ChemTeam : A Tutorial for High School Chemistry

The ChemTeam provides study resources in all standard topics for students in high school and Advanced Placement chemistry. It doesn't seem like it has been updated since 2004 and not all the topics in the menu are covered yet, however, for the information that is already there, it is worth a visit. The site is easy to navigate and information can be found without a problem. However, the look of the website is a bit too simple. It is all black text on a white background without pictures.

It covers subject such as Acid Base, Atomic Structure, Bonding & Isomerism, Chemical Equations & Reaction Types, Electrons in Atoms & Spectroscopy, Equilibrium, Kinetic Molecular Theory & Gas Laws, Matter, Physical Properties,The Mole, Nomenclature, Kinetics, Metric System, Radioactivity, Reduction Oxidation, Significant Figures & Scientific Notation, Solutions, Concentration & Colligative Properties, Stoichiometry and Thermochemistry.

Make Your Own Word Search

Word searches are an excellent way for your students to review important vocabulary. Making one yourself can be painful and very time consuming. "Make Your Own Word Search" makes the development of new word searches very easy. In order to produce your own word search, all you need to do is to enter the list of words you want to include and then click the "Create Puzzle" button.

After you entered all the words, the system will then generate a grid with all the words that are included in the list. You can change many parameters before starting your grid including: Rows, Columns, Font Size, language on the grid and Background colour. Have fun using it!

Make Your Own Printable Sudoku Puzzles

According to wikipedia, Sudoku is "a logic-based number placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9x9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3x3 boxes contains the digits from 1 to 9. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid." If you students are not addicted to completing Sudoku grids, this "Make Your Own Printable Sudoku Puzzles" will certainly be very useful and it is very easy to use as well. All you need to do is to choose the difficulty level and click "Generate New Puzzle". You also get to customize the worksheet by adding your own instructions and title. You can also add a line for students to write their name. You can also generate the answer key.

Interactive body

This "interactive body" game is very well designed and is highly visual. The game starts with a human body and students have to choose between organs, muscles, skeleton or nervous systems. Both the male and female bodies are available. Various organs or muscles or bones are presented to the students. He or she can rotate them to see them in 3D and must locate where they should be in the human body by dragging them to the proper location. If the student is unable to locate it properly, he or she can read a hint. This great game is sponsored by the BBC. If you are using a Mac, the site doesn't work with Safari 3, but works great with Camino.

All Kinds of minds

"All kinds of minds" is a very useful collection of documents and information for kids who are learning differently. It presents learning disabilities in a very positive way. The online parents toolkit is great with sections on mathematics, reading, writing and attention. It includes firsthand experiments that simulate visual and auditory distractions for parents and teachers to truly understand what it is to learn with a disability. For each condition, the basics are given and the difficulties are described. Strategies on how to cope with the difficulties are provided as well as a list of resources. The site is constantly updated with news and recent content. This is a web resource that should be added to your bookmark no matter if you work in a special education classroom or in a regular classroom.

Powerpoint templates

If you are the kind of teacher using multimedia presentations a lot but you find the background included with PowerPoint to be a bit boring, this website is for you. It includes tons of new PowerPoint templates (backgrounds) that you can include in your multimedia presentations. Categories include business, creative, education, finance, humour, holidays, social, spots, science, technology, abstracts, frames, textures, etc. All backgrounds are available as pictures so you can use the Format Slide Background menu to change the picture. Instructions are included with each package on how to do it in PowerPoint. In total, there are 720 new backgrounds on this website.

Quiz Myself

"Quiz Myself" is a good tool if you want to prepare computerized multiple-choice questions or flash cards for your students. You can produce quizzes even without opening an account, but you won't be able to modify them if you don't have an account. Opening an account is free.

This tool is a bit different from one I presented a few months ago. "Hot potatoes" let you produced computerized quizzes but you need access to a server to upload the files to make them accessible to your students through the web. "Quiz Myself" will host the quiz for you. Once the quiz is complete, you get a URL (a link) that you can give to your students. When preparing a quiz, you can assign a category, a discipline, a subject and even a specific course.

e-Pals

E-Pals is a great way to foster literacy, language and critical thinking skills in a fun and safe environment. It is a network to match classrooms around the world for students to have penpals. It is a great tool for classroom-to-classroom for project sharing. Educators around the world can also connect using that service. When searching a classroom, it is possible to enter criteria such as city, province, country, age group, language and special categories (such as preschool, gifted, special education, undergrad, etc). Using that free service, it is possible to connect with over 7 million students and teachers from 191 countries in a safe online environment.

