Summer Surfing
with the Kids

by Amy Fluet

(Posted August 7, 1998 · Issue 36)

Summer is generally when we want to stay away from our computers and spend more time enjoying the great outdoors with our families. Nonetheless, the Web can provide kids with a wonderful, vacation-time introduction to the world of science. If you're a scientist who wants to show your children a little more about what you do at the bench, or if you're a science teacher working on next fall's lesson plans, the Web can be a great place to look for ideas. This article discusses some great online resources for K-12 science curricula. While the majority of sites are best appreciated by kids in middle and high school, many can also be enjoyed by younger children, with a little assistance from an adult. More resources geared specifically toward teachers are listed under Endlinks.

For some captivating images that will turn kids on to the exciting world of science, see Cells Alive, a site that also does a good job of teaching basic science facts. Cool Science Images is another good site for pictures, and maintains an archive with images catalogued under such topics as astronomy, biology, and technology. Each image includes a brief description of its subject. This resource is part of The Why Files, a site providing the details behind the science in the news (a common feature among science sites for kids). The More Why Files archive offers stories on a wide array of topics from sand castles to environmental estrogens. The Why Files Forum, on the other hand, covers many science-related topics in its discussions, but tends to deliver more chat than substance.

Once children are hooked on science, they can get more information from Bugs in the News!. This fun site provides easy-to-read explanations about all sorts of biology, from the role of p53 in cancer to bacteria having babies. Readers can choose stories from three different levels-of-interest categories. The site is text-heavy and requires some knowledge of science. Bugs in the News! would be a great resource for interested high school students or for teachers seeking ideas for their classes. Also in the realm of sites for older kids is Discover magazine's Science News, which offers information on a variety of science-related topics. Although the articles are geared toward the layperson, the text-rich, graphics-poor format is probably more appropriate for older kids (and adults, too). At the end of each article is a list of related Web sites.

Access Excellence, maintained by Genentech, is an elaborate site that incorporates science discussions, teacher resources, news updates, and more. This site is a very strong resource for biotechnology information. For a complete discussion of Access Excellence, see this issue's Site Review. The Cornell Math and Science Gateway is another site geared toward both teachers and students in grades 9 through 12, and it is a good place to start a search for more detailed scientific resources. The site has extensive lists of annotated links categorized under eleven different headings. It also features a Monthly Sci/Math Topic that provides in-depth coverage of a science-related subject recently in the news.

A great number of other online resources exist for science teachers. Most often, these take the form of annotated lists of links, but others have a more complete offering of resources. SciEd: Science and Mathematics Education Resources covers the basics, like the biological and earth sciences, chemistry, and physics. Unlike most other science sites, this one also features sections on the history of science, ethics, skepticism, and pseudoscience. The Science Reference Shelf is a good place to look for constants, chemical safety, and periodic tables. Mainly for secondary school science teachers, the Science Teachers' Lounge offers the appropriately titled Cool Classroom Demos, along with chemistry labs and a message board. The Math and Sciences site at Canada's School Net stands out with its well-annotated links and focus on Canadian science sites. A French version is also available.

A couple of good sites for science have developed around television programs. Based on the popular show Bill Nye the Science Guy, Nye Labs Online has science demos kids can do at home, along with information from past shows covering planetary, physical, and life sciences. The Lab, from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is an extensive site that provides discussions of science items in the news; it features the science soap opera CO₂ Lab, and Lab Notes, an education companion site for the Lab. From The Lab you can access the Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki Experience, which mixes scientific learning with a good bit of humor. Kruszelnicki's Great Moments in Science and Karl Trek make great reading for both children and adults. Kids or no kids, I recommend this site - there are times when grown-up scientists need to be reminded of how much fun science can be.

Capitalizing on the stereotype of the wacky scientist is the Mad Scientist Network, a part of the Young Scientist Program at the Washington University School of Medicine. This site is divided into three sections: Ask-a-Scientist has archives one can search and a form on which one can ask questions; MAD Labs has experimental ideas for all ages; and MadSci Library is an organized and annotated list of links to other science resources on the Web. For more answers to kids' science questions, see MadSci Libe: Ask-a-Scientist or Ask-an-Expert from the Cornell Math and Science Gateway.

The Franklin Institute Science Museum has a wealth of online exhibits and makes for a good substitute (or supplement) if you don't have a science museum in your vicinity. In general, the content is appropriate for 6th through 9th graders. Living Things, as its title suggests, covers life on Earth. The site is divided into four separate interactive modules: "Individuals," "Families," "Neighborhoods," and "The Circle of Life." For an outline of the subject matter included in each, see Teacher Tips. This site is designed for use in the classroom, but it could also be appropriate for kids working alongside their parents. The site suggests many hands-on activities.

Another good site built around an existing science museum is the ExploraNet from the Exploratorium in San Francisco; it offers a series of online exhibits and activities for kids. The Science Explorer has directions for more than twenty at-home activities. For older children, this site includes explanations of the scientific principles behind each fun experiment. Science Snacks gives online directions on how to build scaled-down versions of more than 100 Exploratorium exhibits. Though these projects were originally designed for high school science teachers, some are appropriate for home experimenters. Current online exhibits cover memory, sports science, and eclipses.

For a more specialized niche, Neuroscience for Kids is a great place for children to explore on their own, or for teachers to use as a source of ideas. Along with clear descriptions and colorful graphics of the nervous system, the site provides ideas for activities and experiments. The University of California Museum of Paleontology, another Web site that has developed around a museum, fills a niche for kids interested in dinosaurs, fossils, geology, and even the history of science. Paleontology Without Walls, the museum's online exhibits, can be explored through three different points of view: phylogeny, geological time, or evolutionary thought. The Web Lift, a kind of online elevator, allows one to explore a specific taxon or geological period. In general, this information-rich site suits older kids and adults, but the Dinosauria can be enjoyed by children of all ages. This museum site makes for fun exploring during the summer, and helpful research during the school year.

Within these sites you will find fun science activities to fill every rainy afternoon from now until Labor Day, with discussions about any and every science event in the news, and great science trivia. And if your kids ask a question you can't answer, just send them to one of the several Ask-an-Expert sites listed above.

Amy Fluet is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Send us your comments and ideas for future articles.

Endlinks

Kids Web: The Sciences - a good place to start looking for other sites for K-12 kids. The annotated links are divided by discipline and then further subdivided under topic headings.

Virtual Courses on the Web - an extensive list of links for biology and chemistry courses for all levels.

BioChemNet - maintains links for teachers and students to chemistry and molecular biology educational resources, and has weekly links to science articles in the news.

Hands-On Science Centers Worldwide - links to Web pages of science museums with an emphasis on interactive science education. These sites vary in the amount of online content they have.

More resources for teachers:

SciTalk and the Teachers' Lounge - are two good education-related resources that were explored in the HMS Beagle In Situ Discussion Groups on the Web.

CMS Teacher Resource Center - focuses on links for teachers who use the Web in their classrooms. From Cyberspace Middle School, a site for 6th through 9th graders with a focus on science fairs.

Science Teachers' Lounge - is primarily for secondary school science teachers and has great classroom demos, ideas for labs, and many other resources.

Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Science and Math - more links and ideas for K-12 teachers.

The Education Index - an alphabetized and annotated list of links.

MendelWeb - "an educational resource for teachers and students interested in the origins of classical genetics, introductory data analysis, elementary plant science, and the history and literature of science." Built around Mendel's classic paper on plant hybridization, the site also has a discussion group, Mendelroom.

BioMedLink - BioMedNet's evaluated and annotated database of Web sites; contains hundreds of online educational resources.

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