The Animal Detector
 | Very cool blog kept by a family who set up an automated device to video the animals that come at night to feed in their backyard. Features a grey fox, raccoons, possum, various birds, cats and even a human!
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KinderSite
 | Offers preschool and kindergarten age children and English learners a safe and engaging environment where they can find and use appropriate content on the Internet, in the form of games, stories and songs.
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Energy Kids
 | This website from the U.S. Energy Information Administration is chock full of information about energy; from energy basics to forms of energy, and from using to conserving. Visitors can go on virtual field trips across the country with Energy Ant through engaging photo journals, and teachers can find lesson plans, guides, links, and suggested ways of using the website in the classroom.
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GOOD | Roadmap to Harmony
 | A wonderfully colorful Flash interactive containing articles, videos, data, and research to get us thinking about energy, education, sustenance, health, the earth, flora and fauna, connectivity, exchange, and coexistence.
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Chemistry Comes Alive: Sample Movies
 | From the Journal of Chemical Education. Exciting movies of some explosive, flaming, and colorful chemical reactions. You will need the free QuickTime Player to watch.
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AccessMyLibrary
 | Free access to 30 million magazine, journal and newspaper articles from top publications available at your library. All you need is your library card to get the full text.
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The Spider Myths Site
 | Spiders have gotten a bad rap. This spider expert from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture restores the spider's reputation by debunking such myths as "Spiders in the home are a danger to children and pets." and "The daddy longlegs has the world's most powerful venom, but its fangs are so small that it can't bite you."
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Slide Rule Museum
 | Fun activities and facts about slide rules. Slide rule course and loaner program available for educators.
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Solar Folklore
 | Most cultures have recognized the significance of the sun as prime controller of all life on earth. Read myths, legends, and tales about the sun from the Stanford Solar Center.
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Forces of Nature
 | Ever wanted to feel the power of creating tornado? How about an earthquake? This site, created to accompany a National Geographic film, offers up explorations of the biggest forces our earth can bring us: tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. Virtual labs let you design your own disaster, and National Geo-quality photos fill in the gaps of your visual imagination. You'll need the free Flash player.
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The Smithsonian Institution: The Ocean Portal
 | A beautiful website containing these sections: Ocean Life & Ecosystems, Photo Essays, The Ocean Over Time, Ocean Science, and The Ocean & You. There's also an Educators section that has lesson plans, activities, and ways to use the Ocean Portal's features.
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Molecularium: Kid Site
 | What lives in the nano world? You'll find out here through interactive activities, a gallery, and more! By Rensselaer’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures. You'll need the free Flash Player.
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SledDoggin
 | Learn about dog sledding from informative articles and blog postings from mushers.
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ARKive
 | A unique collection of thousands of videos, images and fact-files illustrating the world's species, both endangered and in the U.K.
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Chalkbored
 | Hundreds of Power Point lessons, labs, worksheets and activities created by a high school chemistry teacher. Information is free for educators and others. (See also http://www.chalkbored.com/lessons/chemistry-12.htm)
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NASA's First 50 Years: An Interactive Journey
 | An interactive tour of NASA's first five decades of exploration, featuring virtual pavilions, clickable models and exhibits, video galleries, astronauts, presidents, and a robot guide named Automa.
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Tardigrades
 | Dedicated to this little-studied phylum of animals, also called water bears. This site is filled with scientific images, videos, facts, and useful research geared towards education. It?s sponsored by the Goldstein Lab at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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BBC Human Body and Mind
 | From the BBC, this educational website is home to interactive body explorations, psychological tests, and facts and figures about the human mind and body. A 2004 Educational Webby Award nominee.
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Genna's World
 | There are so many blogs, but this one I think really captures the collaborative environment the Web can be. The brainchild of ten-year old Genna, this website hosts a "collaborative story" where visitors' suggestions are used to write stories. Kid visitors can also post stories, book reviews, and comments on children's writings. All submissions are reviewed prior to posting.
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A Paleo Perspective on Global Warming
 | How is the current warming of Earth's climate similar or different from other climate changes in Earth's history? This site from NOAA offers a good, non-political starting point for those who want to learn more about global warming.
