Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Have a student stumped by homework? Find exercises and extra help in various subject areas in this kid-friendly site. Navigate through the various resources and friendly graphics to areas of the site such as "Sweet Stuff" which features neat interactives, "Needed Knowledge" with great tips, "Book review" to view video book reviews, and "Getting Historical." Watch informative (don't confuse with boring) videos of various math problems whether it be basic math, solving word problems, or even geometry. Find videos for other subjects such as science, language arts, social studies, health, and art. Review information in various subjects by trying age-appropriate interactives.

tag(s): homework (29), tutorials (52)

The articles found on this NY Times site can be used for any number of classroom activities. View the headlines of the day and click to go to the original articles. This site includes a link to each science reporter to read more articles from him/her. Find the Science Times Podcast link on this page too.
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tag(s): news (228), newspapers (93)

Amelia Earhart's birthplace and home in Atchison, Kansas has been turned into a museum to honor her accomplishments. Their website offers several resources geared toward showcasing her life and accomplishments. You can visit the link entitled Learn to read a short biography, childhood information, aviation accomplishments, and much more. Be sure to check out the Experience portion for podcasts and Trivia about her adventures. Unfortuately, the virtual tours are not free

tag(s): aviation (40), careers (156), women (151)

View this interactive video timeline to look at obsolete technologies from the past, including rotary hand mixers, cassette tapes, and other technologies. These short videos share "obsolete" items from the 1860s to 2000s. (Note: if your school blocks YouTube, this site will not be accessible. Ask to have this specific url unblocked).

tag(s): inventors and inventions (80)

Zooniverse is one of the largest and most popular citizen science projects. Choose from the feature projects found on this page or click See All Projects to be able to choose from a category. The categories include Arts, Biology, Climate, History, Literature, Medicine, and several others. Click on the category of your choice to go to that project page and read more about the purpose. View interesting information and discoveries that occur when people around the world contribute to a citizen science project. Create a login that can be used for any project shown. Registration requires and email address. Read tips for safely managing email registrations here.
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tag(s): citizen science (27), earth (184), moon (73), Project Based Learning (23), Research (87), space (222), sun (71), weather (160)

Find one minute listening exercises on such common activities as babysitting, chickens, and exercise. The listening selections are alphabetized with several selections for each letter of the alphabet. Each listening selection has a multitude of activities you can download (along with the reading text) in Word and pdf formats. Find Cloze paragraphs, fill in the blanks, words to unscramble, and much more. Many activities can also be viewed online. Each selection has two interactive quizzes. Though targeted for the ESL/ELL student, listening is one of the language arts standards, and this is a good way for any classroom teacher to address listening skills.
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tag(s): dance (31), listening (93), reading comprehension (149), vocabulary (238)

Discover better perspective on the size of the universe using this interactive. Use the slider at the bottom to move from the atomic, cellular, and human perspective all the way to the size of the galaxy. Units are displayed alongside images. Warning: underneath the interactive, there is a public comment area. You may want to preview this area if allowing students to navigate on their own.

tag(s): atoms (43), cells (82), measurement (122), space (222)

Find comprehensive information about any physics topic on this site. Information is creatively linked and is portrayed as a concept map to organize and identify relationships among concepts. View tutorials and related information. View an extensive index of topics along the right hand side of the site.

tag(s): tutorials (52)

Find great images, links, and articles about the sun and Space on this interesting site. View a variety of different multimedia including videos, images (including high resolution,) animations, sounds from space, and downloads. Find resources for further information as well as information about space missions. View and read related articles for a better understanding of current understandings of space objects. Also offered on the site is a free download of the JHelioviewer for learning more and exploring the Sun. This visualization tool developed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center allows everyone to understand more about the Sun by enabling you to bring up images of the Sun from the past 15 years. Create your own movies of the Sun or change the color of the images. Export your finished movies to view in a variety of formats. This open source downloaded program is virus/spam free and requires Java to operate.

tag(s): space (222), sun (71)

The Exploratorium - This site is a self-guided tour and history of using satellites to see the earth from above. Along with menu items like people, place, ideas, and tools, there are webcasts and a section explaining how NASA's LandSat works. This would make good supplementary material for a unit of study on space or landforms.

tag(s): landforms (39), stars (71), telescopes (11)

This "plain vanilla" looking site offers science help for parents, students, and teachers with simple explanations of science topics and ideas for experiments and projects. Here you'll find the answers to the ever popular questions "Why Do Leaves Change Colors" and "Why is the Sky Blue."There is an extensive section devoted to creating a wonderful science fair that includes project ideas, how to pick a topic, presenting projects, judging, and parent information. There are also many at-home ideas for projects using simple, easy to find materials such as swinging cereal to demonstrate static electricity. You can sign up for their free newsletter to stay informed of new materials added to the site. There is an online store; however, it isn't necessary to purchase materials to use most of the information offered onsite.
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tag(s): colors (63), electricity (61), experiments (55), photosynthesis (21), plants (146)

