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If your students can’t get out to the country, here’s a way to experience farm life – actually six different types of farms. Suitable for elementary students, there are images, simple text, and a few animations and other illustrations of aspects of each type of farm – everything from fish to cattle and chickens. Primary students could use this one with some teacher assistance. Created by Virginia Tech University.

Introduce the earth's different biomes with this unit, created by . Biomes include coniferous forest, deciduous forest, tropical rainforest, tundra, ocean, fresh water, desert, and the savannah. Each link includes information and pictures. Students can complete an on-line research project on a biome of their choice, using selected web resources, or they can learn the basics of biomes with the information provided in the unit. There are links to the introduction, to learn more about the project, and even a teachers link (with a TON of class activity ideas). This site does require Adobe Acrobat. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

Have students work in cooperative learning groups to explore this site. Challenge students to create multimedia presentations about the biomes. How about a Powerpoint? Or have students narrate a photo of the biome using a site such as VoiceThread (reviewed here). Other options include creating a wiki, blog, or video.

Make landforms and geology REAL to your students. This site offers a rich collection of 3D photography and tours of the geology of U.S. National Parks. Use these activities with a variety of ages of students. Choose National Parks to view or print pictures. Pictures (anaglyphs) are best viewed with cheap 3D glasses (just like the movies!) Non 3D images are also found on the site. Pictures are not copyrighted and can be used for any presentation or format as long as you give credit to the site and the USGS. The site includes a tutorial on making anaglyphs. Each National Park has a link to the 3D image, regular image, link to the park website, and a link to other information that includes stratigraphy, virtual tours, or other links. Click "Suggestions for Teachers and Students" for ideas at different grade levels.

Students can look at pictures and decide upon common features they see. Display images side by side on your interactive whiteboard and note the features using the pen tools. Research or explanations about the features can lead to additional research into the natural processes that created them. Students can write “what is it?” clues to identify specific National Parks for others to identify. Share them on your class wiki for others to solve. Since the images are in the public domain, students can download them to include on the “answers” page of the wiki! Create class anaglyphs with pictures and Adobe Photoshop (if available), using the directions provided on the site.

Created for an Illinois elementary school, this award-winning site shows young children lots of different aspects of butterflies. There are also lesson ideas, links to science standards, and a number of illustrations. This site is both a good elementary science tool and a great illustration of what creative teachers can do in packaging instructional material for the web.

This EPA page offers information on the science behind acid rain, as well as specific information for students. It also includes examples of mitigation activities, a glossary, and related resources

This page from the Portland Aquarium shows young students how to check for evidence of acid rain in their own back yard. Nice introduction to environmental problems for elementary students.

Act Green provides many avenues for students to learn about going green and to put their green ideas into action. The site includes “100 Ways to Act Green,” printables, and many other features! Join the site for free (no email address is required) and become part of the Green Team by fueling the Greenerator! Students earn points for taking green action and can even become Greeniacs! This site requires Flash and Adobe Acrobat. You can get both from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

This outrageously green site can serve as a guide for Earth Day activities. Extend it further and start a class project that could expand throughout the entire school and community. Share the interactives and other ideas on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Highlight some of the “100 Ways to Act Green” in your classroom. List this site on your class website for families to use at home. Have cooperative learning groups explore various facets of this site and complete a simple video sharing their findings. Share the videos using a site such as Teachers.tv (reviewed here).

This collection of several dozen lesson plans, originally from the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission and revised in 2005, includes content for primary through high school students. Most lessons are straightforward, requiring limited use of outside resources.

Try this elementary science page if your curriculum includes the study of air, air pressure, and the effects of temperature on air, buoyancy, and the like. Much of the content is devoted to hot air and helium balloons, but there’s plenty of science for the younger set here.

Share this site on an interactive whiteboard or projector as an introduction to the study of air, gas, and phases of matter. The site has some short video clips that would be an excellent addition to any lesson on the fore-mentioned. Open the clips for viewing, and show students their lesson in action. This is a great example of a real world use of the knowledge they just attained! Share the site on the class wiki or web page to allow students to review it both in and out of the classroom.

