Interactive Sites

See How Cells Function in Real Life

December 5, 2012

Meta!Blast is a real-time 3-D action-adventure video game, aimed at high school and undergraduate student audiences. The game is meant to provide an entertaining, engaging experience while simultaneously educating players about cell biology. By playing Meta!Blast, students will be introduced to the concepts of respiration, photosynthesis and the functions of various organelles in a manner complementary to the textbook. Students will also be introduced to how the living cell actually appears through a biologically accurate virtual replica of a cell environment. They will be presented with a series of puzzles and goals, such as having to create oxygen, which will require them to…

Trace Space Back To You

December 5, 2012

NASA @ Home and City is a virtual tour of NASA-related science that is everywhere we look. Students visiting NASA @ Home and City can rotate buildings and take a look inside to discover everyday items, the development of which has been influenced by space exploration. Each item within a building has a narrated explanation of how that item was influenced by NASA technology. For example, students can take a look inside the bathroom of a house to learn how technology used at NASA has had an impact on the development of cosmetics and toothpaste. Click Here to Visit Website This information…

Trace the Origins of Aphorisms

December 5, 2012

Aesop’s Fables—also called “the Aesopica”—are a collection of stories intended to teach moral lessons. The stories are credited to Aesop, a Greek slave and storyteller thought to have lived between 620 and 560 BCE. The Aesop’s Fables interactive book, presented by the Library of Congress, was adapted fromThe Aesop for Children: with Pictures by Milo Winter, published by Rand, McNally & Co. in 1919. The interactive book contains more than 140 classic fables, accompanied by charming illustrations and interactive animations: a choosy heron eyes the fish swimming at his feet, a fox swishes his tail, a mouse chews a rope and frees a lion.…

Reflect on Judgment and Responsibility

December 5, 2012

On November 20, 1945, 24 high-ranking Nazis went on trial for atrocities committed during World War II. TheNuremberg Trials, held from 1945 to 1949, were a galvanizing moment in history, international law and human rights. Nuremberg Remembered is a free 12-minute documentary about the Nuremberg Trials. It combines both archival footage and modern-day interviews with trial participants who served in a variety of roles, including members of the legal team for the prosecution and a journalist reporting on the events for the press. A set of three lessons, along with the documentary, introduces teachers and students to the essential questions of judgment and responsibility that were initially…

Help Students Become Better Searchers

December 5, 2012

Google has created a series of lessons to help teachers guide their students to use web searches meaningfully in their schoolwork and beyond. Google Search Education provides free Search Literacy Lesson Plans and “A Google a Day” Challenges. The search literacy lessons help teachers meet the new Common Core State Standards and are grouped based on level of search expertise: Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced. “A Google a Day” Challenges help students put their search skills to the test as they use technology to discover the world around them. The challenges are organized into the following categories: Culture, Geography, History, Science. Click Here to Access Free Search Resources…

Head to the Closet, Discover Interdependence

December 5, 2012

The Global Closet Calculator, from National Geographic Education, is a two-part interactive lesson on interdependence for elementary students. The first part of the lesson asks students to identify the origins of objects from their closets at home. Students enter the names of those items into the calculator to see a map of the origins of their closet items. Students can also see a map of the items entered by others using the Global Closet Calculator. The second part of the lesson asks students to make decisions about the manufacturing of MP3 players and jeans, including the sourcing of materials and labor practices. A short…

Drop in on a Live Class

November 16, 2012

Fraboom is an online children’s museum packed full of games, interactive books, creativity, learning and LIVE online teachers! Fraboom TV has a variety of cartoons that teach students content-area vocabulary words. Each cartoon lists all associated vocabulary words so teachers can quickly find a video that will support learning. Drawing classes with live teachers start every hour on the hour. Students can drop into a class and learn how to draw cartoons. There is a new challenge every day, so content is always fresh. Students can interact with teachers through the chat feature; students type a message and the teacher responds to them by name. Fraboom cartoon characters introduce…

Inspire Student Civic Engagement

November 16, 2012

Created in 2009 by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, iCivics recently partnered with EverFi on a new initiative, Commons – Digital Town Square, which is offered free to all K–12 schools. The focus of Commons – Digital Town Square is to provide schools with standards-based educational gaming, aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with social components. Students who play iCivics games move along at their own pace; adaptive-pathing techniques as well as evidence-based practices help guide each student differently as he or she learns. In addition to the adaptive feature, Commons – Digital Town Square has a variety of media, including simulations and animations…

Separate Thanksgiving Fact from Myth

November 16, 2012

At the Plimoth Plantation’s You Are the Historian website, students become history detectives as they investigate the first Thanksgiving. (Some historians think that “The First Thanksgiving” wasn’t really a thanksgiving. They call it “The 1621 Harvest Celebration” because it was more like a harvest festival.) On this website, students use clues to try to figure out what really happened at the 1621 harvest celebration. They are guided by Dancing Hawk, a Wampanoag whose ancestors were at the harvest celebration, and by Sarah, whose ancestor, Remember Allerton, was at the celebration too. If students don’t know the meaning of a word they encounter, they…

Provide Mathematical Experiences Aligned to Standards

November 16, 2012

Illustrative Mathematics is a free resource for K–12 mathematics teachers. On the Illustrative Mathematics website, teachers can find lesson activities aligned to standards for every grade level. When appropriate, the activities include drawings and diagrams. Anyone may access the activities posted on the website. You can rate activities and share your own activities if you register for an Illustrative Mathematics account. Illustrative Mathematics is an initiative of the Institute for Mathematics & Education funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Click Here to Visit Website