http://waynesword.palomar.edu/bio101.htm

This website was developed by Professor Wayne P. Armstrong as part of his online Biology 101 course at Palomar College in San Marcos, Calif. This site is also part of Professor Armstrong's larger website: Wayne's Word: An Online Natural History Textbook. The Biology 101 Lecture Topics site organizes lectures into five major categories: The Kingdoms of Life; Biochemistry and Cell Structure & Function; Mitosis, Meiosis & Life Cycle Patterns; Mendelian Genetics and Immunology; and Ecology, Adaptations & Population Growth. Lecture pages are well-written, and include a list of references as well as excellent photographs, diagrams, and illustrations. Examples of lecture topics include Plant Cells vs. Animal Cells; Archaebacteria & Life on Mars; The Five Kingdoms of Life; and Biomes of North America. Site visitors can also link to other sections of Wayne's Word including Botany lectures, and in-depth information about Duckweeds. [NL]

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Biology/7-91JSpring2004/CourseHome/index.htm

This website presents resources from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Computational and Systems Biology course offered in the spring semester of 2004. This site is part of the MIT OpenCourseWare project, which was developed to share MIT undergraduate and graduate course resources with the Internet community. This introductory course emphasizes "the fundamentals of nucleic acid and protein sequence analysis, structural analyses, and also serves as an introduction to the analysis of complex biological systems. It covers principles and methods used for sequence alignment, motif finding, structural modeling, structure prediction, and network modeling." The website contains downloadable lecture notes, assignments, and quizzes. The site also lists reading assignments, and links to a number of Computational Biology Tools and Resources. Note: RasMol software is needed to run .pdb files, and Python Interpreter can be used to run .py files. [NL]

http://www.monarchlab.umn.edu/

The Monarch Lab website was developed by educators and scientists at the University of Minnesota to present information about monarch butterfly biology and research and to provide students, scientists, and teachers with an interactive forum for discussing monarchs. The site includes informative sections that introduce a variety of monarch research topics such as Growth & Development, Monarch Migration, Natural Enemies, Reproductive Biology, and more. The website shares great reports from studies conducted by Student/Teacher/Scientist teams around the United States. The site's Monarch Rearing section includes concise instructions for catching and rearing monarchs, making a cage, and even finding and growing milkweed. The site also offers information about the life cycle and distribution of monarchs; a Monarch Basic Biology Quiz with three difficulty levels; monarch research lesson plans for grades K-12; and information about entering a project in the Insect Fair. [NL]

http://www.rainforestheroes.com/kidscorner/

From the Rainforest Action Network, this website provides kids and teachers with a place to learn about the world's rainforests, and how to protect them as well. The site offers information about rainforests using factsheets, a great educational slide show, a video, a glossary of related terms, and more. The site also contains a Heroes Corner which features brief reports about what students and teachers are doing to help protect rainforests. For budding activists, the site provides Action Alerts, a seven-step guide for helping out rainforests, and information about the Protect-an-Acre program. The site also includes selected rainforest artwork made by kids; recipes and craft ideas; and a list of recommended books. For teachers, the website offers a video and curriculum packet, as well as a variety of classroom activity ideas. [NL]

http://www.cotf.edu/ete/modules/coralreef/CRmain.html

From Wheeling Jesuit University and NASA-Classroom of the Future, this website introduces students to environmental challenges facing the world's coral reefs. This Coral Reefs learning module is part of the Exploring the Environment series (first reported on in the January 1, 1998 Scout Report for Science & Engineering) which present students with real-world environmental problems resulting from human activities. The Coral Reef site contains concise sections that address Biodiversity, Climate Change, Spheres (e.g. Anthrosphere, Hydrosphere, Biosphere), and Remote Sensing. The site's Teacher Pages provide support information for using the module including instructions for software-use, and objectives for Problem-Based Learning. The site also contains good-quality photographs, related links, and references. Other modules in the Exploring the Environment site include Mountain Gorillas, Florida Everglades, Yellowstone Fires, Temperate Rainforest, and more. [NL]

http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/lectures/index.html

From the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), this website presents the 2004 Holiday Lectures on Science Series. The Series is titled the Science of Fat, and the site includes four webcast lectures by Drs. Ronald M. Evans and Jeffrey M. Friedman of the HHMI. Lecture titles include Deconstructing Obesity; Understanding Fat: Syndrome X and Beyond; Balancing the Fat Equation; and Exploring Obesity: From the Depths of the Brain to the Far Pacific. The original webcast was viewed live by high school students from around the Washington, D.C., area. Site visitors can also link to Holiday Lectures from past years addressing such topics as cancer, neuroscience, gender, biological time, microbes, RNA, and more. The site links to webcasts for a few Informal Talks about a variety of medical issues as well. [NL]

http://www-micro.msb.le.ac.uk/tutorials/cow/cow1.html

This inquiry-based tutorial about Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow disease) was created by Dr. Alan Cann, of the Microbiology Department at the University of Leicester. The 18-slide tutorial presents visitors with a variety of information about the development of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The tutorial website also includes a summary page about prion diseases, and a glossary. This site connects to several other University of Leicester online tutorials as well including an interactive tutorial through which visitors can become a virus of their choosing. [NL]

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20041207tuesday.html

What can DNA tell us about our evolutionary relationships to other mammals? This New York Times one-hour lesson (designed for sixth-12th grade students) explores this question with a Times article regarding the examination of genetic material to learn about a common 80 million-year-old mammalian ancestor. The lesson also explores important qualities and applications of DNA; and encourages students to develop methods for educating younger students about basic elements of DNA. The lesson was authored by Priscilla Chan, of The New York Times Learning Network, and Bridget Anderson, of The Bank Street College of Education in New York City. The website includes a lesson description; Academic Content Standards; and concise sections that address objectives, needed materials, extension activities, evaluation, and interdisciplinary applications. [NL]