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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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When I was a lad, I hated when math story problems used metric units. Sure, the rest of the world is able to adequately measure stuff despite using the metric system, but I prefer good old American units like inches, pounds, or Fahrenheit. Like Grampa Simpson said, “The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that’s the way I likes it!”

At some point, however, your students will need at least a cursory understanding of base-10 measurement, whether they plan to be scientists or mathematicians, or if they just want to take a drive through Canada. Next time your lesson plan calls for them to go metric, let your students know about the World Wide Metric Conversion Calculator. This site will take your miles and ounces and convert them to kilometers and grams. It can even change them back, with no ill effects from the transformation.

Maybe World Wide Metric will make your students more trusting of the metric system than I was growing up. They may end up liking the metric system enough that they start using metric time. -BILL FERRIS

World Wide Metric Conversion Calculator

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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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Whenever I have trouble wrapping my head around a difficult concept, I turn to cartoons to explain them (note: that said, I would not recommend turning to Wile E. Coyote for demonstrations on the laws of gravity).

Being an English major, I need all the help I can get when it comes to biology. That’s why I couldn’t pass up Biology in Motion, an online collection of demonstrations and interactive activities that make learning biology easy and fun.

Check out activities that explain evolution, or demonstrations of digestion and the cardiovascular system. For the kid who always has to go to the bathroom, have a look at an explanation of how kidneys affect the solute concentration in urine. You can find these and lots more at Biology in Motion, and the site itself can do a lot better job of explaining what it offers than I can. Maybe there’s a cartoon for that, too? -BILL FERRIS

Biology in Motion

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If you or your students ever take a walk in the woods on a field trip, it’s a good idea to know the potential dangers. I’m not just talking about bears, either. You can find a lot of plants that can harm humans through ingestion, or even by simple touch.

Before heading into the wild, arm yourself by reading this list of the 20 Deadliest Plants on the Planet. You’ll find the usual suspects like hemlock and deadly nightshade [editor’s note: that’s a really cool name for a plant], some wolves in sheep’s clothing like the angel’s trumpet, plus a couple surprises - I knew poison ivy makes you itchy, but I had no idea if you burned it, the smoke can kill you if you breathe it in. Don’t miss the doll’s eyes plant, which looks a lot like what it sounds like. The berries are chock full of cardiogenic toxins which can give you a heart attack, but the fact that the berries look like eyeballs will probably be enough to dissuade even the most curious (or hungry) eaters. -BILL FERRIS

20 Deadliest Plants on the Planet via PurpleSlinky

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Ever wanted to make plastic? Okay, have you ever wanted to make something out of plastic, but didn’t know how? Just curious? Instructables, recently mentioned here, has a nifty video for making plastic with milk and vinegar. This makes a “plastic” called casein (I think it makes a nifty knitting needle).

The nice thing about Instructables are the related videos, which have extensions like making “green” plastic toys. There are also comments, which with this video helped to explain some of the science behind the process. Teach your kids, and yourself something new with Instructables. -ALICE MERCER

Homemade Plastic via Instructables

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There’s a whole world down there, and you can bring it to your student engagingly and easily with Ocean Explorer from NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). This site has a number of “explorations” based on actual work being done by NOAA scientists, with well-developed lesson plans (some even have adaptations for teaching deaf students). You can pick a lesson by subject, or by a specific exploration project. All lessons are correlated to national science standards.

An example is the lesson on the January 2008 Bonaire expedition in the Caribbean. The  lessons offered for Grades 5-6 include one on Pi by looking at surface area, or a more language-arts-oriented lesson where students design a public information campaign to save coral reefs.

Included below is a link to a video from Dr. Robert Ballard, famous ocean explorer and NOAA scientist. The video explains the motivation behind the Jason project and this site which is to publicize ocean exploration, and to engage and educate the next generation of oceanographers. -ALICE MERCER

NOAA Ocean Explorer
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Ever caught an anglerfish? Unless you own a submarine, you probably haven’t. And for that matter, why would you want to catch one? They’re all teeth, and pretty scary looking. The ocean is teeming with horrific-looking creatures, from the vampire squid to the hatchetfish. Trust me, you don’t want to get any closer to these guys than Monsters of the Deep Sea, a site which gives you the skinny on the scariest sea life imaginable.

True to the site’s name, Monsters of the Deep Sea is swimming with ocean life that looks like it belongs on the Saturday night creature feature. The site’s writers apparently agree, as they describe every other critter as “something that swam out of a late-night science fiction movie,” or “one of the most unusual-looking fish in the deep sea.”

Redundant metaphors aside, Monsters of the Deep Sea gives students a fascinating look at what evolution churns out at 3,000 feet below sea level. Often, it isn’t pretty, but like a good horror flick, that’s why it’s so compelling. -BILL FERRIS

Monsters of the Deep Sea

Whether doing a story problem in math class or calculating square footage of a house, I’ve never been good at visualizing measurements. Three hundred square feet could be an apartment or a shoe box for all I know.

If you or your students are as bad at weights and measures as I, take a look at SensibleUnits. This site takes a unit of measure and converts it into real-world objects that will help you visualize what you’re looking at. Two square miles is the size of 12 Vatican Cities. A hundred ounces equals 4.7 basketballs, 19 human kidneys, or 3.8 hardback copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And 700 square feet translates to a single squash court, 4.8 parking spaces, or 1.1 cricket pitches (and who among us can’t relate to a cricket pitch?).