Big Valley Then and Now

"Big Valley Then and Now" is a great website for history teachers who want to compare the lifestyle 100 years ago with today's lifestyle. The comparison presents similarities and differences for the town of Big Valley. The comparison includes architecture, communication, education, fashion, government, industry, railroads and Mines, recreation, religion, technology and transportation. For each of these subjects, the website presents how it was in the early 1900 and how it is nowadays. This tools is provided by "Our roots" a website sponsored by Heritage Canada, Laval University and the University of Calgary.

Illustrated vocabulary

If you teach English as a second language, "Illustrated vocabulary"is a good source of exercises to help your students practice basic vocabulary. Students look at a picture and then need to select the name of the object from a multiple choice. Exercises include pictures in various categories including: food, architecture, office, colours, school, shapes, hospital, garden, days, months, jobs, music, tools, seasons, transportation, sports and zoo. After completing each exercise, students may check their answer and get their score.

Cells Alive

"Cells Alive" is amazing resource for biology teachers who want to introduce their students to cell biology, microbiology, immunology and microscopy. It includes interactive demonstration such as " how big" where the students starts with the head of a pin and zoom in to see a human hair, dust mites, pollen, blood cells, E.Coli and virus. Students will see how each of the things compared in size to the others. Student may also "watch" mitosis and meiosis using interactive demonstration going through all the phases. They can also go through the cell cycle.

In addition, they can watch the organelles in a cell plant or animal plant and learn about their functions. All of these activities are interactive and highly visual. There are Word Puzzles and Jigsaw Puzzles related to cell biology to let them have some fun while learning. A few quizzes about cell biology, the immune system and microbes will let them test their knowledge.

Students may also use a biocam to look at cancer cells or bacteria. There are cell galleries of pictures and for those who prefer to look at non-living things, there is a crystal gallery of pictures. There are also some tips on how to enhance an image when using a microscope. This resource is just great! If you teach biology, you will certainly use it.

Virtual Platonic Solids

If you want to show your students what tetrahedrons, cubes, octahedrons, dodecahedrons and icosahedrons really look like, this "virtual platonic solids application" will be a great addition in your math classes. The application is provided by Utah State University. It will let the student select which platonic solid he or she wants. Then, the student can apply a colour and using the mouse, rotate the solid in 3D. He or she may change the size of it using a slider and can also change the way it appears using different "skins" including filled solid or wire frame solid. It is also possible to see it as a dual solid (one inside the other).

Groundwork Exploration

Groundwork Exploration is an exploration website provided by Science North, a science center is Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. There is a case study where students will learn more about the discovery of nickel and copper riches at Voisey's Bay, Newfoundland. A quiz also let students test their knowledge about Canada's mining industry. Texts are in a language that is easy to read and understand by most elementary school students. The main feature is the exploration portion of the website. In this part, students are invited to join the cartoon character to explore for gold, copper or diamonds on a "virtual property"! They learn to be an exploration geologist, to piece together the clues to help pinpoint the ideal drilling site. The site is available in both English and French.

Mineral Collection of David Jegou

David Jegou owns a major collection of minerals. He has taken over 100 pictures with descriptions of all the specimens in his collection and included all of them on the website. The collection is composed of commons species as well as unusual species. The gallery is organized in four sections: French specimens, Spanish specimens, Korean specimens and everything else. It includes specimens such as barite, calcite, dolomite, fluorite, gypsum, molybdenite, pyrite, quartz, topaz and tourmaline. David Jegou states clearly that the pictures are copyrighted and may not be reproduced by anyone without obtaining permission. However, the website is great for students to browse through the pictures.

Volcano World

Volcano World is a Collaborative Higher Education, K-12, and Public Outreach project of the North Dakota and Oregon Space Grant Consortia administered by the Department of Geosciences at Oregon State University. It presents news and information about volcanoes in the world with pictures and links. Right now, the East Java's Mud Volcano in Indonesia is featured on the main page. There are also pictures of Canary Island volcanic features. It also includes some sample project of volcano building in classrooms with some ideas on how to build a good volcano. There are also pictures from the space showing volcanoes on other planets. It is a link to add to your bookmarks if you are teaching earth science and volcanic eruptions.

Animal Corner

Animal corner is a website that will certainly appeal to the animal lovers in your classroom. It is the place to meet the animals of the world. The website is graphically attractive and it includes many data sheets about various animals in different categories : wildlife, reptiles, pets, insects, farm animals, marine life, rainforests and Galapagos Wildlife. Students aged 9-14 will find texts that are not too difficult to read with many pictures. It is the perfect resource for students doing a research project about an animal. Some of the animal described includes : cats, dogs, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, camels, elephants, gorillas, hippos, lions, rhinos, zebra, ants, centipedes, bees, wasps, beetles, worms, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, crabs, dolphins, penguins, seals, sharks and whales.

