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These page links point you to many web school resources, from lesson plans to student materials to pix and maps. Almost all make heavy use of graphics; some have interactive forms for on-line lessons. Reasonably recent versions (winter 1994 or later) of Netscape or Mosaic browsers are required, just as for these pages you're accessing now. My search has focussed first on usable science and math K-12. As you access and evaluate them, place your own BOOKMARK at each page so you can get back to it directly, as well as from here. Please email me your recommendations of web sites--describe their level, usefulness, as well as the exact address taken from your bookmark file.
At the end of this section are buttons to jump you back to TOOLS page's outline menu, and also jump to the BOOKS and MAPS pages here, that contain relevant materials for Indian-centered math-science curriculum-building.
All the opinions expressed below, especially about some of the cultural web materials, are those of Webmistress Paula Giese, notoriously opinionated, crotchety bad-tempered old lady. They are not supported by any agencies or funding, although if anybody wants to provide some (money, not agencies), I could sure use it.
Wolf HomePage--Maiingaans! This respected animal is clan dodem to many Anishnabe people, as well as 6 Nations peoples of upstate NY and Canada. This wolf page collects links to a great deal of information, including many science and math (arithmetic, statistics, graphing) lessons prepared for K-12, with extensive teacher lesson plans and student activities and projects. There is a big collection of wolf pix, sound files of the howl of a lone wolf and of a pack, and much else. Not much Indian knowledge, no stories of Nanabozho's clever brother (though there is a petroglyph of a wolf chasing a moose, hunter chasing him), but culture teachers will be able to add that. An outstanding collection of useful material for culture-centered science and math. The focus is on wolves of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, but eastern and arctic wolves are also included.
GENERAL COLLECTIONS
Explorer Home Page
--Pulls together a variety of web and net-available educational materials on science and mathematics for all K-12 levels. Innovative search engine for teacher curriculum materials as well as web-usable student resources. There are lesson outlines, lists, and printed materials, videotapes and kits as well as a few computer programs available on the net for free. Regional schools may join the sponsoring Great Lakes consortium, for some membership training aids and other useful items. No Indian schools presently belong.Children's Science Books--The books are summarized very briefly, not reviewed, and no purchase sources are given.
WebEd General Links for K-12
--Great variety of educational activities and schools on web pages. Links to many K-12 servers world-wide. No Indian schools were found listed.Helping Your Kids Learn Science
--This is focused on home activities, books, and parental attitudes to encourage kids of pre-school through about age 12. Most of it is quite useful to the elementary tacher as well, and it's done with more emphasis on light touch than most of the classroom-prepared materials. Because the kids are supposedly not in school; they don't haveta if they don't wanna, so there's a big focus here on maintaining interest through natural curioisity and humor. This isn't on-line lessons, it's "How to do an at-home science lesson with shampoo" sort of thing.Science at Home
--Similar to the previous pages. Uses materials found around most homes for simple experiments. Adaptable to school science. This again isn't on-line lessons. There are books Los Alamost National Labs (New Mexico) has developed in its science education projects; you can send for these.MATH
This Is Mega-Mathematics!
--Most of the math topics most interesting to mathematicians and scientists have nothing to do with what is taught in school math. The authors found a way--in 6 units complete with plans, objectives, materials, teacher readings--to make some of these concepts and techniques meaningful to middle and highschoolers. The presentation is lively, with good (but very slow-loading, because so large) graphics. Very highly recommended. Excellent enrichment material that is both challenging for advanced students and enjoyable by others, too. Good teacher background, obviously prepared by classroom-experienced teachers as well as high-powered mathematicians and scientists.21st Century Problem Solving
--Word problems are the bane of algebra and pre-algebra math students. Method of conceptual analysis is clearly and simply explained, with common sense enlisted, then applied to algebra word problems. Teachers will gain an understanding of how to better present such problems, so students don't continue to tackle them hit-or-miss. Students will actually get more out of locally working through the Davidson "Math Blaster Mystery" (see software recommendations) which teaches these methods in far more detail, with much guided practice in a moderately fun setting of being a young detective. Analysis of situations--measured by ability at word problems--is the most practical mathematical skill there is. In the real world, you are not presented with equations or other setups for you to solve, a situation which eventually will yield answers to some mathematical technique or other is conceptualized in words. To pick out and formulate the appropriate methods is a necessary skill. Standard test scores on word-roblems continue to drop year-by-year, as students show calculational improvement. Calculation is unimportant in comparison.The Geometry Center Welcome Page
--University of Minnesota-developed geometry curriculum materials. Includes 8 visually-acessed programs that generate geometric patterns, statistics curriculum materials, and teacher references for modern geometry learningThe Geometry Forum
--Many activities, teacher backgrounders, and in general discussions of new methods and concepts in school geometry.Educational Resources
--Handsome NASA-prepared page layout, useful outline form for links to many K-12 InterNet resources, mainly science/math. The links are somewhat dated, though, apparently not updated very often.Try to find that first grade geometry book on-line.
