Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This site offers up-to-date news on conservation issues and incidents in Africa. Organized by reporters in the different regions of this large continent, the site gives users the option of selecting news, videos, or blogs with videos to keep themselves informed on the very latest events impacting animals, both good and bad. The fastest way to find the animal information is to click on "Find Blogs about Hippos, Gorillas, Colobus monkey, Rhinos, amd other Endangered Animals"

tag(s): africa (170), animals (293), conservation (102), environment (252)

Users can find average temperature readings by clicking on common locations or entering any world city into a search box. Answers show three readings, Average Maximum Temps, Average Minimum, 24 hour readings, as well as longitude and latitude.. Depending on the area, other data includes rainfall, sea-level pressure, station level pressure, and general information about the area's geography. Searchers must use native language spellings of larger cities and must settle for information about the main cities of the world.

tag(s): climate (85), earth (183), earth day (61), environment (252), temperature (34), weather (161)

Created in response to the CIA Factbook and other data sources, NationMaster draws together data from multiple sources so students (and adults) can compare and contrast using the tools of the web site itself. Use pulldowns to select a statistic to compare, such as Education, and the specific statistic you wish to look at (Average years of schooling of adults, for example). You will see the actual data as well as a bar graph or switch to a colored world map representing the data. The site makes working with data more student-friendly. You will have to ignore some of the ads along the top and left side of the page.

tag(s): data (150), statistics (121)

Get the facts fast. Simply click Country to find an alphebetical list of countries and learn all about its significant data. The information is separated into categories: Introduction, Natural Resoures, Land Use, Natural Hazards, Geography, People, Government, Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military, and Transnational Issues. All the information is presented in a dry, factual format (mostly numbers) but provides an excellent way to compare countries, draw inferences, and predict trends, hypothesize cause/effect, and more. By researching the data, your class can look for possible connections between demographics and economics, for example.

tag(s): data (150), demographics (13), population (51)

Have a high speed Internet connection? (Most schools do) Then you MUST visit these 3D virtual tours of beautiful sites all over the world with your students. Read the Welcome message on the home page for directions and details, then explore the current features and several years of archives for 3D virtual tours from major world capitals to true "experiences" such as Times Square and white water rafting. Even the tour of a Banyan tree will amaze you. Bring the world into your classroom for geography, landforms, world cultures, foreign language study, or literary settings. Be in the midst of festivals or atop the Sydney Bridge.

tag(s): images (263), landforms (39), virtual field trips (132)

This delightful map of the world encourages students to scroll across the map; facts about the selected country appear at the bottom of the page. The data includes the country's capital, population, and size. Other information specific to each country appears in an adjoining paragraph.The Map Fun includes quiz like games.

tag(s): capitals (15), countries (73)

Get into the spirit of St. Patrick's Day at this site with wallpapers, Facebook covers, and a Matching Game (with answers on a seperate page).

tag(s): holidays (194), ireland (11), st patricks day (12)

The mission of National Council for the Social Studies is to provide leadership, service, and support for all social studies educators.

You may be familiar with Google Earth but may not have the ability to install their free software on your computer, either because you are not permitted to or because your computer is not powerful enough to handle it. Try Flash Earth for a simpler tool to explore the earth as you teach geography to any age from kindergarten to seniors. Perhaps you just want to quickly show which way the Conestoga wagons crossed the U.S., or maybe to show where in the world a current events story is taking place. This simple tool, on a projector or interactive whiteboard, is just the trick. Note: You MUST have FLASH on your computer.

tag(s): globe (12), maps (224)

This site is a much-expanded remake of the Peace Corps collection of lesson plans and activities for cross-cultural understanding around the world. Teachers can search for lesson plans by topic, region of the world, grade level, or academic subject. All readings and materials are included (many as PDF - Acrobat Reader files). Many lessons include readings that would also work well for teaching reading comprehension, espceially for your less-than-proficient readers. Simply choose the area of the world, subject, and/or grade level for which you want a lesson plan, and you will see quite a list.

tag(s): cultures (211)

With such poor results as a nation on geography testing, we all should try these geography games to build student knowledge of U.S. and world geography. Students can click on the region of the world and practice at different levels of difficulty. Even adults can find a challenge. Offered in a "dial up version" for those accessing the sites from a slower connection.

tag(s): capitals (15), continents (33), countries (73), maps (224)

If you can't make the journey to the Washington, D.C.'s American Museum of Natural History then take your students to this website for an online tour of the panoramic dioramas that are among the museum's most impressive features. Short videos, audio clips, 360''? panoramic views, and descriptions of geographic locations and species round out the virtual experience.

tag(s): species (16)

Google Maps gives you live visuals of any location, ideal for planning a trip, picturing the relationship between places, and viewing physical characteristics of almost anywhere in the world. Type or paste in an address and click "search maps." If you click Satellite or hybrid versions of the map, you will see actual satellite images of the terrain. Zoom in and out, use the street view "orange man" to walk among the buildings and trees, or plan and share a route easily with Google Maps. Using your (free) Google membership allows you to save favorite places and more. Find businesses and other features near a specific map location: hotels, restaurants, schools, parks, and more. Google Maps has become more and more sophisticated, now offering many features previously only available in Google Earth, such as opening and/or saving placemarker files. Unlike Google Earth, Google Maps does not require software installation and does not use as much bandwidth for constant reloading. You can even play a tour of places you mark in Google Maps. They just keep adding more features! Google Maps is available as a free app for Android and iOS, too. The handy embed codes let you put any Google Map in a web page, blog, or wiki. Of course you do not need a membership or any special skills to simply SEE, share, or navigate a map. Membership gives you more ways to save.

tag(s): DAT device agnostic tool (146), directions (11), maps (224)

This site presents teachers with a searchable index of natural sciences resources contained within the museum's site. Scroll down the page and click Resources for Learning. You can browse the web-sites, activities, and experiments by sub-topic, grade level, or resource type. Current subtopics include anthropology, astronomy, biology, earth science, and paleontology. Special collection exhibits present theme-based activities that cover additional topics and change occasionally. Be sure to check out the the Past Exhibitions for topics such as Biodiversity, Antarctica, and deep sea explorations, and much more. This is a great site for sorting out all the wonderful resources the museum has to offer. There are over 1,000 resources currently available on countless subjects.

tag(s): amphibians (17), biodiversity (36), brain (56), climate change (100), darwin (13), dinosaurs (43), diseases (66), diversity (43), fossils (41), light (56), mammals (22), natural disasters (19), oceans (149), paleontology (28), poisons (2), space (220), volcanoes (55)

These curriculum materials from the National Park Service series "Teaching with Historic Places" describes the effort to build a canal connecting the Chesapeake Bay and the Ohio River. While the canal never made it to Ohio, it served as an important route for commerce into western Maryland. This site uses maps and historic photos to tell the story of the canal's construction and its economic impact.

tag(s): maryland (7), transportation (30)

This lesson from the National Park Service series "Teaching with Historic Places" describes life on the shoreline islands of Maine during the nineteenth century. Using historical photos, maps, and readings the lesson describes how islanders lived and governed themselves in isolation from their mainland friends. This site would be an interesting sidebar to a study of life in the nineteenth century.

tag(s): maine (4)

This online exhibition site offers a glimpse of some of the many documents associated with the Lewis and Clark expedition, ranging from maps drawn by the explorers to Thomas Jefferson's secret cipher for sending coded messages. The text includes excerpts from the journals the explorers kept.

tag(s): jefferson (19), lewis and clark (14)

Great website to show you about the Cape Cad National Seashore sponsored by the National Parks Service