Geotimes

scientistswithoutborders.nyas.org

Fitnat Yildiz, a researcher at the University in California at Santa Cruz, is searching for stool samples from people infected with cholera. She would like to test whether wild strains behave the same way lab strains do — an analysis that can be difficult to conduct in areas of the world where cholera thrives. Normally she meets the scientists who can access such samples at conferences. But now she has a new way of finding them — an online database created by a new initiative called Scientists Without Borders (scientistswithoutborders.nyas.org). Using the database, Yildiz can search for people who have samples, or she can post an ad indicating her need.

The Scientists Without Borders database, hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences, is an attempt to address a pervasive problem: lack of collaboration. “People working in developing countries often don’t know what others have done or what they’re doing,” says Evelyn Strauss, the initiative’s executive director. When Strauss asked people in Africa what common mistakes they see aid organizations making, the response she heard over and over again was “reinvention of the wheel.” So she and her colleagues created a database that not only gives people a sense of what work is going on where, but that also allows people who have particular resources or skills to find the organizations and projects that need them.

In some ways, Scientists Without Borders is similar to other professional networking sites, such as LinkedIn or Facebook. Participants create free profiles that describe their professional interests and background. Others can view those profiles and make contact through e-mail or phone.

In other ways, though, it’s completely different. Those wishing to join must be involved in a science-related activity — anything from medical sciences to seismology — and have an interest in helping people in the developing world. To ensure that participants meet those qualifications, only those who are invited can join. Would-be participants can secure an invitation through someone who is already a member, or they can request an invitation by answering a few questions on the Web site. The invitation requests allow Strauss and her colleagues to verify that people are who they say they are and that they are doing work or want to do work that fits the mission.

Joining Scientists Without Borders may be a little more difficult than joining Facebook, but the payoff is manifold. Members don’t have to be “friends” to see each other’s information and they have some assurance that the profiles represent real people with real expertise.

Scientists Without Borders is more than just a networking site. One of its goals is to match people who have resources with people who need them. Because while Craigslist connects a person needing a couch with a person selling a couch, it’s unlikely to help geophysicists at Istanbul Technical University in Turkey, for instance, find the seismometers and seismology instructors it is searching for.

So far, the database, which was launched May 12, boasts 140 organizations, 82 projects and 419 individuals, including a biochemist in Argentina, a geophysicist in Cuba and an astronomer in India. That’s not bad given that Strauss has relied mainly on word of mouth. “The whole thing is based on viral marketing,” she says. But recruitment is far from passive. She and her colleagues actively seek partners to help spread the word. “The database will be as useful as the extent to which it’s populated with quality information,” Strauss says.

Strauss looks forward to seeing membership expand, but she’s thinking beyond sheer numbers. “I’m interested in success stories,” she says, “examples of connections that wouldn’t have been made without the site.”

Cassandra Willyard

www.SciVee.tv

SciVee image
Image provided by SciVee

A scientific alternative to YouTube, the new Web site www.SciVee.tv puts scientists in front of the camera.

YouTube has made it easier than ever to quickly earn 15 minutes of worldwide fame, but sorting through the resulting millions of videos on the site for something worthwhile to watch can be exhausting. Enter a new Web site: www.SciVee.tv, where science-oriented Web surfers can bypass the lip sync videos and homemade diaries on chaotic sites like YouTube, and instead upload and watch videos made by scientists, for scientists and about scientists.

Cofounder Phil Bourne, a pharmacologist at the University of California at San Diego, says he got the idea while watching his students immersed in their computers, headphones on. “I’d look over their shoulders and half the time they’re watching YouTube,” Bourne says. “And I thought, why aren’t we doing science this way?”

But after uploading a few scientific videos to the well-trafficked site — and finding one posted just below a video featuring four male Austrian dancers — Bourne came up with another idea: a brand-new, science-only site, dubbed SciVee. The site was launched last fall with the help of a National Science Foundation cyberinfrastructure grant.

Originally, the plan was to just do “pubcasts,” short videos in which a scientist with a newly published, peer-reviewed paper would describe his or her research and possibly provide a few graphics to spice up the visuals. In part, Bourne says, the idea to do science pubcasts was prompted by his support for public-access research (the Public Library of Science is a partner in the site); he envisioned SciVee as a place to further disseminate scientific knowledge and attract more attention to scientific papers. Additionally, he says, a 10-minute briefing on a research paper could be a big help to scientists struggling to keep up with the thousands of papers that are published every week.