Fractal Explorer
--Generates and displays beautiful fractals, interesting newly-important mathematical entities. Fractals can be zoomed to see the infinite changes within similar patterns. We recommend that all math teachers get "Fractals for the Classroom" (Teacher Books 1 and 2) and"Fractals for the Classroom, Strategic Activities I, II, and III" for math enrichment work that makes use of computers and the beauty of these important mathematical entities.MathMagic!
--Large number of web-interactive activities where students of various ages around the world collaborate to solve problems. Curriculum planning, resource readings for teachers.Fun Math
--These activities were put up by a math professor at University of Illinois. They include "math jokes" colorful pictures generated by the advanced MatLab software of knots and elaborately-colored graphs and logical puzzles and paradoxes.Middle/High School on-line lessons
--University of Illinois (physics of atmosphere, weather). Lessons are being added. Presently complete are Pressure, Forces and winds, Guide to Weather Maps and images, UI cloud catalog, Guide to atmopsheric optics, Storm sporter's guide.The Weather Unit Gr 2-4
--Excellently worked out by UI science educators, with an opportunity not only for teachers to post comments, but also to submit lessons of their own. Units relate to social studies, reading and writing, geography, music, Phy ed, and field visits, as well as basic science and math. Each lesson has a resouce list, sources where necessary materials (if any) can be purchased, a list of objectives and followup info. These lessons too are being added to. Only drawback is a v-e-r-y s-l-o-w loading imagemap menu which isn't really even needed.Welcome to Weather World
--Weather maps, daily weather info from all over the world, climate info.Index of /globe/html/
--An alphabetical index of satellite photos (and some text info) for many countries and all states (scroll down to usa-statename). These photos show geological formations, lake bed contours, rivers, and weather phenomena. They have been chosen for clarity. Interpretive text is provided. For large reservations, so of these photos would be of considerable help in resource planning.EarthRISE Photos by State - USA-Minnesota
--Pointing directly to satellite photos and geological info available for Minnesota. There are identifiable photos for Red Lake, Nett Lake, and Mille Lacs reservations, and probably White Earth and Cass Lake if you examined the tagging data carefully enough.Our Solar System
--Much text info and many telescopic photos of the planets and moons. The best one I've found yet for the Space Science portion of 7th, 8th, 9th grade Earth Science.Welcome to the Planets
--Small pix of the 9 planets and Halley's Comet, with some info about each. Less information, fewer and smaller photos than the previous listing.A Comet hits Jupiter
--This page collects telephotos, observations, reports and discussions by both pro and amateur astronomers of the comet that hit Jupiter and broke up there last spring.Space Telescope
--The Hubble orbiting space telescope--how it was launched, how it works, photos of its instrumentation and world-wide discussions among astronomers about its use..Star Maps
--The observatory furnishes star maps- for nighttime sky observations, at whatever latitude and different seasons and times of night. Save these in PostScript format for printout. These maps are similar to those published monthly in Sky and Telescope magazine. It helps in learning astronomy with one of the excellent CDROM programs such as Redshift to have sets of these maps on paper. But I feel you are better off ordering the large paper sky maps (offered by Sky and Telescope) and posting these in the classroom. Sky and Telescope Publishing also carries books of night sky maps for every time of night, day of the year, and latitutde corrections that are best for night field observations. The screen just isn't good enough, and printouts are too small, with poor detailing. If you don't have adequate night sky materials, though, these will help.Astronomy
A NASA page which takes you inside the world of pro astonomers conferring and sharing info. Not very useful for instruction, but may inspire the student who is a potential astronomy buff.Students for the Exploration and Development of Space
--This is a gopher (text, no graphics) newsletter of a society of students who are space enthusiasts.La Plata Observatory
--How the skies look from a Latin American observatory.The Nine Planets
--Another astronomical tour of our solar system.The Messier Catalog
