Research and Education
The world of personal and business finance is an interesting one, and the U.S. Financial Literary and Education Commission has created this excellent site to educate the American public about these matters. The site brings together important information from twenty federal agencies and it covers everything from 401k investments to just balancing a checkbook. Visitors to the homepage will find a list of topics that include "Credit", "Paying For Education", and "Retirement Planning". Also included on the homepage is a "Tools & Resources" area, which will bring users up to date on financial education grants and a few calculators that can help with planning a budget for college or purchasing a home. Many of the materials on the site are also available in Spanish, and visitors may also wish to sign up to receive updates when new material is added. [KMG]
http://www.actionbioscience.org/genomic/soltis.html#educatorresources
Resources for teaching botany and taxonomy can be difficult to locate online, so locating this nice teaching activity and guide was quite a find. The resource is offered as part of the ActionBioscience website, and it was written by Pamela Soltis. The guide begins by discussing the importance of angiosperms, and the site also includes an in-depth interview with Soltis. Moving on to the activity, the lesson uses visual literacy to reinforce understanding of the Linnaean classification system. It is designed for use at the college level, and the guide also includes a host of links to related sites that will be useful for educators and their botanically-minded students. [KMG]
Since the Scout Report last profiled The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) website, they have added dozens of new reports, created a helpful calendar of events, and they also found time to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. Certainly one of the highlights of the site is their annual climate assessment report. Visitors can download the report in its entirety, and also look at previous editions of the report as well. Scientists and policymakers will also want to look at some of their exhaustive scholarly works which include "Safeguarding the Ozone Layer" and "Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage". Visitors will also want to look through the "Activities" area, which brings together all of their technical reports along with information on their National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Programme. [KMG]
http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/handouts.html
Whether it's an interrogative pronoun or just a dangling modifier, the University of Toronto's Writing Center can provide visitors with dozens of helpful writing tips. While certain services are only made available to current students, these writing handouts can be used by anyone with the desire to improve their writing. The handouts cover topics like organizing an essay, the effective and correct use of quotations, and the use of articles. Each section includes specific advice and guidance, and even the most effective writers may learn something new from these guides. Composition instructors may also wish to recommend this site to their students if they are looking for additional high-quality writing resources. [KMG]
The state of Illinois is many things to many people, and visitors to this very fine digital collection will no doubt discover new things about the Land of Lincoln. Created by a dedicated team at the Illinois State Library, these collections cover everything from the planned community of Park Forest to the evolution of the O'Hare International Airport. Visitors can search the entire collection at their leisure and they can also just wander through the various thematic collections of documents as they see fit. There are some unexpected gems here, such as the "Oral Histories of Centralia" collection. In this collection, visitors can listen to residents of Centralia speak about their lives and their town via interviews conducted in 1975. Moving on, the site also contains several interesting scrapbooks documenting the life of poet Vachel Lindsay created by his sister, Frances Hamilton. [KMG]
http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/4/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=1606
Just about everyone has wondered: "How does this button work?" They may not have been thinking of the world of dynamic geometry, but Chris Sangwin of the University of Birmingham has been thinking about just this subject. He recently contributed an interactive learning resource to the Journal of Online Mathematics and its Applications, and his work will no doubt command the attention of mathematics educators. Along with providing details about this nuance of dynamic geometry, the article contains several interactive applets and two short video clips. The article also contains contact information for Sangwin, so users can contact him with any queries. [KMG]
http://www.learner.org/interactives/parkphysics/
It's one thing to learn about physics in a lab, but it can be quite another thing to make a pilgrimage to an amusement park to take in the laws of physics. Users will have to supply their own corn dogs and popcorn, but this rather nice educational resource from Annenberg Media will be quite useful for budding physicists and their teachers. The resource allows users to design their own roller coaster, and along the way they will learn a thing or two about the laws of gravity, pendulums, and kinetic energy. Along with explanatory essays, this resource contains interactive graphics and a glossary of terms. Sit back and enjoy the virtual roller coaster ride, as this site provides a rather novel way of introducing students to physics. [KMG]
Just about everyone seems to be creating a podcast these days, and a number of government agencies have entered the fray as of late. The United States Geological Survey recently decided to hang out their own podcast shingle, and the results of their labors can be explored here. The site states that their "CoreCast" is "natural science from the inside out", which seems like an appropriate label. The podcasts range in length from two to fifteen minutes, and they cover topics such as polar bear research, sex-changing fish, and climate change. One podcast that shouldn't be overlooked is "This Episode of CoreCast is Highly Questionable". In a mere three minutes, host Scott Horvath responds to a number of questions in an engaging fashion. After listening to an episode or two, visitors will probably want to sign up to receive email updates about new episodes. [KMG]