Once started, however, the site took on a life of its own. For one thing, Bourne says, scientists have been a bit shy about doing pubcasts, although as the site gains viewers and exposure, the idea is starting to catch on. Additionally, he says, “there was all this great video content at labs and institutions, and we wanted to post that and start a video section too.”

Therefore, in addition to the scientist-produced pubcasts describing a single research paper, the site now includes a large collection of more broadly focused videos, ranging from the relatively polished, lively short episodes of “Dr. Carlson’s Science Theater,” (science subjects explained by a high school science teacher), to informative briefs on broad scientific topics (such as plate tectonics) to conference-type Powerpoint presentations. The pubcasts are what make the site truly unique, however. One of the earliest pubcasts — an eight-minute discussion of the structural evolution of the protein kinase — has been accessed 75,000 times in the few months since the site launched, Bourne says. “It’s not a topic that you’d think would capture a lot of people’s interest,” he says. However, the medium itself is “quite vital,” he adds. “Video is an immersive environment.”

SciVee’s founders say that they have bigger ideas in mind than just providing a scientific alternative to YouTube, however. They want to create a new kind of community — one that helps level the playing field and gives more visibility to younger scientists and students. “Science is very hierarchical,” Bourne says. “But these videos bring the younger people in the lab, the ones really doing [a lot of] the work, to the front. They’re the ones more likely to view and to make the content.” The SciVee team has also created professional development videos for grad students, as well as brief informative videos such as “Ten Simple Rules for Getting Grants.” And one future plan is to give glimpses into scientific labs, where prospective students (or curious viewers) can watch the lab’s principal investigator in action and learn about what the lab does. “It puts a very human face on science,” Bourne says.

Although the video content spans many fields of science, biologists still dominate SciVee.tv’s pubcasts, largely because of the site’s ties to the Public Library of Science, which now routinely invites authors of its accepted papers to create a pubcast. But Bourne and his team hope that as word gets out, scientists from all fields will want to participate. The only criteria for making a pubcast about a paper, he says, are that the research must be peer-reviewed and the scientist’s coauthors must be given a fair chance (about five days) to nix the idea.

Currently, the pubcasts are simple straightforward summaries of a paper, but the founders have plenty of ideas to spruce them up in the future. “If it’s an open-access publication, we could integrate the video with the publication — that’s the essence of the pubcast,” Bourne says. “As the person talks, the appropriate bits of the paper they’re talking about pop up, or are highlighted.” Other ideas include more interview-type pubcasts, an open review system offering comments and ratings and perhaps live webcast sessions with scientists taking questions.

With so many new ideas, the site is still in an experimental “beta” phase, and will be for some time, he says. The team is evaluating everything from the length and format of the videos to who is watching to figure out how to draw in new people, both to create content and to view it. "We're experimenting," Bourne says. "And it almost feels like we’re rediscovering public broadcasting, the early days of television — the medium’s just different.”

Carolyn Gramling

www.earthlab.com/life/Food.aspx
Perhaps you know him for his bright red hair and orange clogs, or his twelve restaurants (and counting), or his five cookbooks including titles such as Simple Italian Food or Mario Tailgates NASCAR Style, or his multiple appearances on the Food Network in Molto Mario or on Iron Chef America. But however you know Chef Mario Batali, you probably didn’t know that he recently paired with EarthLab (www.earthlab.com/life/Food.aspx) to produce an environmentally friendly food and wine pairing Web site.

The site, part of EarthLab’s Life series that includes all kinds of home and wellness environmental tricks, includes “green” cooking tips — everything from green pasta dough (it has spinach in it) to actual environmental tips, such as using cold water whenever possible, buying organic food and wine, and not using bottled water, which Batali and his partners have done at several of their restaurants. The site also includes recipes and wine suggestions, which change once a month or so, and Batali’s favorite green links, such as www.slowfoodusa.org, an “eco-gastronomic” movement designed to educate people about how their food choices affect the rest of the world.