--Messier objects are distant bodies--other galaxies, and stellar oddities--catalogued in the 18th century by the French astronomer Messier. With the naked eye, we can see only 2 "extra-galactic" objects (a galaxy not usually visible in the northern hemisphere and a nebula), both of which have "M-numbers". Telescopes in Messier's time could magnify only about 32-128 times, and photos weren't invented. The Messier catalog of extra-galactic objects is still important and useful for amateur astronomers with simple telescopes or even binoculars, to see extra-galactic objects. But now there are gorgeous photos using high-powered telescopes and special coloring tricks.Space Views
--Newsletter of the Boston chapter of the National Space Society. It contains thousands of news stories relating to the space program. Recent lead: 2 woodpeckers, punching hundreds of holes in the Discovery's fuel tank, delayed the launch by a month.Solar System Live
--This is an orerrey by astronomer John Walker; you can view the solar system from many "positions" in space over millennia of time. From this page you can also reach Earth Views, where Walker has a calculator that will display earth from any latitude, longitude, altitude, or as seen from the sun/moon, with dayside/nightside in global views.Earth Viewer
--Views of our planet from space, John Walker's Earth Viewer.Terranova: Planet of the Day
--John Walker's program manufacturer an "earthlike" different imitation planet every day. Unfortunately, except for landmass patterns, they all look rather alike.APOLLO 11
--NASA Moon landing program with historical moon shorts from space, earthviews, the astronauts vidclips, stills, sound. Not included: good moon maps.Space Shuttle
--Expensive NASA program to carry payloads and people back and forth to orbiting space stations. Here is an official explanation of it. But there's also a history of the space program, and a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about space.Eyeballing Volcanoes
is what you'll create (without my Indian signs on it) by completing the12 15-minute lessons on my tutorials page. This version is a complete lesson or two and could be an on--line and local study project for students from Middle through high school. Try it and let me know how it works with your students. Better yet, take the Maricopa tutorial (on the TUTORIALS page here) and you'll end the 15 lessons having created your own.Michigan Tech Volcanoes Page
--Earth Science curriculum material, facts, current world-wide seismic activity reports, photos.NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) IDS Volcanology Team
--Prepared for earth science curricula, many observations of volcanic action from satellites.Geology&Volcano Info
from the United States Geological Survey
Volcano Watch Newsletter from Hawaii
--Photos and information prepared for school earth science. Excellent photos of Hawaii (and other Pacific Rim) volcanic eruptions. These images may be downloaded and used off-line.NGDC Natural Hazards Data
--Database includes possibilities of seismic activity, storms, avalanches, tornadoes, hurricanes, nuclear. Address on this thing has changed several times recently. If there really were some kind of immediate hazard, probably nobody could find it.U of N. Dakota's Volcano World
--Many observations and scientific data, prepared for school earth science curricula. Regularly added to and updated.GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK
--Geology's most beautiful traces, a photo-tour of some of the canyonland's most spectacular features.United States Geological Survey-HTTP Server-Home Page
--Mapping, geology, and water resources are the three areas of data included here. It isn't prepared for schools, and may be too difficult for most students to use. This page is the major access portal to all sorts of scientific cartographic and geologic data prepared by the only scientific part of the U.S. Department of Interior. USGS has played the part of scientific servant to Interior's parcelling out of Indian land, water, and other natural resource rights to exploitive mining and energy corporations.USGS Mapping Information: Educational Resources
--Descriptions of a great many useful maps, posters, information pamphlets for geography and earth science classes. Most of these are available free to schools, from the contact addresses given. USGS is not very good at processing orders from schools or individuals. Maybe if you got yourself some fake oil-company letterhead it would help.Virtual FlyLab - Design and Mate Flies
--Stunning (if somewhat slow) genetic experiment simulator from NCSA supercomputer labs. Students pick (from pictures) charactreristics of male and female flies, then click "mate" to see which characteristics the offspring inherit in what ratios, and study gewnetic inheritance laws. NCSA calls this a virtual lab simulation and promises volcanic and ecological system simulators to come.Spiders of the World
