http://student.ccbcmd.edu/~gkaiser/goshp.html

With its witty appellation, the Grapes of Staph website is the creation of one Professor Gary Kaiser, who teaches microbiology at the Community College of Baltimore County. Over the past few years, Professor Kaiser has assembled a prodigious collection of materials that can be used by fellow educators and aspiring microbiology students from Neah Bay to Nepal. First-time visitors will want to delve right into the lecture guide, which provides hundreds of lecture note pages, illustrations, animations, and photomicrographs. Students who have just entered college will want to take a look at Professor Kaiser’s very helpful “Study Tips” area, which offers six specific suggestions on how to succeed in any college-level course. The “Tutorials” area also serves as a nice supplement, as it contains nice explanations of such processes as cellular respiration, photosynthesis, and of course, protein synthesis. The site is rounded out by a selection of external sites of interest, including links to the American Society for Microbiology and Science.
[KMG]

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/education/education.html

Educators in the geophysical sciences will find much to work with on this site created by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s National Geophysical Data Center. Utilizing data captured over time by their team of scientific experts, the site includes a climate timeline informational tool which can be used to demonstrate the transformation of the Earth’s climate over the past 100,000 years and a section titled “All About Snow”, which provides answers to questions about snow. The real treats here are the interactive hands-on activities that include an origami balloon of elevations and an even more complex dodecahedron globe that offers a three-dimensional visualization for use by students and teachers. Finally, the “Visualizing Data” area contains a few recent additions that can be used in the classroom, such as several animated dives to the bottom of the Marianas Trench off of the Philippines. [KMG]

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display/index.cfm

Created and maintained by Professor Ian Lancashire, Representative Poetry Online is both a nod back to poetry’s past in terms of its content, and a look to the future (and present) as it exists online here at this site. The approximately 3100 hundred or so poems offered here are culled from the volume, “Representative Poetry”, which was first published in 1912. In fact, this is the third version of this very site, and poetry lovers everywhere will want to keep this site handy, whether it is for reference or just sheer joy. Visitors can view a complete index of all the poems included on the site, or take a look at the poems arranged chronologically, all the way from “Bede’s Death Song” (penned in the 8th century) to the verses of the post-moderns. Equally delightful is the glossary of terms, which provides insights about dozens of terms, including adonic, gnomic verse, and iambic trimester. [KMG]

http://bdhp.moravian.edu/home/home.html

In the minds of some, the mere mention of the city of Bethlehem conjures up images of an industrial landscape complete with massive steel mills. These days the city has been greatly transformed, and before the period of heavy industrialization in the late 19th century, the city was quite different. With funds (and active participation) from a host of organizations, the Bethlehem Digital History Project brings together digitized primary source materials, translations, and transcriptions that relate the story of the city during the years 1741 to 1844. After reading a bit about the actual project mission, visitors should read the brief essay, “Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 1741-1844”, as it offers information about the Moravians who founded the city and their influence on the city’s growth and development. There are some terrific historical materials here, all of which are neatly organized into topical areas such as education, land, community records, art, and music. The personal papers area is rather moving, as it contains first-hand accounts by early settlers that document their religious experiences, encounters with Native Americans, and various tribulations. Finally, the “Scholar’s Corner” provides a few extra items for those who can read German script, as these diaries, death records, and speeches are only available in that form. [KMG]

http://www.nih.gov/news/radio/index.htm

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have always done a fine job of getting the word out about their latest research findings, and their web presence has been a constant source of high-quality materials for well over a decade. Recently, they have struck out into a new venture, and the fruits of their labor may be found on this site. These fruits include their in-house radio news service, which has been adopted by over 630 radio stations as of late. All told, visitors can access almost two years of archived radio reports, which deal with such timely matters as reports on chronic drinkers, the link between obesity and infertility in men, and the role of certain chemicals in reducing lung functions. In keeping with the times, the NIH also began creating podcasts in March 2006. Visitors also have access to the current and archived podcasts, which generally have a running time of anywhere from 17 to 30 minutes. [KMG]

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/html/ohio/ohio.html

Social historians and musicologists both agree: Music can tell us much about society’s aspirations, mores and other such matters. In that spirit of inquiry and edification, the Library of Congress’s “Music, Theater & Dance” digital initiative brings this marvelous exploration of music in the life of 19th century Ohio families to the curious public. This collection is primarily focused on Cincinnati, and includes introductory essays by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Jon Newsom. The topical sections include “Singing Schools”, “Religion”, “Rural Values”, and “Temperance”. Within each section, visitors will learn a bit more about the role of each topic in the lives of these families, and they can also listen to recordings that include such firm indictments of temperance as “Who’ll Buy?” and “Where Home Is”, which celebrates the sentimental image of domesticity. This fine collection is rounded out by a bibliography and a listing of related websites. [KMG]

http://www.gma.org/

Maine’s oceanic shoreline has long been one of the richest in North America, both in terms of natural resources and its importance to the local economy. One important organization that is committed to this valued ecosystem is the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Based in Portland, the Institute is designed to educate Maine residents and visitors about Maine’s fresh and saltwater resources and to “facilitate and conduct collaborative research.” Their website contains some of these resources, and first-time visitors should start their journey here at the “Science” section. As might be expected, visitors will be able to learn about some of the Institute’s ongoing survey work, including their comprehensive survey of the region’s shrimp stocks, the impacts of mobile fishing gear, and cod-tagging. Every good institute worth its salt has a strong education component, and this institute has got the web-browsing public’s best interests in mind. In their “Education” section, they have placed a number of interactive and multimedia features, including such areas as “All About Lobsters” and “Undersea Landscapes”. [KMG]

http://www.mathcasts.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Educational technologies continue to press onwards and upwards, and screencasts would seem to be one of the latest trends in this area. Screencasts basically combine narration with on-screen writing in order to demonstrate various procedures, principles, and processes. This website brings together a number of screencasts designed to teach various mathematical endeavors, and it will be quite helpful for teachers and those students who find themselves confounded by such matters as graphing points on a grid and the dreaded quadratic formula. Visitors can browse these “mathcasts” by topic or by specific subject matter. Additionally, the site contains information on how to use these devices in the classroom and how interested parties might create their own mathcasts. [KMG]