http://askabiologist.asu.edu/pages/about.html

Teachers: Have you and your students ever come upon a question with no easy, well-defined answer. If so, then this site from Arizona State University is for you. Intended for K-12 teachers, users can submit a question and, within three days, receive an answer. Also helpful are the Experiments and Stuff, Articles and Profiles, and Web Links sections. The site's guidelines section stresses that the scientists who answer questions for Ask a Biologist are volunteers, but most are acting scientists. Due to volume of questions, or how busy a given scientist is, response time may be a bit slower than the promised three days. A great resource though for those times when you'd like an explanation from an expert and you don't have one handy. [JPM]

http://www.pbs.org/americanfieldguide/teachers/non_native/non_native_sum.html

Very little of the world today can be called truly representative of the native ecosystem it was meant to be. In this lesson plan, students are challenged to consider the ramifications of introducing a non-native plant species, English Ivy, into an area and how this affects the overall health of that area's ecosystem. The site includes two activities -- one in which students use photos and grids to measure habitat diversity and a second whereby students examine how and why diversity is a good thing, ecologically speaking. Designed for grades 9-12, this site includes all of the necessary resources needed to implement these activities immediately. [JPM]

http://www.floridaplants.com/youngn.htm

Hosted by Florida Plants Online and edited by Botanist Leigh Fulghum, this Young Naturalist website provides links to a wide variety of educational sites for students, teachers, and parents. The Young Naturalist site focuses on Florida's natural history, but connects to resources useful for students in other geographic regions as well. The natural history resources are organized by such categories as Animals, Insects, Plants, Habitats, and more. The site also links to samples of artist Susan Trammel's collection of Florida native botanical watercolors. [NL]

http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/

Produced by staff at the Illinois State Museum, this online exhibit offers a variety of interesting information and images for students and others interested in environments of the distant past. The site offers sections on Late Pleistocene Plants, Animals, Landscapes, and Extinctions. These broader sections include information on such topics as Spruce Pollen, Ground Sloths, Jaguars, Poplars, and many more. Site visitors can access different sections of the site through an exhibit index, or by selecting hyperlinked words embedded in the text of separate exhibit pages. The site also provides access to cited references, related book lists, and information about a paleontological cave exploration in central Missouri. [NL]

http://gslc.genetics.utah.edu/teachers/tindex/

From the University of Utah-Genetic Science Learning Center (reported on in the Scout Report for Science & Engineering on February 2, 2000) this website offers a plethora of educational activities for educators and students. Designed for multiple grade levels, examples of classroom activities include Transcribe and Translate a Gene, Build a DNA Molecule, What Makes a Firefly Grow?, What is a Mutation?, How to Extract DNA from Anything Living, and many more. Each activity provides the following background sections: Abstract, Key Concepts, Prior Knowledge Needed (including appropriate age/grade designation), and Materials needed. Many of the Learning Center's activities are entirely web-interactive. For the non-web interactive activities, teacher guides and other materials are available for download or printing. [NL]

http://www.butterflyschool.org/

Created by the Missouri Botanical Garden's Butterfly House & Education Center as a companion site for visiting school groups, this website has great resources to offer both teachers and students. For students, the site offers Species Identification Pages, information on making a butterfly house, a description of metamorphosis, a gallery of beautiful photos, and more. For teachers, the site provides instructions for such activities as Raising Butterflies & Moths, Insect Scavenger Hunt, Design Your Own Insect, and Butterfly Arts & Crafts, to name a few. The site includes lists of related books for teachers and students as well. [NL]

http://www.uvm.edu/whale/Introduction.html

This kid-friendly educational website from the University of Vermont, tells the story of Charlotte, a whale whose remains were discovered in Vermont by railroad construction workers in 1849. Although the site is not extensive, it features some great images, and relates an interesting phenomenon in an intriguing narrative style. The online exhibit includes brief sections on how the whale got there, where and how it was found, how the whale was preserved, and more. The site also offers information on the Champlain Sea environment, Beluga whales, and original observations from naturalist Zadock Thompson. [NL]