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ChemMatters
 | Great online resource for High School chemistry teachers brought to you by the American Chemical Society. Pdf versions of "ChemMatters" magazine, geared towards a high school audience, are available online along with the corresponding teachers’ guides.
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Museum of Online Museums
 | Includes links to online collections and exhibits covering a vast array of interests and subject. Also has links to brick-and-mortar museums with an interesting online presence.
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Soungle
| Category: Media | Cool Site: December 2008 |
| Recommended 3 times |
 | Free searchable database of hundreds of downloadable special effects and musical instrument samples.
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Planetpals Earthzone
 | Suitable for young children, this site features Planetpals, "characters that help kids learn about the earth in a fun way." You'll find activities, games, crafts, and information about earth science, ecology and Earth Day. There are also recycling kits, facts, lists and teacher/parent pages.
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Whatta Blast!
 | http://www.whattablast.com/
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Chemistry Guide
 | This directory and search engine of chemistry-related resources on the Internet searches the content of more than 250 Web sites.
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Kids' Space
 | At this excellent kids' site you can view artwork from children around the world and submit your own (as long as you're a kid). You can also read and submit stories by children, hear music composed and performed by children, or search for a pen pal.
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The New Venue
| Category: Media | Cool Site: June 1998 |
| Recommended 2 times |
 | Check out this site to see state-of-the-art movies produced just for the Web! Best viewed with a fast internet connection.
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FiftyCrows: TV/New Media
 | This organization supports and promotes Social Change Photography because they believe that "Images inspire people to act." Once you see the photo and video essays on this site your view of world events will never be the same. You will be inspired to make the world a more just place. You'll need Quick Time to view the movies.
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Irish Potato Famine
| Category: History | Cool Site: April 2006 |
| Recommended 2 times |
 | Engaging interactive exhibit about the Irish Potato Famine. You’ll need the free Flash player.
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Architect Studio 3D, from the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust
| Category: Arts | Cool Site: February 2006 |
| Recommended 2 times |
 | Design a house in 3D with Frank Lloyd Wright! On this Web site, you can design a house, walk through it in 3D, then share it with the world. You can also learn more about architecture, past and present, and explore Frank Lloyd Wright's life and work. You'll need the free Shockwave plug-in.
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Bugscope
 | K–12 students can view bugs under a scanning electron microscope via the World Wide Web by applying to the program and describing the type of project they want to do (from the University of Illinois).
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Molecule of the Day
| Category: Blogs | Cool Site: June 2007 |
| Recommended 2 times |
 | Exactly what it says. Tagline: “Molecules: You’d better learn to live with them.” What you don’t know about the chemistry that surrounds you could fill a blog.
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The Planetary Society Weblog
| Category: Blogs | Cool Site: June 2007 |
| Recommended 2 times |
 | Lost in space? Not at this blog, which keeps tabs on all things concerning space science, space exploration, and space advocacy.
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ForgeFX: Interactive 3D Simulations
 | A set of fun, interactive, and educational 3D simulation “games.” You’ll need the free Flash player.
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World of Teaching
| Category: Media | Cool Site: August 2008 |
| Recommended 2 times |
 | Collection of free PowerPoint presentations for teachers, covering science, language, English and more.
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Math Vids
 | Site featuring hundreds of math instruction videos: teachers create math lessons using Smartboard technology and post them to the Math Vids site. Students access & watch videos and can rate them. Aimed at middle through college students. Must register, but is free.
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Space Time TV
| Category: Media | Cool Site: December 2008 |
| Recommended 2 times |
 | Site that features video clips from National Geographic, PBS, History Channel and others focusing on math and space. Users can watch up to 50 hours of free content (with commercials). Includes a fun arcade gallery of mind games, such as Tangram House.
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Olafu Eliasson: Take Your Time
 | Site that accompanied the MoMA exhibition of the same name. The exhibition closed on June 30, 2008. However, the Website includes images taken by visitors who were given special cell-phone cameras to wear that document their journeys through the show, thereby depicting a candid and experiential view of the exhibition (and one that is in accordance with the artist?s practice).