If you’re a math teacher, you can use SensibleUnits to write more interesting story problems (”If you have 45 domestic cats - 500 pounds - on your porch and a dog chases away 10 of them, how heavy are the remaining felines?”). SensibleUnits makes visualizing mass and distance easier than ever, even if the images are a little weird. -BILL FERRIS

SensibleUnits

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Being an English major, it’s hard for me to wrap my head around some of the sciences. Most of my knowledge of genetics and DNA comes from Jurassic Park. Lucky for me I found a slick site called DNA from the Beginning, which uses flash animation to spell out DNA basics.

For example, take their current feature, Inside Cancer. This presentation taught me about the cell mutations that lead to a tumor (it also taught me I might want to cut back on red meat). It’s thorough and easy to follow, breaking down the disease by type, causes, and prevention methods, using illustrative visual aids that render these complicated concepts simple enough even for me. Your students will likely find the info on molecules and the work of Gregor Mendel more relevant to their lives, or at least to their upcoming tests.

DNA from the Beginning is a great resource, and the animation component will engage your students. The only way to make it more entertaining would be to add some cloned dinosaurs. -BILL FERRIS

DNA from the Beginning

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5 Questions That Will Save You Time and Money - Lifehack presents this list of questions you should ask yourself to tell if you are being productive or actually wasting time. There are a lot of do-it-yourself-ers out there who think they can do-it-themselves but they end up not-doing-it-right so they end-up-paying-for-it-later. The first of these five questions sums it up nicely: Do I have the skills necessary for the task?

6 Best Ways to Learn Physics… For Free - I don’t know much about physics, but I do know it is easier to understand if you see it in action. Blog Learn Out Loud has compiled this list of a few good video demonstrations you can find on the web. Included on the list is a great video we mentioned before about the 10th dimension.

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Photo credit: Szagi on flickr

There has been a lot of talk about the lack of opportunities for kids to go outside and interact with nature. I once had a class at a school in Oakland that was less than 2 miles from the San Francisco Bay, that could not answer in the affirmative when asked if they lived by the ocean.

Who would’ve thought computers could help get kids outdoors? A Walk in the Woods is a great site from the University of Illinois Extension that can help give background on the woods and how to commune with nature to kids who may not have had that experience. You start with a self-guided slideshow. It gives guidance on what to look for on a sojourn in the woods (the slide show is also available in Spanish). Next is Nature Notes, which provides vocabulary with picture clues. After that, check out the Getting Ready slide show which shows you how to prepare for the trip. And when you’re done, Fun Place lets your kids write about their experience. There’s even a Teacher’s Guide and Resources page. Get ready for your next walk in the woods with this informative and useful Website. -ALICE MERCER

A Walk in the Woods

“So how about this weather, huh?”

For your average citizen, that question is at best a clichéd icebreaker. If you’re an earth science or biology teacher, however, it’s often a jump ramp to thrilling topics like hurricanes, ocean levels, and adiabatic heating and cooling. To help you out, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (or NOAA, because I am not typing that again) has some great educational resources for all grade levels. These tools will let your students do everything from learning about the biological importance of coral reefs to checking out how the National Weather Service alerts people to approaching storms.

My one gripe is that NOAA equates “for kids” with the Comic Sans font, the most obnoxious of all type faces. Their “Primarily for Students” page is also pretty text-heavy, especially for their resources geared toward younger learners. That said, the content itself more than makes up for any graphical deficiencies. And after you check out the materials on the NOAA website, you’ll be able to overcome the conversational deficiencies of folks who lead with, “So how about this weather?” -BILL FERRIS

NOAA Education

Way at the top of Bloom’s taxonomy is the often ignored task of creation. Now the Ad Council along with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation is working to “inspire invention.” You certainly have a couple kids in need of a project like this, the bored, the kids who are already inventing mayhem in your classroom, albeit in an unfocused way. Give them a chance to use that inventiveness for the forces of creativity and good, instead of dropping stink bombs during class.

First, there is the InventNow.org - World which is an interactive online cartoon environment where kids can learn about inventors, and invention and get a creative spark to get the brain cells going. Then go to InventNow.org - Invent, and have kids start to put their ideas together. The website has had a redesign since I first used it last Fall, so if you haven’t seen it recently, or have never been there, check it out. -ALICE MERCER

InventNow.org
Ad Council : Inspiring Invention

Captain’s Blog, Stardate 51908.5: We have… encountered strange… applications! Ensign Redshirt has beamed down to the surface to… investigate.

Want to get kids interested in space? Here are two sites that should be helpful.

SETI@home is a distributed computing effort from University of California, Berkeley. SETI stands for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and is a great way to engage a student’s sense of scientific wonder. SETI collects observational radio transmission data—A LOT of data—and distributes it to various personal computers for analysis. The program runs as a screen saver or by taking advantage of otherwise unused processor power, without interrupting your computer’s normal operations. If your class should happen to find alien life, you just remember who sent you.

First Google Earth allowed you to look down on our planet, now WorldWide Telescope lets you take a look in the opposite direction. Drawing from the Hubble Telescope and several terrestrial telescopes, your students can pan and zoom wherever the data will allow. It’s definitely fun to just zip around and explore on your own (which is one reason it’s taken me so long to write this post). The quality of the images and variety of views through different filters, spectrums, etc. are also a great boost towards its usability in the classroom. – NICK YINGLING

Captain’s Blog, Supplemental: If you a trying to come up with a writing… style!… that looks like the way William Shatner acts… I would use a lot of… ellipses. Also, the Shatner schtick is a little… old-hat and derivative.

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