Created by a school district in Alaska, this page offers lots of links to Alaska resources. Pick the ones that are right for your students.

While not all sled dogs are malamutes, the American Kennel Club's page about this breed explains whey they are so well suited to life in the Arctic. The information includes both physical descriptions and show standards.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center offers this primer on glaciers and their characteristics. While the site is almost entirely static text and images, there’s a wealth of content here, and even more is available from the many links to other scientific sources. This would be a great starting point for a student research project, or for a teacher building a unit on glaciers or mountain and polar climates.

From the Canadians (and who would know better?) comes this detailed explanation of wind chill, how to calculate it, and how it affects us. Try this one as a handy reference tool or as a mathematical challenge for students. For extra credit, have them convert the Celsius formulas into Fahrenheit!

Not sure what sites exist for your topic? Start here and find sites listed by icon for Art, Encyclopedia, History, Languages, Science, Writing skills, Music, and numerous other topics. Whether you are searching for research information, enrichment, or tutorials – check out this site. Notice that TeachersFirst is among the “faves” for teaching!

Why search for these sites, when the links can all be found in one place? Use this site in combination with TeachersFirst’s rich reviews. Students can use these links as a springboard to research and projects. Be sure to save this site in your personal favorites! There is a lot to explore. List this site on your class website and/or wiki for students to access both in and out of the classroom.

This site presents information about the South American Amazon region in an interactive quiz format. The people, plants, animals, and climate of this area are explored through text and graphics. Students are challenged to successfully plan and manage a locally controlled ecotourism site in a simulation game provided on the site. Can be used to supplement a unit on environmental science or a social studies lesson about the indigenous people of South America. Created by Educational Web Adventures.

This site presents teachers with a searchable index of natural sciences resources contained within the museum’s site. You can browse the web-sites, activities, and experiments by sub-topic, grade level, or resource type. Current subtopics include anthropology, astronomy, biology, earth science, and paleontology. Special collection exhibits present theme-based activities that cover additional topics such as Biodiversity, Antarctica, and deep sea explorations. This is a great site for sorting out all the wonderful resources the museum has to offer. There are over 1,000 resources currently available on countless subjects. Some of the resources require Flash. You can get it from the TeachersFirst Toolbox page.

When starting a new unit in social studies or science, take a minute to search the resources available at this website.

Created by the National Humanities Center, this collection of scholarly essays on Americans' relationship with the environment may be over the heads of most students. BUT teachers and parents will find the subject matter fits nicely with most American History curricula, and the "guiding discussion" sections provide some new strategies and insights for teaching material that may have become too routine for students. If history (at any level) is your field, this one is worth a visit.

While this site is a little text-heavy, it is truly an excellent site for exploring the way the North American environment has been impacted by recent history. Select the time period that is appropriate to your unit, and introduce the site on the interactive whiteboard or projector. Have students explore the rest of the site on classroom computers. To ensure that they're doing more than skimming the text, Have students create online posters on paper or do it together as a class using a tool such as Project Poster (reviewed here or PicLits (reviewed here.

There's not a lot of presentation to these pages, but each contains a selection of bird or animal sound files. The quiz asks students to name each animal sound, and it's not as easy as it sounds! The sound files do not require any special browser plug-ins. Turn on your speakers and give this one a listen.

Animals of the Arctic, a student-created site from Alaska, teaches elementary students about walruses and other arctic animals. Also included in the site are lesson plans for eight interdisciplinary science activities related to arctic animals: making blubber mittens, investigating owl pellets, and more. Thinkquest Junior Winner: second place, science and math, 1998.

A great assortment of legends that could be printed and discussed in the classroom. The "Playroom" link leads to printable coloring book pages and puzzles.

Use this site to address the issue of biomes, habitats and extinction in an elementary school classroom. Clicking on the "animals" link leads to an abundance of information thats easy to read and comprehend for young students. Begin by sharing the site on an interactive whiteboard or projector before allowing students to work on it on individual computers.