island, all the while hanging out with Kate (or Jack, ladies) and solving mysteries? First thing I’d do would be to [Spoiler Alert] and then [Spoiler Alert], because, really, what was up with [Spoiler Alert]? We might never know!

One thing I do know for sure is that its not really a place for kids, as most of them end up getting kidnapped once or twice per season. There has got to be a kid-friendly island out there that they can explore… someplace like, oh I don’t know, BBC’s Adventure Rock. Adventure Rock is an online 3D island that includes games and creative studios where children can get immersed.

According to this article from BBC News, virtual worlds are a stimulating way for kids practice what they might do in real life. For as much escapism as a virtual world like Second Life provides for people who already lead real lives, something like Adventure Rock would exist on the opposite side of things. Kids can practice social skills and figure out their identities in a consequence-free environment all before leading their own lives in the real world. –NICK YINGLING

Adventure Rock

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist like Indiana Jones and I dreamed about being on Nickelodeon’s Legends of the Hidden Temple. Sadly, I’m not currently exploring foreign lands for ancient artifacts and getting chased by Nazis, nor did I ever get the chance to be a Blue Barracuda. But with National Geographic’s Explore a Pyramid, your students can have the opportunities that I never did, and learn while doing it!

With this fun and educational game, your students can coast through an ancient pyramid using a robot to search for hieroglyphic clues. Once they find the hieroglyphic in each room, they can access the secret room to see mummies and other neat stuff. It’s a great way to start a lesson on Egyptian history and to discuss the significance of pyramids and hieroglyphics.

And after your students get to scope out some mummies, they can move on to find shrunken treasure, explore Mars, or even learn about helping animals with other map games on the National Geographic’s My Wonderful World Web site.

These games are fun, engaging and most of all, educational. And if your aspirations were the same as mine growing up, you can live vicariously through your students! Everyone wins! -LAUREN FROHNE

Explore a Pyramid
My Wonderful World

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You’ve heard a lot about this “social networking” stuff kids are talking about. Whether you’re a complete networking newbie or you’ve got a MySpace, Facebook and Twitter account, make sure to check out iCue, a site from NBC News that combines peer connection with learning and multimedia.

iCue is an online learning environment that will let your students collaborate online while learning. While it does have fun stuff like games, iCue’s coolest features are the Cue Cards, which play video clips, as well as view images, documents, and video transcripts, related to the subject you’re looking up. Like an online baseball card, “flip” the Cue Card over to read useful info about the person speaking, his or her political views, the source of the video clip, earned run average, and lots more. Each card is tagged with notes and keywords, and if NBC’s notes don’t cut it, you can write in your own. Also like baseball cards, you can save and share them, so you can finally get hold of the Barack Obama rookie card.

Once they’re in iCue, students can build their friends network, interact with peers through discussion forums, and comment on others’ Cue Cards or ideas. iCue forums also have a “Thought Starter” which you can use to spark student discussion about an event in the news.

For its debut, iCue features content focused on politics, since there’s apparently a presidential election coming up. Over the summer they’ll add resources for courses including US History and English language and composition. Who knows? Once your students get started on iCue, discussing political candidates and collaborating on history research may just take precedence over updating their MySpace pages. -BILL FERRIS

iCue

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You may have heard your students talking about questing or getting their epic mounts or selling bars of gold on the auction house. If you have, you’re probably dealing with a World of Warcraft player.

As a long-standing gamer and a doctoral student interested in virtual worlds and games and their potential use for teaching, I was thrilled to learn that a recent issue of Science magazine called for participation in a unique conference – one that would take place within the massively multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft (WoW). For three days in May, participants in the Convergence of the Real and the Virtual conference created characters and joined players from around the world to participate in scholarly discussions about the game while hanging out in a virtual world.

The conference was comprised of three sessions: one about the possibilities for research within the game, one about the relationship between the game and the “real world,” and one about the future of such virtual worlds.

I was particularly drawn to the second session because it featured both Constance Steinkuehler who researches the potential for learning and literacy in games, and Julian Dibbell, who researches cultural and sociological aspects of games. These scholars are two of my most favorite within this community. This particular session shed some light on the learning potential in games.

Steinkuehler believes there’s serious learning and knowledge creation that occurs as a result of playing WoW. For instance one conference participant related a story about how his son wanted to find a specific pet within the game (yes, players can have virtual pets in the game) and spent several hours researching how to find and obtain such a pet. This example uniquely illustrates the development of critical thinking, research skills, and strategic planning - indispensable skills in high school, college and beyond. Other threads of discussion in this session included the notions of:

1. How real is a friend in WoW?
2. Are the relationships that are formed in-game meaningful?
3. Is the social space of the game completely different from real life, or does it simply mimic real life?
4. Can leadership be learned in WoW?
5. Can skills developed within the game world transfer to the real world?

If you are interested in learning more about the potential for learning in games, I recommend you start with Steinkuehler’s work. After all, 10 million people play WoW; and some of them might be your students! -LAURA CHRISTOPHERSON

Tired of kids doing the same games from your list of activities? Would you like to add the element of random chance into your curriculum, but still have solid academic (yet fun) online activities for kids to do? Let Computer Lab Favorites at Scholastic.com change up your mix. This site generates new content and activities suitable for independent work at the lab.

The activities are presented on a wheel, which features four color-coded subjects (English, Math, Social Studies, and Spanish). It comes in two levels K-2 and 3-5, and a “spin it” button to let you do a random selection, adding the element of chance to your session. Activities include phonemic awareness and reading games from Clifford, science from Magic School Bus, writing activities from “Dog’s Life” and other “Flashlight Readers, and the poetry machine.

This is a great resource for high interest, easy-to-use independent activities on your classroom computers, and a rendezvous with Madame La Chance. -ALICE MERCER

Computer Lab Favorites at Scholastic.com