TeachersFirst - Featured Sites: Week of Feb 5, 2012
Here are this week's features. Clicking the tags in the description area of each listing will present a list of other resources with this topic. | Click here to return to the Featured Sites Archive
Get Your Walk Score - Front Seat
Grades
3 to 12
2 Favorites
0 Comments
Type in an address and determine the walkability of any location. A map of the address entered displays nearby restaurants, coffee shops, and more that are within one mile of ...more
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Type in an address and determine the walkability of any location. A map of the address entered displays nearby restaurants, coffee shops, and more that are within one mile of that location. Many, but not all, addresses will also display a walk score rating demonstrating how walkable that area is with a score from 0-100. What a fun way to workout "around the town." More "green" communities often have a better walkability score.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): fitness (38), map skills (56), maps (207)
In the Classroom
Use this site as part of a school-wide physical fitness program to determine places that students can walk to instead of driving. Have students use their home address to determine walkability and locate destinations nearby. Physical Education teachers may want to use this site to demonstrate easy ways students can improve fitness by walking to nearby locations. Compare different communities around the country for walkability. Have student groups research to discover the fitness level of these communities and/or the importance of environmental concerns to the citizens there. For a big challenge, have student create an infographic that shows the relationship between walkability and health or pollution data. Or have them design a "dream" walkable neighborhood to practice map skills. Share this link on your website for families to view together.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Storybooks - Math/Science Nucleus
Grades
K to 6
3 Favorites
0 Comments
Looking for some FREE, animated storybooks about science? Here you will find storybooks on electricity, the life cycle, the solar system, technology, weather (such as earthquakes and...more
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Looking for some FREE, animated storybooks about science? Here you will find storybooks on electricity, the life cycle, the solar system, technology, weather (such as earthquakes and volcanoes), the rock cycle, the water cycle, and more! The lessons even have a recommended grade level (K-6). Depending on your curriculum, you may find useful materials at other grade levels. Some have audio; others have video; and a few are just simple animations. This is a MUST-SEE site for any elementary (and early middle school) science class.
tag(s): animals (281), ecology (100), electricity (60), environment (240), human body (93), life cycles (22), light (52), plants (145), plate tectonics (20), rocks (36), space (213), stars (66), water cycle (22)
In the Classroom
Try incorporating some of these interactive stories in your existing science lessons, especially ones where you need to make a stronger connection between the content and life. Have older students read the story via a link on your website. With younger children, display stories on the interactive whiteboard and read through the story with them or have them partner read at a center. Talk about the stories relevance to the science that they are learning, and have students look for proof that the stories are scientifically accurate.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Quarked! - The Quarked! Project and Professor Alice Bean
Grades
2 to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
QUARKED! Adventures in the Subatomic Universe has a wide range of engaging multimedia and hands-on materials to introduce the exciting world of particle physics to students...more
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QUARKED! Adventures in the Subatomic Universe has a wide range of engaging multimedia and hands-on materials to introduce the exciting world of particle physics to students ages 7 and up (and their families). This highly interactive site offers videos, games, and a club with downloads based on three themes. Themes include "How Small is Small", "Quarks: Ups, Downs, and the Universe", and "How Do You Find Out About Something You Can't See?" Topics vary from electricity to matter to shapes and much more. Lesson plans, organized by theme, can be done in any order. Some of the featured "games" include Matter Mechanics, Photon Invaders, and Height Chart. Videos even explain connections between subatomic particles and healthy eating! Many other interactives are also available. Though the games require Flash, there is so much more to learn from the videos and other features that this site is worth a visit.
tag(s): atoms (42), electricity (60), geometric shapes (136), matter (47), measurement (126), molecules (40), nutrition (134), solar energy (34)
In the Classroom
Visit the site as part of your classroom study of physics. Share videos and/or interactives from the site on your interactive whiteboard to complement existing lesson plans or plans from the site. Then allow students to explore on their own. Provide the link to this site on your desktop for students to visit during indoor recess (in elementary school). In older grades, be sure to list this helpful link on your class website for students to access both in and out of the class. Have students investigate specific activities or information available on this site and create online books using a tool such as Bookemon, reviewed here.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Raising Fit Kids - WebMD
Grades
K to 12
6 Favorites
0 Comments
FIT by WebMD is a great website to promote health and healthy opportunities for students of all ages. Explore five different areas of health: Food, Move, Recharge, Healthy ...more
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FIT by WebMD is a great website to promote health and healthy opportunities for students of all ages. Explore five different areas of health: Food, Move, Recharge, Healthy Weight, and Mood. The site offers a far healthier approach to fitness than simply weight. Highlights include an age appropriate body mass index calculator, video clips, recipes, age-appropriate articles, and more. There is an entire Parents area so everyone can be involved together.
A free registration gives the member free tools like a Food and Fitness Planner, Vaccine Tracker, Symptom Checker, and many more. The registration information required is minimal and is legally appropriate for the age level.