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Wolfram Alpha
 | With the goal of making "all systematic knowledge computable," Wolfram Alpha has produced an amazing search engine capable of plotting complex mathematical equations, comparing two stocks, and interpreting a string of base pairs and finding matches to the human genome. Start with the Examples to see what it can do-then try your own queries.
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ASPCA, Henry's Book Club
 | Online book club named in honor of ASPCA founder Henry Bergh. Two books are featured each month. Henry's Book Club aims to help children (ages 5 and up) develop literary and language skills. Through the club, they meet new people, are exposed to other's ideas and perspectives, gain a deeper understanding of books and learn to analyze what they read.
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AboutKidsHealth
 | A teaching tool with age-appropriate animations for kids on many different health topics including nutrition, how the body works, diseases, and more. AboutKidsHealth is an initiative of The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
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Instructables: Step-by-Step Collaboration
 | Find out how to make millions of cool things such as a pinball machine table and a 3-D scanner! You can also add your cool projects to the site.
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TED: Ideas Worth Spreading
| Category: Media | Cool Site: July 2010 |
| Recommended 2 times |
 | Amazing talks. Amazing people. TED.com makes the best talks from TED conferences available to the world for free. TED is a nonprofit that seeks to promote "ideas worth spreading". It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: technology, entertainment, and design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Watch a speaker--be inspired.
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The Bridge
 | An excellent clearinghouse for marine science education resources, this site includes links to lesson plans, on-line publications, and more.
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The Green Frog News
 | This great resource for teachers features experiments and lessons on science and the environment in pdf format.
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Water on the Web (WOW)
 | This nicely designed site aims to teach high school and college students to solve real-world environmental problems. Lesson plans and interactive modules are available for both teachers and students.
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Live! Universe
 | This Japanese project presents live webcasts and phenomena and events in astronomy and space science around the globe.
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E-Naturalist
 | How many times will a mosquito bite? What's the advantage to birds flying in a "V" formation? If you find an egg in a nest, should you "rescue" it? E-naturalist provides answers to these questions, and hundreds more. Visitors have the option of choosing a quick read or a full read on the subject. If that raises more questions than it answers, you can email your queries to a naturalist, browse more websites, or indulge in a hands-on activity.
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The Virtual Body
 | A well-executed interactive tour of the human body put together by health insurance giant Columbia/HCA. This site requires the Shockwave Player to view.
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Van Gogh at Etten: Sketches and Billboards
| Category: Arts | Cool Site: October 2000 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | This ThinkQuest site features the life and work of Van Gogh, focusing on the time he lived in Etten. You can browse through the galleries to see his work and read about his life. You can also take an online art course.
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New York City: After the Fall
 | This site combines audio, text, sound, and motion beautifully. It is a thoughtful presentation about the psychological aftermath of September 11th in New York City.
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Cocktail Party Physics
| Category: Blogs | Cool Site: June 2007 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | Jennifer Ouellette, author of the books Black Bodies and Quantum Cats and The Physics of the Buffyverse, explains physics to the layperson and specialist alike with abundant historical and cultural references.
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Architect Studio 3D, from the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust
| Category: History | Cool Site: February 2006 |
| Recommended 1 time |
| Design a house in 3D with Frank Lloyd Wright! On this Web site, you can design a house, walk through it in 3D, then share it with the world. You can also learn more about architecture, past and present, and explore Frank Lloyd Wright's life and work. You'll need the free Shockwave plug-in.
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Litscape.com
 | Includes works of literature contained in books in the public domain. Can find works by author, themes, fables, songs, and more.
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Burarra Gathering
 | Go fishing and crab hunting with the Burarra people of Australia! You'll also learn how to navigate using stars and how to read animal tracks in this wonderful interactive adventure. Brought to us by Questacon, Australia's National Science and Technology Center. You'll need the free Flash Player.
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Mystery of the Poison-Dart Frog
 | Discover the art and biology of the Costa Rican rainforest and "solve a mystery with clues from ancient treasures." From the North Carolina Museum of Art. You will need the free Flash Player.
