http://ipl.si.umich.edu/youth/

The Internet Public Library (IPL) is the product of a graduate seminar at the School of Information and Library Studies at the University of Michigan to explore "the interconnections of libraries, librarians, and librarianship with a distributed networked environment." The website offers library services via the Internet, including digital reference service and collection management. The project is also "an experiment, trying to discover and promote the most effective roles and contributions of librarians to the Internet and vice versa." The KidSpace section is designed with kids in mind and offers links to an annotated bibliography of Internet resources on various topics including The World, Computers/ Internet, Math & Science, and Sports & Recreation. A separate section for parents and teachers provides links to educational resources. Other features include a section where children under age 13 can ask the librarian a question, a Culture Quest highlighting various regions of the world, text and audio files of stories, facts about U.S. presidents, basics on HTML, and ideas for science fair projects. [VF]

http://cmp1.ucr.edu/exhibitions/hoffer/hoffer.homepage.html

This website provides some low-tech ideas for using technology in the classroom. The website is a product of a collaboration between Hoffer Elementary School in California and the UCR/California Museum of Photography and is part of the museum's VidKids Media Literacy program. The photography and related media projects include a Photo Montage, a Magazine Collage, a Photoshop Gallery, and experimentation with animation and video. Several books, created through a collaborative E-mail books project, in which students took turns writing and illustrating each page, are also posted on this website. [VF]

http://problems.math.umr.edu/tour/tour.html

"20,000 Problems Under the Sea" is a website created jointly by MathPro Press and the University of Missouri-Rolla's Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics (See also the Scout Report from 1998). This section of the website offers a selection of 80 "tantalizing math problems from all over the world." Visitors can "tour" the problems, which were submitted through various competitions worldwide, all of which are listed in the Sources section from the main page of the website. Going "undersea" leads you their main page, where a search form lets you search within a database of 20,000 math problems. Other sections highlight mathematics problem books published by MathPro Press and a history of the project. [VF]

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/

The NASA Glenn Learning Technologies (GLT) Project sums up their work as "seeking revolutionary technologies for educational applications, and sharing Aerospace Technology through Web-based resources, computer simulations, and videoconferences." The simulations, available free online in Java, are a series of interactive computer programs intended to give students hands-on, inquiry-based learning in science and math. The programs are "constantly being modified and upgraded based on your input" and engage students in investigating aerodynamics or modeling rockets and jet engines. Each simulation is complemented by a review of the mathematics standards addressed and the mathematics behind the model. A section on Aeronautics Resources provides a series of Beginners Guides on topics such as aerodynamics and propulsion as well as each of the simulation programs available on this website. Resources on mathematics and physics are also provided. From here, teachers can find out more about free videoconferencing or webcasting with NASA experts or access a variety of resources such as teacher-created webpages, workshops, standards, and web-creation guides. The NASA's Digital Learning Network (DLN), which gives learners at all levels an opportunity to interact directly with NASA experts through videoconferencing or webcasting recently addressed topics such as Flight Control Surfaces and the reasons for spacecraft failures. The website also describes the Internet Access Research Projects at NASA, which are "developing networking solutions for schools in non-traditional settings to ease the ability for these schools to get connected." [VF]

http://www.learnnc.org/index.nsf?OpenDatabase

Learn North Carolina is a program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education providing Internet resources to improve K-12 education in North Carolina. The resources include articles on educational practices and professional development, a section called LEARNing Illuminations offering "multimedia explorations of educational practices, using video, audio, text, and images to take you from theory to practice in innovative ways of teaching," and lesson plans and WebQuests created by North Carolina educators and partner organizations. Many of the resources are correlated to specific goals and objectives of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study, which are also linked to from this website. Other resources relating to issues of interest to beginning teachers and for students, such as online courses and tools, tutorials, articles, and reference materials for making better use of the Web, are also available. [VF]

http://users.aol.com/a100thday/

This website, created by children's books author Joan Holub, is dedicated to encouraging and enhancing 100th Day celebrations in schools. The 100th Day of School is "a math celebration that is a fun way to teach basic math concepts to children" and is most commonly celebrated in grades K-2 and take place between mid-January to mid-February. Students count each day they go to school one by one until they reach the 100th day and on the 100th day, the entire class or school celebrates with a variety of activities. The activities can address topics such as counting, sorting, measuring, sequencing, graphing, and classifying. This website offers 300 ideas on ways to celebrate the 100th Day of School, which were contributed by teachers, librarians, principals, media specialists, and other educators. Also provided are links to related websites and a list of books on the 100th Day of School. [VF]

http://www.thinkquest.org/competition/index.shtml

ThinkQuest, sponsored by the Oracle Education Foundation, is "an international website-building competition" in which teams of students and teachers build websites on educational topics. The websites are then published in the ThinkQuest Library and prizes are awarded to top-scoring teams. The October 2004 competition is now open to teams of three to six students, ages nine to 19 who have six months to build a website. ThinkQuest teams are "encouraged to be creative and original when choosing their topics," which can be an "open category" of their choice or fit into one of the following categories: clothing, money, transportation, communication, or plants. Examples within each category are provided. Additional information on the rules, evaluation criteria, steps for entering, FAQ, and Coach Resources are also provided. [VF]

http://www.buildingrainbows.com/CA/ca.home.php

The Curriculum Archive is "a repository for lessons and curriculum for all grade levels and subject areas." The Archive is a place to share ideas, but also a chance to earn some money. Apparently, authors are paid 100% of "the income produced by advertising on their lesson(s) and the associated discussion forum(s)." Lesson contributions can be searched using several search criteria, such as grade level and subject area. Lessons are posted in a table format, showing the lesson title and rating, as well as grade levels and subject areas addressed by the lesson. A separate section also lists the highest rated and most recent postings. Users are encouraged to provide feedback on the website and the lessons. To maintain quality, submitted lessons are reviewed for consideration of inclusion and, if selected, reformatted for online posting. The discussion forum, unfortunately, is overloaded by postings from advertisers and the advertisements throughout the website can be quite distracting. [VF]