View thousands of old style photos on a range of science and ethical topics. Use this site to bring together images as well as viewpoints to create new insights into Science and culture. Click on Read to obtain background on various science issues arranged by subject. Click on the Debate tab to look at questions and discussions related to science topics and issues. Find old style photos in the See tab. Create a login to save searches and photos for future use. Be certain to preview whatever you plan to share with your students. At this time of this review, there were some topics that would not be appropriate for some classrooms.

tag(s): debate (42), industrialization (12), medicine (57), natural resources (37)

This is a searchable database of science research on many topics. It is entirely governmental science research that is available for public viewing. Search over 40 other databases and 200 million web pages of science information. Talk about a one stop shop! It is easy to search - just type and enter!

tag(s): data (151), resources (83)

Find answers to the most interesting and intriguing questions that can be asked. Uncover cool science facts by looking at these answers. Enter a search term to find related questions and answers. Browse categories such as Agriculture, Zoology, Meteorolgy, Food and Nutrition, and Technology. View related resources and other interesting information on each page.

tag(s): agriculture (49), animals (294), climate (84), energy (133), planets (113), plants (146), questioning (36), resources (83), seasons (37)

The Hayden Planetarium has created a free download of their atlas of the universe. The video, which does a great job of showing the scale of what we as humans can see in the universe, can be viewed directly from the website. There are two different versions of the download. Both are free. Be patient with the download, it takes a little while, however the atlas, educator activities, and simulations are well worth the time it takes. One of the hardest concepts for middle to high school level earth and space science learners to understand is size and scale of the universe. Their misconceptions of color and size stem from both brain development and images that they are exposed to of the solar system from young school ages on to middle school. This video and activity set help to clarify this misconception, and provide your learners with a better understanding of their size within the universe.

tag(s): earth (184), light (56), solar system (110), stars (71), sun (71)

Globe at Night shares resources that encourage citizen scientists to submit and share observations of the night sky to compile information on the impact of light pollution. To guide citizen scientists, information on the site includes guides to assist in locating constellations that summarize the mythology behind each constellation's name. Additional links contain information on light pollution, links to educational standards, and interactive maps with observation details.

tag(s): citizen science (27), earth (184), globe (12), moon (73), space (222), stars (71), STEM (297)

This website features answers to new science questions everyday. If the simple answer is not enough for you, there are helpful links, and suggested additional reading if you would like a greater understanding of the concept. Even more information is available through using the categorized science facts found on the left side of the screen. Questions are also searchable by keyword. Subjects include: physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, mathematics, geology, engineering, and medicine.
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tag(s): area (53), carbon (17), carbon footprint (5), chemicals (39), coal (6), earthquakes (46), energy (133), engineering (129), fossil fuels (10), fossils (41), glaciers (17), machines (17), matter (45), moon (73), natural resources (37), ozone (7), ph (2), planets (113), prime numbers (26), pythagorean theorem (19), questioning (36), space (222), square roots (15), stars (71), sun (71), volume (33)

This website has a list of exciting and simple experiments. The instructions are clear, concise, and printable! Topics include Newton's Law, making a film canister rocket, a levitating orb, how to make Slime, optical illusions, bend water with static electricity, and many more for a variety of different sciences. Experiments make good use of cheap, recyclable and other easy to find items. Many experiments have video clips of people doing the experiments.

tag(s): chemicals (39), electricity (61), experiments (55), magnetism (36), newton (21), optical illusions (10), rockets (11), sounds (43), volcanoes (55)

This site is a compilation of many math and science resources along with a social networking component. Currently there are almost 2000 activities, lessons, and videos and the site is constantly growing. There are several ways to use the site both as a registered user or without registration. Without registering for the site you can search and access lessons and information through the different search methods such as keywords, subjects, source institution, and more. Free registration allows the site to become much more personalized. After registering, you can make lists of resources for any different topic, share lists or searches with others, add comments, or add your own resources. Most activities on the site are free; however, there are some searches that deliver lessons that are paid - these are clearly indicated and not frequent enough to discourage use of this site. Searches can also filter out any paid activities and return only free items. Teachers may also want to subscribe to the site's blog and newsletter to receive updated information as it is added to the site.

In case you are wondering about the title, SMILE is the Science and Math Informal Learning Educators pathway of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL).

tag(s): resources (83), social networking (61), STEM (297), video (266)

This site is the ultimate resource for any measurement or conversion need. Calculators are included for Math, Science, Cooking, Time, and much more. Categories are listed in alphabetical order from Acceleration to Weight/Mass. Within each category are the different converters/calculators. For example, after choosing volume, choices include acres, barrels (dry, federal, liquid, and wine), cubic units, gallons, quarts teaspoons, yards, and more. Other interesting conversions include your weight on other planets, your age in dog years, and translations to and from Pig Latin. You are sure to find exactly the conversion for any need within this site along with others to use just for fun!
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tag(s): conversions (37), measurement (122), temperature (34), time (91)