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Soapy science
A lot of chemistry happens every time you do a load of laundry. But just
where do those cleansing enzymes come from, anyway? To help explain the
science behind the suds, Denmark's Novo Nordisk -- the world's largest producer
of industrial enzyme products, natch -- has built a virtual
lab on the web where advanced high school students can explore, learn
about, and experiment with genetically engineered enzymes. Students move
through a sequence of steps in the lab, from selecting a lipase molecule
appropriate for use in a laundry detergent to creating a genetically modified
organism that will produce the enzyme safely and efficiently. With the benefit
of Shockwave animations and Javascript, the interactivity and graphics rival
a CD-ROM. The site also includes an auditorium where students can discuss
their experiments, as well as a library of additional information. Upon
the successful completion of the experiment, students receive a personalized
certificate suitable for downloading.
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Lesson plans from outer space
The Internet has been a great boon for teachers who want to use current
and authentic Earth and space science resources in the classroom. But creating
lesson plans and classroom activities from scratch using resources plucked
from all over the Internet takes time, a commodity which most teachers have
in short supply. To the rescue comes the Science
Education Gateway, a service for teachers and students provided by a
NASA-sponsored partnership of museums, researchers, and educators. Here
you'll find online learning adventures in the areas of space science, light,
cycles, Sun and Earth, weather, and the solar system. |
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Take the web train
If you ever send students out on the web with a list of sites to explore
and questions to answer at each stop along the way, you'll want to check
out TrackStar, a new service from
the South Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium. TrackStar
is a web interface that allows teachers to author annotated tracks through
a list of web sites. As students move through the web, the list of sites
to visit remains visible, helping them maintain their place in the lesson.
As they arrive at a new site, the teacher's annotations -- information about
the site and questions for the students to answer using information available
at that site -- appears in a separate window. Teachers can author and post
their own tracks, or use tracks posted by other teachers in a variety of
subject categories.
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The visual past
Human history is full of unusual people, strange events, and fascinating
discoveries. So why do students often perceive history as just a collection
of dry and unrelated facts? Perhaps they need a visualization tool. The
HyperHistory
site offers a visual overview of history designed to put events, individuals,
and trends in perspective, using color-coded timelines that show a simultaneous,
parallel view of history across all major civilizations and human endeavors.
Hyperlinks in the timelines allow students to drill down for additional,
more specific information and links to external resources. Besides a general
overview of world history and a sense of what was happening at the same
time in different parts of the world, the site offers a people index that
shows lifelines of important persons from 1,000 B.C. to the present, and
an event index that displays noteworthy facts and events for the past two
centuries. |
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