--Another Project JASON science web page, this one with good pix of spiders and info about their webs, habitats, and habits, and suggested activity collecting local spiders.MayaQuest Learning Adventure
--An interactive trip (took place spring, 1995) with some explorers to visit the ancient Maya civilization and contemporary Mayas. Ecology of the rain forest, plants, animals Lesson plans, student communications included. Trip is over, but lessons and recorded materials still useful. This is also a cultural selection, to learn about Maya history and culture, of this important and numerous people in Mexico and Central America. If you have or are thinking about a computer-controlled laserdisk player, the on-line MayaQuest materials mesh nicely with the "Second Voyage of the Mimi"--disks, computerware, books, maps and complete cross-disciplinary lesson planning for grades 5+ cross-disciplinary science, prepared by Columbia Teachers College under an NSF grant, wildly popular in AZ, many public schools have adopted Mimi as their core science curriculum.Science Museum of Minnesota
--An elaborate Maya exhibit--maps, fabrics,Mayan astronomy, calendrics, numbering system, culture, the rainforest environment, developed in conjunction with the MayaQuest project which was headquartered in Minnesota. Includes present-day Mayas as well as the great civilization and its abandoned cities. One of the best on-line museum exhibits, it really teaches, it's not just a bunch of pix like most exhibits.Animal Information Data Base
--The operators of Florida's Sea World Marina prepared this page. The animal database includes sea mammals, rare birds like the bald eagle, American alligator, and exotics like rhino. Basic information is given about size, feeding and family habits, and living environment. There are a few pix of each animal, more info and pix of sea mammals.THE RAPTOR CENTER: Main Menu
--The University of Minnesota raptor center cares for injured birds of prey, and studies their habits in the wild. Hawks, an eagle or two, and many owls are temporary (or if too injured to release, permanent) residents. The raptor center makes educational visits with the birds to local schools. A partly-blind eagle and a wing-injured redtail hawk were great hits with the elementary kids at Heart of the Earth, inspiring much poetry, writing, and drawing. The Center also has prepared several on-line science lessons--it appears that more are in progress--the present on-line lessons deal with analyzing owl pellets (determining owls' diets), which can be obtained from the raptor center (and also from standard school science lab supply houses like Carolina Biological).Blind spots
--Lessons on how the eye works focus on the fovea centralis--the blind spot where the nerve bundle enters.. The student does some on-screen experiments, looking at patterns, to learn about this characteristic of our eyes. Challenging and interesting material for an individual middle school or high school student research project.Exploratorium: The Learning Studio
--San Francisco's famous interactive museum has some interactive science lessons on-line. For h.s. biology: dissection of a cow's eye. Several perceptual experiments. More are being added.LBL ITG Whole Frog Project
--From on-line dissection (too slow onscreen, see software recommendations) to microslides and anatomical and biological info. Includes large downloadable Mac Quicktime movies. amd a pointer to another collection of "Everything anyone might want to know about frogs."The Tree of Life Home Page
--Ingenious graphical tree structure guides you from the earliest micro-organisms up the evolutionary branches of phyla, order, genus and species, through all of time, to present-day life. By knowing technical terms for species (or making some guesses), you arrive at the late animals, including us. On various branches, the authors have linked to relevant web pages--some containing material that is too technical for K-12, but there are some excellent on-line exhibits of palentology, espcially. An interesting supplement to "Cell Biology" see software recommendations. Web page designers: note how the author has used formatting HTML commands, so he is able to use keyboard type instead of graphics to form the branches of his tree. This means no long waits for screens to load.Evolutionary Relationships of Archosaurs
--This has a graphical evolutionary tree, showing evolution from early saurian water creatures to reptile-birds to modern birds. The Berkeley exhibits also include information about other fossil animals, including the ever-popular Tyranosaurus Rex.JASON Project
--Underwater and remote scientific exploration trips with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Agency's scientists and educators. The current project is a visit to a tropical island and its underwater reefs and animal life. Several past visits--done when Internet was not graphical--may also be click-pointed, for text information on many Earth Science subjects.The Heart: A Virtual Exploration