The “Food and Wine with Mario Batali” site itself could stand to be developed a bit more, and the EarthLab creators say it will be: As is, the site is rather sparse. However, it can be exceptionally useful for the links it offers for the environmentally minded foodie. For example, Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org) is a nonprofit that sells heirloom garden seeds to help preserve the vast variety of foods from the past, and Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org) helps people find farmers’ markets and other community-minded grocers in their area. Also be sure to check out Food & Wine magazine’s Farm to Table initiative (www.foodandwine.com/growforgood), a program designed to help people support local farms and sustainable agriculture.

www.lifethroughtime.com
Seven years ago I stood at the tide line of an estuary and began a personal journey through time. It is humbling to imagine the immensity of time covered by the history of life on Earth but that is what I plunged into, with curiosity and wonder …

These are the words with which nature photographer Frans Lanting sets the stage for his photographic story of Earth’s evolution, from the birth of the planet’s elements more than 4 billion years ago, to the current generation of human exploration. Each image is a look into the past, portraying Earth and life in settings that are as realistic as possible to that particular time.

Life: A Journey Through Time, as the project is called, can be experienced in three ways: Visit any of Lanting’s touring photography exhibitions, attend a show that presents the photographs choreographed with original music from a live orchestra, or, simply visit Lanting’s life through time Web site.

From the homepage, click on the “start the journey” icon. A quick introduction lays out the various chapters of the photographic journey of Earth’s history on which you are about to embark. Next, the site directs you to a menu page where you have the option of either viewing a timeline or the slideshow.

Click on “view the timeline” and 86 tiny icons of each photograph appear along a scrollbar at the bottom of the page, starting at 13.7 billion years ago. To construct the timeline, Lanting utilized various scientific sources to determine the timing of major events on Earth, such as the rise of particular plant and animal groups. Next, Lanting selected photographic subjects that he thought best represented that period of time.

An eerie shot of inside the crater of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park’s Pu’u ‘O’o volcano at dawn, for example, shows a glowing, crusted-over lava lake and fuming cones — a scene that would have been similar to Earth 4.4 billion years ago when its crust was solidifying, according to the caption that accompanies the photograph. “I felt like I had walked into a scene from the dawn of time,” Lanting writes in the caption.

Images further along the timeline, such as jellyfish and unfolding ferns, show complex life as it unfolds, and images of sand dunes in Australia and ice in Greenland show extreme conditions that can challenge such life. Specialized animals such as the cheetah make an appearance, as does Homo sapiens, represented by the bare feet of an Ashaninka Indian who had never left the forest of Peru.

Each image is accompanied by the option to “learn more,” which includes the photograph’s title, location and description. Additionally, Lanting provides a brief scientific explanation of how he thinks the image fits into the timeline.

For a more dramatic presentation of the images, click at any time on “view slideshow” for a seamless, ordered presentation of the photographs accompanied by music. Each image is accompanied by a single line of text that ties together the photographic story of Earth’s history.

More information about Frans Lanting, the life through time project, exhibits and more, can be found at the “More about LIFE” link from the homepage. If after visiting the site you feel inspired to head outdoors with camera, this is also a good place to read up on some photography tips, and to find out if Lanting is hosting a photography seminar in a city near you.

www.nmnh.si.edu/paleo/geotime/main/
Seasoned geologists might already know which epoch came first, the Pliocene or the Pleistocene. Still, for many, keeping straight the many points in geologic time poses a formidable challenge. To help, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s geologic time Web site serves as an excellent reference, offering a visual of geologic time, that starts with the Hadean eon 4.0 billion years ago, during which Earth’s crust formed, and leads up to the present Phanerozoic eon.

The site’s main feature is a toolbar at the top of the page, which lays out 20 different categories of time along a scrollable timeline. Zoom in and out for a closer look at each eon and its subcategories of eras, periods and epochs.

Click on Pliocene, for example, to learn that the span between 5.3 million and 1.8 million years ago represented the age of mammals, and notably the appearance of early bipedal human ancestors. Click on Pleistocene to learn that between 1.8 million and 11,500 years ago, humans expanded their location and further developed culture. Also, land at this time was affected by striking changes in climate.

To learn more about what happened during the Pleistocene, click on a category under the “contents” column on the left side of the homepage. Here, you can learn, for example, that the Pleistocene was marked by 20 cycles of advancing and retreating glaciers. Or, you can also examine locations of early human fossil finds.