A free registration gives the member free tools like a Food and Fitness Planner, Vaccine Tracker, Symptom Checker, and many more. The registration information required is minimal and is legally appropriate for the age level.
tag(s): cooking (30), fitness (38), heart (27), myplate (18), obesity (8)
In the Classroom
Check school policy on setting up student accounts or work together with parents on this. Read the the articles together. Have students track and monitor their Food and Fitness over that time with the . planner provided. Tracking their own progress will be educational and fun! Keep a class "Workout Wiki" that can serve as a meeting place and neutral location to store exercise goals and nutritional changes. Maybe even include a recipe area for fit foods.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Lose It! - FitNow, Inc.
Grades
5 to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
"Lose It!" is a comprehensive calorie counting and activity tracking tool; this website provides a free way to monitor calorie intake and output to lose, maintain, or manage health...more
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"Lose It!" is a comprehensive calorie counting and activity tracking tool; this website provides a free way to monitor calorie intake and output to lose, maintain, or manage health and weight. With great graphics and an available phone application, this tool is so versatile and easy that even younger students could learn to use it. The database of food includes restaurant, grocery, and generic food brands and types.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): calories (8), DAT device agnostic tool (143), fitness (38), nutrition (134), obesity (8), social networking (67)
In the Classroom
Try using "Lose It!" in health classes as early as fifth grade to help students become aware of how they spend their calories in a day and just how much they are consuming. Sometimes just this awareness is enough to help some kids stay healthier. Have students do a baseline record what they eat and do with no set rules for three days to a week. Have students analyze with their free weekly reports: what they consumed, how much, and what vitamins and other nutrients that they may need to increase. If students are comfortable sharing information with each other, have them compare reports to get a better and more realistic view of their intake. Have students create a plan to make small changes to diet and activity for a week at a time and then have them check their reports again. This could be a year long, month long, or two week long process. Depending on the incidence of childhood obesity or malnutrition in your area, you can adjust this to fit your needs. If you are concerned about student privacy, create an account for a fictitious person that the entire class can use to analyze hypothetical food intake and more.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Pearltrees - pearltrees
Grades
6 to 12
1 Favorites
0 Comments
Pearltrees.com is a great place to organize, share, and store websites for current, future, or collaborative use. More than a standard social bookmarking website, Pearltrees allows...more
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Pearltrees.com is a great place to organize, share, and store websites for current, future, or collaborative use. More than a standard social bookmarking website, Pearltrees allows you to create trees of sites to show relationships or even the order in which to browse websites. It is extremely simple to sign up, free, and easy to use once you have joined. To use it, you can download to your browser extension or bookmarklet, use a bookmarklet, or just use your home spot to paste in websites that you want to add to your own pearl tree. There are "big pearls" that function as folders for multiple strands of Internet pearls. This is a device-agnostic tool, available on the web but also available for free as both an Android and iOS app. Use it from any device or move between several devices and still access your work. App and web versions vary slightly.
This site includes advertising.
This site includes advertising.
tag(s): bookmarks (47), curation (35), DAT device agnostic tool (143), webquests (21)
In the Classroom
In the simplest form, Pearltrees could be used to store links for classes that you are teaching or taking. More creatively, however, you could use this site to create a guided online field trip from one site to another. Even try pairing Pearltrees with the use of a highlighting style website such as Twiddla reviewed here, to direct students to the information on the site that you, as their teacher, want them to see. Try turning the tables on your students, and have them create a Pearltree for short research projects or as a working bibliography for their research papers. Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have.Edge Features:
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Products can be shared by URL
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
Requires download/installation of software
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Yummy Math - Brian Marks
Grades
5 to 9
6 Favorites
0 Comments
Yummy Math shares mathematics problems and scenarios based on things happening in the world today. In January, some of the topics related to the NFL playoffs. Yummy Math lists activities...more
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Yummy Math shares mathematics problems and scenarios based on things happening in the world today. In January, some of the topics related to the NFL playoffs. Yummy Math lists activities chronologically as well as by mathematics topic. Topics include Algebra, Number Sense, Geometry, Food Math, Sports, and many more. The site is sure to be highly motivational for students as they complete math problems based on items of current interest such as the Super Bowl, American Idol, and American candy sales. Most problems contain a printable word or pdf document with questions. Some also include video or audio clips. Especially helpful is the Contents link which provides an alphabetical listing of all activities on the site.
tag(s): number sense (70), problem solving (226), puzzles (143), sports (77)
In the Classroom
Make math relevant to any student. Assign weekly problems from the site for homework or daily classwork. Ask students to create new problems to be solved by classmates using the topic of the week or local topics of interest. Have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here. Some tool suggestions are (click on the tool name to access the review): Adobe Creative Cloud Express for Education, Vevox, Animatron, Renderforest, and Microsoft PowerPoint Online. Use the archives to find problems available from previous months.
This resource requires PDF reader software like Adobe Acrobat.
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