United States
Explore these resources when planning lessons, and use them with students for research projects. These sites provide useful information to answer questions. Use Don Leu's Student Guide to the Internet to help students use information effectively.
References : Dictionaries, Atlases, and Encyclopedias
Libraries and museums : From around the world!
Media and publications : Online magazines and newspapers
Utilities : Calendar, currency, and measurement converters
Search engines : For student and teacher use
References
Little Explorers
This picture dictionary on the Enchanted Learning site has over 1,500 entries, and allows children to click on a letter for illustrated
definitions. Links guide students to additional background information.
http://www.EnchantedLearning.com/Dictionary.html
Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology
This site features the largest scientific dictionary compiled in the English language. Users can search from over 130,000 terms defined
in 130 fields of science.
http://www.harcourt.com/dictionary
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
The online version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary provides definitions, pronunciation, etymologies, spelling, and
usage points. The site also includes a thesaurus, spelling correction, and hypertext links to cross-references and illustrations.
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary
American Sign Language
This site features a standard dictionary to learn the basic American Sign Language fingershapes. Users can also see what a word looks
like with the fingerspelling converter and practice with an interactive quiz.
http://where.com/scott.net/asl
Martindale's
Reference Desk
Martindale's Reference Desk is virtual library of reference
materials with links to regular and specialized dictionaries
for fields such as aviation, law enforcement, and art; multilingual
dictionaries; sign language and Braille dictionaries; and
more.
http://sun2.lib.uci.edu/HSG/Ref1.html
Cambridge Dictionaries Online
The Cambridge Online Dictionary site provides a word search in four dictionaries, including the Cambridge Dictionary of Idioms and The
Cambridge Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. This site is especially useful for non-native speakers.
http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk/elt/dictionary
Thesaurus.com
This online thesaurus provides a list of synonyms for each word entered. Browsing can be done alphabetically or by Roget's categorical
listing.
http://www.thesaurus.com
National Geographic Map Machine
The Map Machine provides dynamic maps, atlas maps, flags, and facts about countries throughout the world. The site also features current
geographic news and links to information about maps and cartography.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps/index.html
The
Casual Cartographer
Maintained by the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands,
this site provides a searchable database for maps of countries
and locations around the world.
http://oddens.geog.uu.nl/search.html
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
This University of Texas resource site provides online and downloadable maps of countries throughout the world. Users need an image
viewer that can decode JPEG and GIF images to display these maps.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html
3D Atlas
Online
Compton's online 3D World Atlas provides current global information,
research links for every country, and a Geographic Glossary.
The site also covers topics such as satellite imagery, topography,
global cultures, geology, climate, world statistics, and a
global trivia challenge. A Teacher's Area offers resource
links and downloadable world maps.
http://www.3datlas.com
Map
Viewer from Xerox PARC
With the Map Viewer, users can select a point in the world
and zoom in on it. Map data is from the CIA World Data Bank
and the USGS.
http://pubweb.parc.xerox.com/map
Encarta
Learning Zone
At this site, Microsoft Network presents a searchable online
encyclopedia with 16,000 articles, a dictionary of world English,
and an atlas of basic regional and country outline maps.
http://encarta.msn.com
Encyclopedia.com
Encyclopedia.com provides 14,000 articles for users to search. Articles are brief, but have hyperlinked references to other encyclopedia
articles and links to related websites. There is also a link to Electric Library, a fee-based Internet research service that provides
links to periodicals and images.
http://www.encyclopedia.com
Funk & Wagnalls Knowledge Center
The Funk & Wagnalls Knowledge Center provides a wide range of free online reference resources for registered users. Features include
3000 interactive elements, a dictionary, thesaurus, world atlas, media gallery of art and music, and current news feed.
http://www.funkandwagnalls.com
Information Please
The Information Please website features online access to the following resources: almanacs (including a daily almanac and the Kid's
Almanac), the Random House Webster's College Dictionary, the Columbia Encyclopedia, and the InfoPlease Atlas.