The other time spans are also worth browsing, and many include pictures of fossils dated to the time. The chart will take you right up to the current Holocene epoch — when humans gained the technology to read about geologic time online.

www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/navigation/home.cfm
The Exploring Earth Web site was designed to accompany the high school earth science textbook. But even if you don’t have the book or are no longer in high school, do not let that deter you from checking out the site’s valuable resources, including descriptions and visuals to help anyone understand a wide array of earth science topics.

From the homepage, you can select from a toolbar how you wish to navigate the site. Click on “investigations” to find activities that coordinate with chapters in the book. Investigate, for example, an interactive map of South America and Africa that shows where evidence was found that suggests that the two continents were once joined. Or, see photos of oil spills in the environment, before watching an animation of how oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez, and why cleanup crews might find such information useful. The eight units and 30 chapters cover a wide range of earth science topics, and even delve into geology on other planets.

Perhaps the best use of the online medium, however, is the “visualizations” section listed on the homepage’s toolbar. This section groups all of the photos, animations and 3-D models from all of the chapters into one place. Watch an animation that shows how tectonic stresses, weathering and gravity combine over time to create arch formations familiar to the U.S. Southwest. Or, watch how heat and pressure deep in Earth form metamorphic rock.

Be sure to check out the remaining sections to find links to the data centers that conduct earth science research, as well as current information about how the data is collected. And if you want to find out about a career in the earth sciences, check out the “local resources” and “careers” links to find out what it takes to get a particular job, and to read Q&As with people already in the field.

www.thenakedscientists.com
The Naked Scientists broadcasters are not actually naked; rather, they “strip down” science to make it understandable and exciting for general audiences. Podcasts cover topics beyond the earth sciences with stories such as “why people will eat stale popcorn if it’s in a large bucket” and “jumping gives kangaroos the jitters.” Included in that mix, however, you can also hear about “cracking the surface of Mars” and “how volcanic gases affect the atmosphere.” You never know what you will hear next from this group of physicians and researchers from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, during their weekly hour-long show. Visit the homepage for links to the podcast. Additional links from the homepage take you to science articles, radio archives and the option to ask a scientist questions by e-mail.

www.podcast.noaa.gov
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began podcasting last June, turning press releases into peppy audio stories with sound effects and interviews. Listen to a NOAA hurricane forecaster describe the conditions that contributed to the record-breaking 2005 hurricane season. Or you can listen to an interview with a scientist who is stationed aboard a research vessel north of the Galapagos Islands, studying an active volcanic seam at the seafloor. The site gives you the option of reading the story or listening to it, but beware that the content is not exactly the same; listen to the podcast for ease of digestibility and look at the story for superb NOAA graphics. One drawback, however, is that the podcasts are not regular, so you have to frequently check the site or your download list.

www.science.nasa.gov
Science@NASA has now made their headline stories available via podcast. Tune in to find out why dust on the moon smells like gunpowder, or to hear about the unusual lightning that accompanied hurricanes in 2005. From the homepage, click on “listen to story,” or follow the “podcast info” link to learn how to subscribe.

ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu
In addition to reading a common atmospheric sciences textbook, teachers and students alike should visit the Weather World 2010 (WW2010) site. The project was put together by the atmospheric sciences department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and pools together Internet-based educational resources. Included are instructional models for teachers, archived weather data, student projects and real-time weather data.

One of the activities in the “reading maps” section displays an archived map of the United States with temperature gradients. Descriptive text walks students through the process of how gradients are used to spot storm fronts and, in the next step, students click on a real-time temperature map where they can practice looking for existing fronts.

Next, the “online guides” tab takes visitors through lessons in the fundamentals of meteorology, remote sensing and reading various weather maps. Terminology throughout the reading links to definitions and related Web sites. Animations are also sprinkled throughout, which give a new flare to otherwise textbook-like material — in the “classroom activities” section, you can watch how precipitation forms when a cold front approaches warm air.

For a reminder of how physical processes can produce dramatic results, click on the “archives” button. Here you can view case studies of extraordinary storms, such as the 1996 tornado in Illinois and Hurricane Andrew in 1992. If applicable, you will find radar and satellite images along with news headlines and personal accounts.