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The Science Toy Maker
 | This non-commercial site features projects that use easily-available, inexpensive materials, and don't require special skills, tools materials or facilities. Activities are thoroughly tested to work, yet also have the potential to be improved by creative inventors and tinkerers.
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The Yuckiest Site on the Internet
 | This site calls itself "the grossest family site on the Net." With areas like Cockroach World, it's easy to agree. This site is well presented and a lot of fun.
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Florida-Friendly Landscaping
 | Irrigation of lawns and landscaping in Florida represents the single largest use of water from municipal water supplies. In addition, fertilizers and pesticides used on lawns are major sources of pollution in its lakes, rivers and bays. Get ideas on how to make your yard more earth friendly, no matter where you live. Interactive garden planner is very cool.
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The Package Museum
| Category: History | Cool Site: August 2008 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | Take a walk down memory lane with many images of American package design from the early decades of the 20th century. Has an index by product name and 3D images of some of the products.
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Free Science
 | Large collection of free books, articles and websites about science. In Italian and English.
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The Mind of Leonardo: The Universal Genius at Work
| Category: History | Cool Site: April 2006 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | Web site for the new exhibition “The Mind of Leonardo” at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy. Explore Leonardo da Vinci’s mode of thinking and his unitary conception of knowledge as the effort to assimilate, through bold theoretical syntheses and inventive experiments, the laws that govern all of the wondrous operations of man and nature. You’ll need either Window’s Media Player or the QuickTime player to access the video elements.
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The Renaissance Connection
| Category: History | Cool Site: February 2006 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | Highly interactive, educational, and fun site about art of the Renaissance from the Allentown Art Museum. You'll need the free Flash player.
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Earth as Art
| Category: Arts | Cool Site: March 2004 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | Don’t let the less-than-fancy front page fool you: There’s art in here. NASA’s Landsat has taken some remarkable pictures of our earth and given us views that would be at home on the walls of your local gallery. Browse by continent, or look through the index of all the photos at once.
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Slates, Slide Rules, and Software: Teaching Math in America
 | Devoted to "tools used to teach math across American history, from the 1800s to the present."
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Endeavor Botanical Illustrations (Natural History Museum, London)
 | The voyage of HMS Endeavour (1768-1771) was the first devoted exclusively to scientific discovery. This site presents most of the botanical drawings and engravings prepared by artist Sydney Parkinson before his untimely death at sea, and by other artists back in England working from Parkinson's initial sketches.
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The Posters of Toulouse-Lautrec
 | The site is well designed and the works are compelling. The site contains historical information as well as reproductions of the posters in two different sizes (for those who are bandwidth challenged). Presented by the San Diego Museum of Art.
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What’s That Stuff?
 | What exactly is in your toothpaste? What about that paper you’re writing on or the bug spray you use in summer? This site puts science into everyday life, with informative descriptions of the chemistry behind the products we use on a regular basis.
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Delights of Chemistry
 | A trip to this site is sure to spark your interest in chemistry. You can watch videos of exciting chemistry demonstrations, view experiments illustrated with photos and complete with explanations, and browse through a chemical reaction photo gallery.
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Calculus Help
 | This zany site can lift the spirits and fortify the mind of anybody attempting to master calculus and/or prepare for the AP Calculus test. You can get your math problems from algebra to calculus answered by students from Mr. Kelley's AP Calculus class or try to solve the calculus problem of the week.
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Math Playground
 | A teacher-created site that features math games, interactive word problems, and logic puzzles for elementary to middle-school students (but fun for all ages).
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101Science
 | Links to some 20,000 Websites containing science resources and definitions. Good starting point for research.
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Bay Area Mycological Society
 | Site focusing on the knowledge of and appreciation for the world of mushrooms, informing users how to be ?citizen scientists,? and instructing them about safe practices. Includes recipes.
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Bird Book
 | Stunning photographs of birds by Andrew Zuckerman are set on a plain white background, which makes the birds seem to "pop." The site includes information about each bird and an audio file of the bird's call.
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Earth as Art
| Don’t let the less-than-fancy front page fool you: There’s art in here. NASA’s Landsat has taken some remarkable pictures of our earth and given us views that would be at home on the walls of your local gallery. Browse by continent, or look through the index of all the photos at once.