http://www.infoplease.com
The Internet Public Library
The Internet Public Library maintains a collection of online reference works. It also creates, evaluates and categorizes resources on
the Internet, and provides a space for exhibitions. There are separate Youth and Teen sections that feature sites of interest to a wide
range of ages.
http://www.ipl.org
The Library
of Congress
The Library of Congress website includes online exhibits,
information on its history and services, and an interactive
presentation for families and children on some of its fascinating
material.
http://marvel.loc.gov
http://www Virtual
Library
The Virtual Library is run by volunteers who compile pages
of key links for areas in which they are expert. Main subject
categories include: agriculture, business and economics, computer
science, communications and media, education, engineering,
humanities, international affairs, law, recreation, regional
studies, science, and society.
http://vlib.org
Education Virtual Library - (N.S.W., Australia)
This site offers education resources from around the world. Resources are categorized by grade level, type of resource, country, and
type of site. There is a search feature, an alphabetical listing of all resources, and a list of the Top 50 resources.
http://www.csu.edu.au/education/library.html
Fairrosa Cyber Library
This online directory of children's literature features links to sites with information about authors and illustrators, book reviews,
a collection of stories about dragons, and a selection of classics that children can read online.
http://www.dalton.org/libraries/fairrosa
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
This website for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, America's national institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation
of Holocaust history, includes online exhibits and an extensive education area.
http://www.ushmm.org
George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens
The Mount Vernon website includes information on the first president of the United States and Mount Vernon, along with photos and educational
resources.
http://www.mountvernon.org
Old Sturbridge Village
The Old Sturbridge Village museum re-creates the daily work activities and community celebrations of a rural 19th-century American town
as living history. The website includes a virtual tour with 360-degree panoramic images and sound.
http://www.osv.org
Lower East Side Tenement Museum
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum documents the American immigrant experience. The site includes a virtual tour of a tenement on New
York's Lower East Side and stories about the daily lives of inhabitants. The site also includes a pictorial essay on the Lower East
Side's Chinese community.
http://www.tenement.org
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site
The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site presents the life and accomplishments of the civil rights hero. The website includes
information about the historic site, including visitor recommendations and a slide show.
http://www.nps.gov/malu
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Users of this site view the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which include arts of Africa, the Pacific, and the
Americas; and Classical and Ancient Middle Eastern Art. Its Egyptian collection is generally considered one of the best of its kind
in the world.
http://www.brooklynart.org
Louvre Museum
The Louvre website presents information about the history of the museum and its collections. It offers a virtual tour, including views
from its Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities collections.
http://www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm
Musée
Musée, an interactive directory of museums and cultural institutions around the world, allows users to access hundreds of virtual and
bricks-and-mortar museum sites. Within the Educational Materials area, teachers can link directly to the educational materials sites
for many museums.
http://www.musee-online.org
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago site offers click-and-view images, gallery tours, art games, and teacher resources.
http://www.artic.edu
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History
The Smithsonian website features virtual exhibitions and explorations, resources for teachers, and a photo catalog of objects in the
collections. Online visitors can also listen to audio samples from the museum's archives of traditional American music.
http://americanhistory.si.edu
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco site showcases the collections of the de Young Museum and the Legion of Honor. The education
link provides online lesson plans complete with slides and background information.
http://www.thinker.org
The Franklin
Institute Online
The Franklin Institute site features online science learning
resources, Educational Hotlists, lists of science education
Internet resources, and an exhibit showing applications of
Benjamin Franklin's ideas still in use today.
http://sln.fi.edu
Exploring Leonardo
This virtual museum from the Science Learning Network explores Leonardo da Vinci's workshop, his life, the perspectives he used in his
art, and his right-to-left script. Interactive pages and activities allow students to communicate with each other. The Gadget Anatomy
feature tests students' understanding of simple machines.