After learning the basics, the site gives students ideas for long-term projects. The site provides the data, and students make their own regular forecasts and then check their accuracy under the “current weather” tab. The innovative idea, however, is that WW2010 encourages students, throughout the length of the project, to interact with a mentor meteorologist at the University of Illinois via e-mail, video conferencing or a visit to the classroom.

iwin.nws.noaa.gov
The National Weather Service collects data and issues weather forecasts, watches and warnings that directly affect the public. But getting the word out is not always an easy task; so, in 1994, the Interactive Weather Information Network Service was created as an online “user friendly interface to the weather.”

The main page features animated radar and satellite imagery of the United States for the last six hours. Below the images are selections of buttons that lead to local, national and world weather. Probably the most useful is the local weather page, which features an interactive U.S. map. Click on any state for forecasts and current hourly conditions, in addition to watches and warnings for tornados, thunderstorms, floods and more. States are color-coded — red for active warnings and yellow for special information. You can also find warnings listed in the “national warnings” button. Click on any category, from floods to hurricanes, to find out which locations are affected.

The “national items” button on the main page links to a page that summarizes data according to subject. The topics include national flooding data, an ultraviolet index forecast, earthquake and tsunami data, and temperature and precipitation tables. One caveat: The text format of the summaries tends to be difficult to read.

Check back to this site over the next few months as the National Weather Service begins to use newer systems, which it says will improve the delivery of weather information online.

www.nasa.gov/hurricane
Just in time for the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season that began in June, NASA launched its new hurricane resource page. Visitors to the site can look up archived storms, learn about how they form and track current hurricanes as they occur throughout the remainder of the season that concludes in November.

When Hurricane Emily began as a tropical storm July 13, NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite — equipped with the first radar in space for the purpose of measuring rainfall — collected data on Emily’s intensity. The result was a composite overhead image of the storm, depicted in shades of gray, as it approached the Winward Islands.

Over the period of one day, Web site visitors could watch as the tropical storm grew into the second raging hurricane of the season. The NASA imaging device called the Quick Scatterometer (QuickScat) recorded the storm’s structure, which scientists used to create images depicting color-coded wind speeds, available on the site’s main page.

QuickScat imaged Tropical Storm Emily the morning of July 13, and revealed central high winds to peripheral low winds. By that evening, however, images revealed that the high winds had increased within the center of the storm. Similar pictures allowed browsers to follow Emily as it turned into a Category-4 hurricane (out of the strongest possible Category-5 storm, based on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale) on July 16, when it moved away from the Cayman Islands and headed toward Mexico.

In addition to tracking hurricanes, you can also peruse the multimedia section, which features two videos, Birth of a Hurricane and Looking at Hurricanes. Using computer models and animation, the videos teach visitors about hurricane formation and the technologies NASA uses to study the violent storms.

www.leakeyfoundation.org
Supporters of anthropologist Louis Leakey established a foundation in 1968 in his name, with the goal of increasing public knowledge about human origins and evolution. But also evolving are the Leakey Foundation’s methods to help realize that goal, which now include an informative Web site.

Click on “News & Events” to see a compilation of paleoanthropology news releases from both the foundation and national news agencies. The archived stories date back to 2001 and cover a range of topics from the discovery of ancient human and Neanderthal fossils, to studies on the behavior of our oldest relatives.

If adventure combined with learning from the expert scientists about human origins sounds interesting, look under the “Travels” tab for a list of scheduled expeditions. The only caveat is that to participate, you must first become a fellow of the foundation, which entails a donation of at least $1,000. This month’s trip, scheduled for Sept. 11 to 17, will be a tour of ancient rock art through Seven Miles Canyon in Arches National Park, Utah.

Free of charge, you can click on the “audio archives” tab to listen to anecdotes, interviews and lectures straight from the scientists without leaving your computer.

pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/step
Between 1974 and 2003, California ranked second in the United States for the number of total earthquakes. To help prepare for future California seismicity, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has developed a new Web site to help predict the likelihood, within 24 hours, of a California quake.

The page features a California state map that depicts the probability of strong shaking at a level of intensity labeled a Modified Mercalli Intensity VI. The Mercalli scale (I through XII) does not measure the Richter-scale magnitude of an earthquake; rather, it qualitatively describes a quake’s intensity based on human responses and levels of damage across a region. The map on the USGS site is colored in gradients showing the probability of a mid-intensity earthquake of level VI, strong enough to throw objects from shelves. Blue colors approximate a 1 in 1 million probability of a quake generating level VI damage, while yellow to red colors represent about a 1 in 10 probability.