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Science for Citizens
 | Though this site is in beta, it's chock full of links to research projects needing your help. This is citizen science: It's your participation that helps scientists collect and analyze data. Perfect for everyone from the backyard scientist to the diehard storm chaser.
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PEEP and the Big Wide World
 | This site, which features Flash-based games starring Peep and his friends, entices three-to-five-year-olds to explore science. While kids may be having too much fun to realize it, these games will help them learn to estimate distances, mix colors, exercise their memory, and explore basic physics. The site also includes a collection of science resources. You’ll need the free Flash player.
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Chemsoc Timeline
 | Super cool chemistry timeline with funky art. You can enter the Flash version or html version. Each entry lists the date, a pictorial representation, a small paragraph about the event, and links for further information. You can also suggest a historic event for inclusion in the timeline.
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Chalkbored
| A good source for hundreds of PowerPoint lessons, labs, worksheets, and activities created by a high school chemistry teacher. Information is free for educators and others.
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Math Is Fun
 | Aimed at basic math skills for K?12, although there is some more complex stuff. Math + fun = Mathfun.
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Volcano Expedition to the Mariana Islands: The Ins and Outs of How Earth Works
 | This Web site will take you to nine volcanic islands in the Mariana chain. The site offers a guided tour through photos, videos, day-by-day accounts of what the research team finds, a history of the islands, and links to cultural and scientific resources. From the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
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Nikola Tesla: Inventor, Engineer, Scientist
 | We thought it only fair, since we included Edison in our 10 Cool Sites, to include a page on Tesla. This page is comprehensive and includes a biography, photo album, and much more.
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NY Times: One in 8 Million
 | Heart warming. A photo/audio journal of 54 ordinary people telling extraordinary stories. Elegantly and intuitively presented. A 2010 Webby Award Nominee.
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Centre of the Cell
 | The London museum's website, which features numerous links for students to access to further cell understanding. Includes teacher and students areas with activities, ethics of cell research, and more.
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Kidsgardening
 | At this site you will find fun classroom and home activities for teaching science to children through gardening.
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Education.com
 | One section of the larger education.com site, this specific area provides free activities and craft ideas for pre-K through high school. Includes math, science, and many other topics, sorted by both topic and grade level.
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Perimeter Institute
| Category: Physics | Cool Site: February 2010 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | A research center in Canada dedicated to exploring the world around us through cosmology, particle physics, quantum physics, and superstring theory. Be sure to check out the Outreach page where you can explore theoretical physics and the Power of Ideas.
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The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame
| Category: History | Cool Site: October 2001 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | Explore the history of the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame, which had strong religious and ceremonial importance, at this beautiful, highly interactive site. There is also a set of fun classroom activities. You will need the Flash Player.
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An Interactive Guide to Massachusetts Snakes
 | Provides information about the mythology and natural history of snakes, accounts of different species and an interactive guide for identifying snakes that live in Massachusetts.
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Cusimano: Surrealist Artist
| Category: Arts | Cool Site: September 1996 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | nteresting work. Cusimano is described as..."Canadian metaphysical surrealist artist known for his enigmatic excursions into the landscape of the soul where the unreal can seem real in the metamorphosis of time."
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The Met
 | The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art's Web site opens with "Today's Featured Work of Art." The page links to detailed information about the piece and a history of the artist and the artwork.
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Food and Science
 | Students can learn chemistry through cooking! This site for teachers has lots of fun lesson plans that link chemistry and food preparation.
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Transportation Futuristics: Visionary Designs in Transportation Engineering
| Category: History | Cool Site: September 2004 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | This virtual exhibit accompanies a gallery installation at UC Berkeley's Doe Library. It explores the marvelous things people have dreamt up to solve the basic problem of how to get from one place to another in the least amount of time with the least amount of trouble.
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Tales of Future Past
| Category: History | Cool Site: July 2004 |
| Recommended 1 time |
 | A funny, and sometimes enlightening, look at what futurists from the past predicted our world would be like today.
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