http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo
National Aquarium in Baltimore
The National Aquarium in Baltimore website provides learning resources, including information and quizzes about marine fish, reptiles,
mammals, and invertebrates. Students can take a behind-the-scenes look at the aquarium's biodiversity projects, learn what an aquarist
does, and see how the animals' environments are maintained.
http://www.aqua.org
The Field Museum
The Field Museum website includes online exhibits of The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, and Sue, the largest skeleton of
a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
http://www.fmnh.org
The American Museum of Natural History / Earth and the Environment
At New York City's American Museum of Natural History website, students can explore the new Hayden Planetarium and Ology, a new interactive
subsite. In addition, they can learn about caves, diamonds, dinosaurs, and other topics.
http://www.amnh.org
Museum in the Classroom
The Illinois State Museum and Brookfield Zoo website features regional school projects that focus on such topics as How Birds are Used
in Different Cultures, "Zootrition," and a Comparison of Human and Animal Tools.
http://www.museum.state.il.us/mic_home/schools.html
The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation
The Lemelson Center website, created by the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, provides resources to inspire inventors of all ages.
The site features biographies of innovators and inventors, virtual exhibits and explorations, and teaching resources.
http://www.si.edu/lemelson
The Tech Museum of Innovation
The website of this innovative San Jose, California, technology-based museum provides projects for the classroom as well as online explorations
of robotics, DNA, color, Mt. Everest, earthquakes, and satellites. Taped interviews with science, technology, and computer pioneers
provide a wealth of information.
http://www.thetech.org
Exploratorium
On the San Francisco Exploratorium website, students can explore the CT scan of an Egyptian mummy, view a cow's eye dissection, learn
about the solar cycle, eclipses, SETI, and auroras, and investigate sport science. Teachers will find activity plans and a host of learning
resources.
http://www.exploratorium.edu
Museum of the History of Science
The website of Museum of the History of Science at the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University provides news of current events in science,
online exhibits, a collections database, and an image library.
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk
Museum Network
Over 33,000 museums worldwide can be accessed from this central site. Clicking on the Learning link takes users to a list of museums
that feature children's exhibits and/or online materials for children. The Quick Picks lists features sites devoted to specialization
in various areas such as art and design; food, fashion, film, and music; science and nature; and sports.
http://www.MuseumNetwork.com
Links2go.com Museums
This directory links to most of the major museums, aquariums, and parks throughout the world. Museums are categorized by type. Included
are historical museums, maritime museums, science museums, and cultural museums.
http://www.links2go.com/topic/Museums
Museum of Science (Boston)
Boston's Museum of Science website features online exhibits and learning resources for all ages. Online exhibits have included a trip
to Antarctica, an archeological dig, viewing with a scanning electron microscope, and learning about oceans, Mt. Everest, Leonardo da
Vinci, and communications.
http://www.mos.org
Mathematical
Museum of Japan
The Mathematical Museum of Japan features online exhibits
that showcase examples of the beauty of mathematics. These
include wallpaper designs, fractals, number patterns, and
tessellations. Although most of the mathematics is explained
at a high level, the designs and patterns will inspire even
very young children.
http://mathmuse.sci.ibaraki.ac.jp/indexE.html
TIME for Kids
TIME for Kids, an online version of Time Magazine for children, offers news stories, photos, opinion polls, and special features.
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK
CyberKids
CyberKids, an e-Zine for children ages 7 to 12, offers art, articles, stories, poems, and reviews written for and by children. The site
includes a chat room, games, and links to learning sites.
http://www.cyberkids.com
Creative Classroom Online
This e-Zine version of Creative Classroom, a publication for teachers of Grades K-8, offers ready-to-use ideas, timesaving tips,
and practical advice from experts and other teachers.
http://www.creativeclassroom.org
NationalGeographic.com
The online version of the National Geographic Society's flagship magazine offers maps, photography, news, live events, kids' and education
areas, interactive activities, and much more.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com
Yahoo Internet Life
Yahoo Internet Life is devoted to Web-related news and articles about music, sports, and health and fitness. The site features a Kids
and Family section with topics such as kids' safety and education on the Web.
http://www3.zdnet.com/yil
PubList
PubList is a searchable database of over 150,000 magazines, journals, newsletters, and other periodicals. Users will find free in-depth
information on both familiar and hard-to-find publications from around the world and are able to browse the periodicals by subject.
http://www.publist.com
ED Publications
This U.S. Department of Education site links to electronic versions of popular pamphlets and brochures designed to address parents'
concerns about their children's education.