Updated hourly, the map is constructed using techniques developed by the Swiss Seismological Service and the Advanced National Seismic System, a U.S. earthquake monitoring network (see Geotimes, October 2000). Of the two datasets used to create the map, the first describes background probability — an unchanging description of probabilities based on only fault data. The second layer changes with time and considers probabilities based on recorded earthquake data and aftershock histories. Together, the data form a composite image of time-sensitive earthquake hazards.

Links from the earthquake forecast page include brief descriptions of the map, how it was made, how to use the map and definitions of earthquake jargon. Links from the same page to the larger USGS site are also worth browsing. They include a map of the “latest quakes” in the United States in addition to a regional “Did You Feel It?” map, which enables people to click on a region, select a recorded earthquake and submit a report of what they felt. Kids might also enjoy the link to earthquake puzzles, games, Q&A with a geologist and science fair ideas.

Although the forecast site cannot predict with certainty the exact day of “the big one,” it can show the areas of initial risk and could be especially useful following a large earthquake to determine the threat of aftershocks. But the creators specify on the site that the map’s main purpose is to educate the public about earthquake probabilities and clustering. Most of the time the map will look the same — the risk of being in a car accident on any one day is much higher than the risk of a strong earthquake shaking California.

www.ecohealth101.org
The EcoHealth 101 Web site, designed by Dr. Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin, Madison (then at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health), is intended to give students and teachers “the 411” about environmental changes and how they affect human health. Originally designed for middle school students and teachers, the site’s information is good for just about anyone.
Based on a graduate course at Johns Hopkins, the site provides in-depth analysis and complicated scientific information about topics such as how climate change affects disease spread, and how the ozone layer changes radiation levels.

The site breaks everything down to a level that is highly readable and visually appealing. For example, the section entitled “Taking Our Temperature” (about measuring climate change), begins with a discussion about what global warming is, how it is measured and then goes on to discuss potential changes, such as more extreme events like floods and droughts.

Once you’re in that section, you can also click on areas to learn about what sort of health problems might be triggered by floods (like the spread of malaria, cholera and other waterborne diseases) or droughts (such as plague and meningitis). You can also learn about steps that scientists are taking and steps that individuals can take that might make things better. The hope, Patz says, is that the site will give students the “real story.”

The site also provides teachers with detailed lesson plans, student projects and a glossary to define terms associated with environmental and climate change, as well as links to additional resources, including news stories on a wide variety of environmental topics.

www.who.int/globalchange
A good source for information on the potential impacts of global climate change on humans is the World Health Organization’s (WHO) site on global environmental change and health. As the health branch of the United Nations, WHO has been tracking global health and disease since 1948.

The Web site opens with a statement about the Kyoto Protocol and how we need to act now to protect vulnerable communities from future epidemics from extreme weather events. It then delves further into both how future climate change could affect the spread of disease and how it will affect humans in other ways, such as by reducing biodiversity and changing ecosystems, for example, from arable land to deserts. Despite offering a rather technical overview of global change and potential future consequences, the site does have links to many other good Web sites to learn more about specific topics.

www.jhu.edu/~neareast/egypttoday.html
For the fifth straight year, Johns Hopkins University researchers spent much of January and February in Egypt, uncovering clues to ancient Egyptian life at several different sites. They have provided pictures and explanations of their work online at the Egypt Today Web site, so that those of us who could not join them could see just what they were doing. Some of the work being followed this year includes excavations at Thebes, where the researchers hope to study residential life in the New Kingdom, and at tombs in Luxor, where they hope to learn about the supernatural powers that Egyptians believed their dead to hold. The site also has information from past expeditions, for example, when researchers excavated the Mut Temple and burial sites in the Valley of the Kings. The Egypt Today site also has maps of Egypt that show excavation sites, along with interesting historical, archaeological and geological information.

