http://www.shodor.org/cserd/Resources/index.php

The Computational Science Educational Reference Desk (CSERD) promotes the use of "computers to do science." Several diverse activities, tutorials, and other resources that support the CSERD mission are available on this website. Several Java applets demonstrate various concepts in mathematics, and two lesson plans cover basic vector operations. Several detailed programming tutorials are available, covering Java and parallel programming. The code libraries contain downloadable source code for C++ and Java. Other applications and activities related to math, biology, physics, and astronomy are also provided. [CL]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/mathsfile/index.shtml

The British Broadcasting Corporation offers this great collection of fun, educational games that help children learn basic concepts of mathematics. Twelve interactive games are available in all, illustrating principles of data handling, numbers, algebra, and measurement. Children can practice interpreting Cartesian coordinates by guiding a space ship across a grid, or compete with an animated character in a test of fractions and percentages. In addition to the online games, several other activities are presented in one-page documents for easy printing. [CL]

http://www.asme.org/education/precollege/achieve/

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has singled out ten of the most notable achievements in the mechanical engineering field and highlighted them on this site. A few examples of what made the list are the Apollo moon landing, the integrated circuit, agricultural mechanization, and bioengineering. Grade school teachers will get the most use out of this site, since each achievement is the basis for an accompanying lesson plan. The lesson plans suggest activities for students to learn about various scientific and social aspects of the great developments, and include definitions of various terms and sources of additional information. [CL]

http://www.bluej.org/

BlueJ is a free "integrated Java environment...developed as part of a university research project about teaching object-orientation to beginners." It was developed through a collaboration between three universities in Australia, Denmark, and England, and is available for nearly all common operating systems. The software provides users with an interactive environment that supports experimentation and visualization, and although it would not be used for extensive application development, it serves as an excellent teaching tool. Tutorials on using BlueJ and several academic papers describing the creation of the software can also be downloaded. [CL]

http://socr.stat.ucla.edu/

The SOCR website contains "a hierarchy of portable online interactive aids for motivating, modernizing and improving the teaching format in college-level probability and statistics courses." Each section of the site consists of an instructional applet with many customizable settings, and three sections are worth noting. First, Interactive Distributions provides graphical illustrations of over 30 different statistical data distributions. An especially useful feature of this applet is the Info button -- when pressed, it takes the user to a detailed description of the selected distribution. The second section allows the user to perform a variety of statistical analyses on pre-defined or manually input data. These include analysis of variance (ANOVA), regression and correlation, and more. The third section is a modeler for a user-defined function. The user can draw a curve and the applet will fit a trend line to the curve. A serious shortcoming of this site is the lack of documentation provided with certain applets; while this is not an issue with the aforementioned sections, it makes the two remaining sections nearly unusable. [CL]

http://www.learntcpip.com/

Although this website was "developed to teach computer professionals Internet and TCP/IP technologies," many of the resources can be useful and informative for many people with an interest in fundamental network operations. For example, visitors can view a 36-minute audio presentation with accompanying lecture slides about Internet protocols (IPs), Network Access Points, and the connectivity of the Internet as a whole. Another slide presentation describes the Domain Naming System. For more advanced topics, a series of lectures delves deeper into specific protocols, Ethernet, and network communication. Subnetting and IP addressing are discussed in the final lecture series. [CL]

http://www.ott.doe.gov/kids.shtml

This page of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Transportation Technologies website contains a wealth of resources for young children. The materials include "fun games, puzzles, and educational information to help children and young adults learn about alternative and advanced fuels and vehicles." Although most of the content is scattered throughout a number of off-site links, one of the most unique resources is Daniel and His Electric Car. This online storybook describes a father and son shopping for a new vehicle and identifying the necessary features. Some other links describe hydrogen fuel cells, renewable energy, and transportation in general. [CL]