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents
1st Headlines
1st Headlines contains current events coverage for worldwide media sites. It includes links to individual stories in most major newspapers
and to network news websites. Users can also browse current stories in categories such as business, health, sports, technology, travel,
or education.
http://www.1stheadlines.com
Opinion-Pages (Opinions, Ideas and Commentary)
This site contains links to editorial pages, opinion pages, columns, commentary pages, and Letters to the Editor pages from online English
newspapers around the world.
http://www.opinion-pages.org
Discover Magazine
The online version of the high-interest science magazine, Discover, contains news and features on topics such as meteorology,
paleontology, neuroscience, physics, and technology. The site also features teaching suggestions in an Educator's Guide.
http://www.discover.com
Learning & Leading with Technology
This site emphasizes practical ideas about technology and how to use it in the K-12 curriculum. Articles focus on saving time, motivating
students, and helping students handle difficult concepts and creative processes.
http://www.iste.org/L&L/index.html
Journal of Research on Computing in Education
This site publishes articles that report on original research, project descriptions and evaluations, syntheses of the literature, and
theoretical or conceptual positions that relate to educational computing. Coverage is international in scope.
http://www.iste.org/Publishing/JRCE/index.html
Tech Learning
TechLearning.com provides educators with ideas, tools, and resources for integrating technology into the K-12 school, classroom, and
curriculum.
http://www.techlearning.com
Syllabus Web
This online version of Syllabus magazine features news, resources, and trends in educational technology of interest to educators
and education technology coordinators.
http://www.syllabus.com
The New York Times on the Web Learning Network
The New York Times Web edition requires free registration and features much of the daily news and features reformatted for the Web.
The special section, Learning Network, provides news and activities suitable for students in grades 6-12.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning
Editor
and Publisher's Media Links Online Media Directory
This directory to most of the major media throughout the world
may be searched in various ways: by name, city, site type,
media category, geographic location, or by publication or
broadcast frequency (daily, weekly, etc.). Lists of the Top
100 newspapers by circulation for various parts of the world
is also included.
http://emedia1.mediainfo.com/emedia
PBS and PBS KIDS
At its main site, the Public Broadcasting System provides searchable information about all PBS television programming. The PBS Kids
site features online games, an interactive fact-finding area, and a means for children to email their favorite PBS characters or to
respond to a weekly focus topic (only the child's first name is required).
http://www.pbs.org and http://www.pbs.org/kids
BBC Education
The BBC website features an Education section from which users may access information and programs on Adult Learning, Health, History,
Languages, Nature, Science, and many other topics.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/home
Foreignword.com
Foreignword.com uses over 18 systems to perform online machine translations to and from 30 languages, including Afrikaans, Swahili,
and Welsh. Although not as accurate as a human translator, this site will provide the gist of a text.
http://www.foreignword.com
Babylon.com
Babylon.com offers Babylon Lite, a free downloadable translation tool that translates from English to 12 languages, including Hebrew,
Chinese, and Japanese. Babylon translates idioms, abbreviations, proper names, geographical places, and specialized technical, medical,
and legal terms.
http://www.babylon.com/online
AltaVista
Translations
The AltaVista Babel Fish tool translates user-input text (up
to 40 sentences at a time), along with entire websites. It
translates to and from the following languages: English, French,
Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/translate.dyn
Systrannet.com: Systran Advanced Translation
Sytrannet.com is a free translation service provided by Systran, a company that develops translation software. Registered users can
translate files and websites via their email accounts. Translations are highly accurate due to the range of dictionaries Systran provides
(Electronic, Medicine, Mathematics, etc.).
