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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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Take note, history teachers. The National History Education Clearinghouse is about to make your lives a lot easier. There you can find reviews of history websites, strategies and best practices, lesson plans, plus professional development resources.

Like a lot of history sites, The Clearninghouse is big on using primary sources rather than just textbooks and lectures. One article,”The Power of Primary Sources: How Teaching American History Grants Changed My Classroom” talks about how primary sources…well, changed that teacher’s classroom and got students engaged. The site’s creators realize exploration and discovery are what makes history seem fun. Indiana Jones probably gave a lot of lectures as a teacher, but it’s the action sequences that the movies focus on. Learning by doing can get students to care and, dare I say, actually get excited about history class. -BILL FERRIS

National History Education Clearinghouse

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The world can be a dangerous place. Aside from the business in Iraq, there are problems in Darfur, Chechnya, and the Basques and Spaniards aren’t exactly friendly these days, either. If you teach history or social studies, you can show your students where the hot spots are with World Conflicts Today. Click on the site’s world map and find out the specifics on conflicts around the globe. Find out about key figures, the politics involved, and even get a quick overview with handy PowerPoint presentation.

World history is built on conflict. World Conflicts Today gives you the skinny on the big ones. Hopefully, by learning the issues behind these skirmishes, we can learn how to prevent them in the future. -BILL FERRIS

World Conflicts Today

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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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Teach the Art of Diplomacy with Future State

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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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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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

When my parents went to school, they ran drills covering what to do in the event of an atomic explosion. We’ve come a long way since then, but nuclear weapons remain a danger. The Global Disarmament Hub wants students to do something about it. That’s why they created Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World. If your pupils are concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons, they have a chance to win a trip to the organization’s annual seminar in Geneva.

To enter, students must respond to the question, ”What do you think can lead governments to stay away from, or do away with, nuclear weapons?” They have three options to do so: write a 1500-word essay, produce a 2-5 minute video, or design a poster.

Entries must be received by May 31, so they’d better get started pretty soon (sorry, we just found out about this ourselves). The Students for a NWFW website has lots of links and resources to get your kids started. An essay or poster might be easiest this late in the process. If your students do decide to shoot a video, make sure that “Duck and Cover” isn’t part of their solution. -BILL FERRIS

Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

Photo credit: AlbinoFlea on flickr

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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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

Here in North Carolina, our primary election happens this coming Tuesday. Many high school students will get to vote in their first presidential election this year. For students making the transition from voiceless kids to voting members of society, it’s vital they educate themselves on the candidates and issues. That’s why there’s Ready to Vote, a site dedicated to helping new voters jump in to the democratic process.

Ready to Vote is from Knowitall.org, the same folks who brought you this morning’s Kids Work! They discuss each of the candidates and aggregate relevant news articles. In the Teachers section, you can download handouts and lesson plans for debates, petitions, and sundry democratic activities.

Whether you’ve already voted in your primary or yours is still to come, encourage your students to vote this year. Voting is a right that not enough young people take advantage of. It’s time to let their voices be heard. I know I’m looking forward to casting my vote. It’s not every election we see such strong candidates. -BILL FERRIS

Ready to Vote

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I recently had to create a time line for a project. Not knowing what else to do, I cobbled one together in Excel like a caveman. Literally three days later, I heard about Mnemograph, which would have made my time line look a lot better, and would have required a lot less effort.

Mnemograph makes creating a time line easy. Your time line can cover any duration, from a couple of hours to several hundred years (great for history projects). To add an entry, just add the date or time and the event description, and you’re all set. You can also import images to give your time line a more historic flair.

Mnemograph is kind of a one-trick pony, but that single trick is pretty valuable if you need to plan a project or illustrate some historical milestones. One milestone I’ve hit is that, thanks to Mnemograph, I won’t have to hack these things together in Excel anymore. -BILL FERRIS

Mnemograph

There’s an old saying among history teachers - those who ignore the lessons of history might have paid more attention if it was packaged like a major network crime drama*.

Now your students can become historical detectives and investigate cases like the Boston Massacre and The Case of Sam Smiley with HSI: Historical Scene Investigation, a site from the College of William & Mary School of Education.

Not since Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? have sleuthing and social studies worked together so harmoniously. Students are given primary sources (or “evidence” in the parlance of detective work) they can use to investigate these historical cases. HSI challenges students to become real historians as they examine sources and form theories about what happened in each case.

Apparently the term “historian” isn’t cool enough to excite kids about history, so dubbing them “detectives” is the proverbial sugar to help the medicine of historical inquiry go down. With the one-two punch of HSI and the new Indiana Jones movie this summer, studying the past may become kids’ career of choice. -BILL FERRIS

* not an actual saying

HSI: Historical Scene Investigation
CSI meets Social Studies: The Historical Scene Investigation Project (HSI) via NCS-Tech

The world keeps shrinking. Online technology makes learning about other areas and cultures feasible for everyone without the hassles of obtaining a passport and figuring out exchange rates. ProjectExplorer makes the process even easier by hosting several online excursions around the globe at one website.

ProjectExplorer is a collection of virtual field trips with video, pictures, and journal entries that chronicle the adventures abroad. The site currently features trips to South Africa and Shakespeare’s England (via historical sites rather than by time machine). Each trip has multiple tour guides for each grade level (one for elementary, one for middle, one for high school, etc.), so you can be sure your students will get the information most appropriate to them.

Traveling is a wonderful way to learn about history and culture in other parts of the world. It’s also a great way to max out a credit card and miss a lot of school, so it’s nice to know sites like ProjectExplorer won’t leave your kids behind. -BILL FERRIS

ProjectExplorer

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World War II was a dangerous time when pretzels attacked croissants and sushi attacked cheeseburgers. The Gulf War conflict saw chicken nuggets dropped on unsuspecting kebobs.

That’s not exactly what you’ll find in history books, but Stefan Nadelman’s brilliant five-and-a-half minute film Food Fight recreates our country’s military incursions and involvements since 1939 using food as its main characters. You’ll see egg rolls, French fries, bagels, and falafel engaged in combat and culinary violence that will no doubt provoke conversation about warfare and world affairs. Students may have trouble deciphering which foods represent which countries, but a handy cheat sheet fills you in on why the beef stroganoff keeps multiplying and how the kebobs represent different interests. The site also lists which battles are depicted.

Food Fight is an imaginative way to synthesize almost a century’s worth of aggression, and with a little more imagination, you could find a variety of ways to use the film in your classroom: discussion starter, model project, or sample for media analysis. Just be careful to keep your bag lunch out of sight—you might be drawn into additional combat. –ROSS WHITE

Food Fight

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