Money Origami

The money origami website is a great resource for teachers who want step-by-step instruction for origami. The models include: Boots, Bow Tie, Butterfly, Eyeglasses, Fan, Gift Box, Picture Frame, Ring, Sailboat, Serpent, Shirt, Spider, Valentine and Xmas Tree. All the models are made from paper bills and step-by-step instructions with pictures at each step are included. It also includes links to other website containing instruction to make origami. The models also make great gifts for special occasion such as mother's day or father's day.

Worksheets To Go (by Discovery Education)

The discovery channel offers a worksheets generator on its education website. The worksheets are available in many different categories including : Arts, Mathematics, Science, Health, Social Studies, Information Technology and Foreign Language.

All worksheets were created by teachers. Worksheets are organized by category and listed by title and grade level. In each category there are many sub-categories. Each sub-category has many exercises. Worksheets include matching exercises as well as scramble exercises. They are formatted in HTML so the layout is not the best when printed.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

If you are presenting the great composers to your students in your music class, this website about Ludwig Van Beethoven is all you need. Students will find mp3 and midi files with Beethoven's music. There is also Beethoven's family tree. There are also some copies of love letters sent by Beethoven. A section containing anecdotes is called "curiosities" and includes interesting facts such as the two Voyagers space probes traveling with a recording of Beethoven's music. There is also a list of shows for the current month including radio and TV stations. A "school" section will guide the students to the most important parts of the website.

The Underground Railroad in Canada

If you teach black history in North America to your students, this Web Site produced by Parks Canada presents lessons about the Underground Railroad. These lessons target students from 10 to 14 years old. The five topics covered by the lessons are :

• Who am I? What am I? (Quiz)
  
• Deborah Brown - Free at Last, Free at Last!
  
• Underground Railroad Novel Studies
  
• The Underground Railroad Pattern of Settlement
  
• Secret Songs and Words of the Underground Railroad
  

Each lesson includes an overview, a purpose, the objectives, resource material, activities as well as expectations. Expectations are from the Ontario curriculum for social studies, history and geography, however these concepts could also be covered in other curriculums. Resource material includes all the texts that students will need to read. The page layout is better suited for Web browser than paper. Activities lack many pictures which are necessary with this age group. The information presented is very interesting and very appropriate for these students.

Learn about intelectual property

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office offers short videoclips for students interested in learning more about intellectual property. The videos feature Canada's promising young scientists tackling tough questions in mini-interviews held during the Canada-Wide Science Fair 2006 in Saguenay.

Students who watch these video clips will found out how the science fair projects came about, how the exhibitors became interested, the process for doing the project, the scientific approach, the importance of a logbook, the most difficult step, the involvement of a mentor as well as their opinion on intellectual property. Parts of the videos are in English and parts of them are in French. All videos are in Windows Movie Player format.

Lab safety

If you are doing many laboratory activities with your students, there is a good list of Safety measures that should be followed on the Edquest website. This include knowing the WHMIS (Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System) system and symbols. Once the students are done studying the lab safety notes they can take the Hazardous material safety quiz and the Safety Test. The test include multiple choice questions and the answer at the end.

Spanish Grammar Exercises

If you are teaching Spanish, those interactive "Spanish Grammar Exercises" will certainly be useful. They are available free or charge and are provided by Barbara Kuczun Nelson from Colby College.

Some of the exercises are written exercises while others involved the viewing of a short QuickTime video or listening to an audio clip. They include subjects such as Adjectives & nouns, Adverbs, Command forms, Conditional tense, Demonstrative adjectives, Future tense, Interrogative words, Negative/affirmative words, Numbers, Past participle, Present tense, Pronouns, Ser vs estar , Time and many others.

Another source of clipart for schools

"Clipart 4 schools" is another good source of free clipart for students and teachers to use in the classroom. The images are provided by Jupiter Images and may be used freely as long as it is for non-profit.

The images are not full high resolution, however, they are available at 640 x 480 which is appropriate for most worksheets or educational websites. The images are available in categories such as agriculture, animals, cartoons, computers, food, Holidays, household, landscape, medical, music, nature, people, religions and many more. The interface is available in about 10 languages including English, Spanish and French. There is also a collection of animated GIF for your school or classroom website. Be careful, there is a lot of links to commercial clipart libraries as well!

The maths file game show

Do you want to let your students practice maths in a fun way? The Math file game show is design to do that with the ancient mathematical hosts Hypatia and Pythagoras. The site is provided by BBC education and it includes on-line games as well as games available as printouts. The games are available in the following categories: numbers, data handling, algebra as well as shape, space and measure.

The on-line games are always available for three level of difficulty. The games use they Macromedia Showckwave technology, making they visually attractive. The printouts include games and exercises such as cross number, snap charts, writing cheques, budgeting and spending and sorting books based on the Dewey system.