http://www.systranet.com
FreeTranslation.com
FreeTranslation.com, from Transparent Language, translates any size Web page or approximately 1,300 words of text. It translates to
and from the following languages: English, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Spanish.
http://www.freetranslation.com
Martindale's The Reference Desk
Among the 11,200 online calculators available are those that can be used for weights and measures and currency conversion.
http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/Ref.html
Martindale's All-Inclusive Calendar Converters
At this sub-site of Martindale's Reference Desk site, users will find converters between most types of calendars: Gregorian, Julian,
Chinese, Islamic, Mayan, Jewish, Aztec, and others. There is also a link to a utility that generates a calendar for any month from January
1900 onward.
http://http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/RefCalculators1.html#CAL-ALL
Washington State Department of Transportation Conversion Factors
This site provides factors for converting between U.S. customary units and I.S. (InternationalSystem ) units (or U.S. to metric measurement)
for distance, area, volume, force, pressure, mass, temperature, and other measurements.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Metrics/factors.htm
Science Made Simple, Inc.'s Online Conversions
This site provides easy-to-use online calculators for converting measurements for area, length, pressure, stress, speed, temperature,
time, volume, and weight.
http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/conversions.html
Digital Generation Converters
This website enables users to convert between two systems of measure for acceleration, force, length, power, pressure, temperature,
velocity, volume, weight, and others.
http://www.webcom.com/~legacysy/convert2/convert2.html
OANDA Currency Converter
The OANDA Currency Converter is an online utility that calculates the value of an amount of one country's currency into that of another
country's currency.
http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic
Yahooligans
This directory lists information by broad category, then by specific topic, at a child's level of comprehension.
http://www.yahooligans.com
Ask Jeeves for Kids
This search engine is especially easy for children to use. It allows students to ask a question in plain English and, after asking a
series of follow-up confirmation questions, directs students to the website that best answers it.
http://www.ajkids.com
KidsClick!
This database of websites for children features subjects organized by Dewey Decimal System library categories: facts/current events,
science and math, the arts, and society and government. Users may also search subjects by letter or search word.
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/KidsClick!
Kid's Tools for Searching the Internet
Netscape's directory lists several child-friendly search engines in categories such as "Screened," "Selected" and "Just for Fun."
Search engines include KidsClick, Scholastic Web Guide, Berit's Best Sites, and many others.
http://www.rcls.org/ksearch.htm
All-in-One Search
This site alphabetically lists over 500 of the Internet's best search engines, databases, indexes, and directories. Users can learn
the different features and performance of search engines by entering the same search words in several engines' entry fields and comparing
the results.
http://www.allonesearch.com
Education World
Updated daily, this search engine and directory lists over 120,000 resources for teachers. Featured subjects include Lesson Planning,
Teacher Plans, Curriculum, Technology, Site Reviews, and Books in Education.
http://www.education-world.com
Google
Google provides search results ranked on site popularity. By automatically assessing and ranking a page's importance by evaluating the
types of pages that link to it, Google claims that its results are the most objective because they are completely Internet-driven. Google
offers a SafeSearch On/Off option for sites to limit children's searches.
http://www.google.com
HotBot
HotBot's advantage is its exact word search, which helps to focus results. Also, it lists results with the dates they were found or
created, which helps the user evaluate their relevance.
http://www.hotbot.com
Librarians' Index
to the Internet
This site allows users to browse all subjects and access a
variety of search tools. It is updated weekly, and users may
subscribe to a news list to receive notices of changes and
new features.
http://lii.org
Ask an Expert
More than a search engine, Ask an Expert lists pre-selected experts and related sites to answer questions on a variety of subjects such
as health, science and technology, animals, careers, and art. Users can perform a keyword search that results in a listing of related
site links, or select a category listing of site links.
http://www.askanexpert.com