--One of dozens of on-line interactive science teching exhibits by the Franklin Institute Science Museum. One of the Hillside Elementary School web project students plagiarized an "On-line research paper" 100% from this exhibit, except for his own drawing of a heart. This raises some questions in my mind about what is student on-line "research" really? I do not want students plagiarizing readings, whether of books or computer-based text for writing research papers. So--after they've captured on-line text, then what? It is up to the teacher to get students to re-organize and re-write the results of their on-line research, and to "mark them up" as HTML docs if they are to be published on-line as web pages. Check out the rest of the Franklin museum, too.The National Park Service Home Page
--All the U.s. national parks and monuments can be found from these pages, locations, sizes, campging facilitie,s maps, and other info. Info is disappointingly sparse for many, and there are few photos, but the site has just started and is being added to daily.The Wilderness Society
--Many facts, pictures, sounds, laws, policies relating to wilderness areas of the earth.The Insects Home Page--Bug facts and pix to study, links to more serious entomology, a bug club for school kids. By an Engoish entom,ology prof.
Electronic Zoo/NetVet - Animal Image Collection Page
--These downloadable images may be useful in clas projects. There isn't much info about themCTC Math/Science Gateway: Biology
--Hundreds of activities and student research sources of varying quality and school useability.Index of Smithsonian Institution science-nature GIF file format pix
--Numerous animals, plants, micro-organisms, geological specimens, site photos. excellent source of illustrations for science lessons. The GIF photos are a condensed file format that most Mac and PC programs can use, but you may need to convert them from GIF to other formats with free utilities (see TUTORIALS page GRAPHICS section) that can be downloaded.BIA Division of Energy and Mineral Resources Home Page
--Expensive mapping software is being developed by the BIA to study and financially manageoil, gas and mineral properties of Native Nations. Osage and Wind River oil and gas lease maps are generated.The BIA is also using this project to study seismic (earthquake) data on native lands--something oil companies are highly intrested in. There is no info for tribes interested in protecting water or land resources. There is no overall map of tribal lands. There is no mention of the fact that GIS software which runs on PC's is available (MapInfo is about $1,000), so each tribe could do this for itself, not be dependent on the BIA's expensive and corporate exploitation-oriented services. When you look at their map of "oil and gas leases from legal descriptions" you see th extent to which Osage lands are taken for exploitation. The expensive specially-prepared mapping is not layered overlays, so we cannot see what other resources (such as water, landforms, animal and plant ranges) are affected by almost total the lease coverage of the OK Osage land. This aspect of Earth Science, in an Indian-centered curriculum really teaches politics, economics, history of resource exploitation more than science.Main Web page for American Indian Science and Engineering Society
--AISES sponsors a variety of activities for native college students. It sells several sets of science curriculum materials it developed, and also many other books by or about native people, culture, history, literature. It receives a percentage of these sales for its scholarship fund. AISES sponsors summer activities for younger students, too.Hands on-Minds on Science Activities for Children
--A variety of culture-based science activities (study of the winds, making a yucca shampoo, etc) developed for elementary students by AISES. This is just a descriptive overview of the curriculum materials, which have to be ordered from AISES.SACAI Program Information
--AISES-developed Science Study program on alcohol, a variety of teacher training and text materials available. Descriptive overview only.Please email me recommended web pages you found that would be useful additions to this page's references for native schools to point to for teacher or student curriculum materials, background, or student research projects. Give the exact page reference--you can get it off your NetScape BOOKMARK.HTM file. Be sure to place a bookmark on every page you find interesting. You may never find it again, otherwise.
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Last updated: Thursday, July 13, 1995 - 5:42:21 AM