volcano.und.nodak.edu/vw.html
Volcano World, a Web site run by the University of North Dakota, provides links to an amazingly long list of the world’s volcanoes. Search by country, region or volcano name to quickly find a listing of volcanoes. Once you click on a volcano’s name, a picture of it pops up (most are satellite images) along with a brief description of where it is and what surrounds it. For example, choosing Australia for a regional search yields a couple of beautiful pictures of Egmont Volcano in New Zealand and Yasur Volcano on Vanuatu. Then, there are links to more images and Web sites to learn more about each volcano. The site also has a section devoted to current eruptions, as well as teaching aides (such as lesson plans and activities) and a whole section devoted to kids, which includes games and school project ideas.

soil.gsfc.nasa.gov/forengeo/secret.htm
Take a closer look at how soils can help solve a criminal case on the Secrets Hidden in Soil Web site. Sponsored by NASA and the Soil Science Society of America, this Web site begins with a quick overview of soil science, such as how soils form from parent rock and how climate and topography among other things help differentiate one soil from another. The site then walks you through the techniques used by forensic geologists to solve crimes, from gathering the soil evidence and what to look for, to particle and color analysis. After learning about how various microscopes and other technologies help the forensic geologist analyze soils, the site offers several examples of how forensic geology was used in real-life cases to solve crimes. Much of the information on this page was borrowed from Ray Murray's 1975 textbook Forensic Geology.

In addition to seeing how soils help solve crimes, the site links to its parent, the Soil Science Education Web Site, which has a plethora of information on soils — everything from introducing soil science basics to human impacts on soil and how it affects agriculture.

www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/org/labchart.htm
For any students thinking about getting into a forensic science career, check out the FBI laboratory's Web site first. It will give you a good overview of what the job really is — as opposed to what you might see on TV — and what types of things you might be doing, whether it be most related to geology, biology or chemistry. Broken down by unit, such as trace evidence (fibers, hairs), DNA, computer analysis, questionable documents or materials analysis (under which soils and metals fall), this site explores the various paths a student can take to becoming a specialist.

Under materials, for example, you can learn about metallurgy, mineralogy and elemental analysis, such as looking for heavy metals in a strand of human hair. In the chemistry section, you'll find paint pigment and building materials analysis, which are topics also frequently covered by the forensic geologist. This informative site also links to the FBI's Handbook of Forensic Services, which is used by forensic scientists and crime scene investigators around the country.

www.volcano.si.edu
Since the 1960s, the Smithsonian Institution has been running an informative service called the Global Volcanism Program. The program and its Web site are designed to provide information about active Holocene volcanoes, from 10,000 years ago to the present. The site is divided into two main components: volcano history and current volcanic activity.

Click on “volcanoes of the world” to search by name, region or eruption date. If you search by region, you get a bright map lit up with little red triangles that indicate volcanic activity during the Holocene. (It vividly reveals the Pacific Ring of Fire.) If, for example, you wanted to learn about volcanoes in Indonesia, you click on the country to get a close-up view. Clicking on an individual red triangle provides information about that volcano’s history, including its last known eruption and the damage it caused.

The other component of the program’s site is volcanic activity reports. The monthly bulletin details monthly activity of active volcanoes, while the weekly activity reports, a cooperative project between the Smithsonian and the U.S. Geological Survey, detail current eruptive activity around the world.

www.earthquakecountry.info
Amid the multitude of urban legends out there about California and earthquakes in general — including that the state might suddenly break off and fall into the sea or that Earth could open up and swallow you whole — you might be confused about some of the facts. This site is a good place to learn the basics. The Earthquake Country Web site, operated by the Earthquake Country Alliance and the Southern California Earthquake Center, is broken up into four convenient categories: what you should know, why you should care, what you should do before a temblor, and what you should do during and after one. The first two categories are the most relevant to people living outside of earthquake country, and the second two are most relevant to anyone who wants to be prepared, whether living in Southern California or anywhere else.

The most fun part of the Web site, arguably, is the section on separating fact from fiction. It’s not easy to find this section of the site, located at (www.earthquakecountry.info/10.5), but it’s worth the extra typing to find it. Inspired by the recent NBC television miniseries 10.5, this section debunks common myths, especially those propagated by movies and television series. And no, the geologists assure, earthquakes cannot be caused by wet weather, and lubricating faults isn’t going to help prevent a quake.

www.biogeosciences.org
The first thing a visitor wandering onto the Biogeosciences Web site might wonder is what exactly “biogeosciences” means. Luckily, this new site from the Geological Society of America tells you right away: It is the study of the interactions between life and the Earth’s atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere — the merging of the biological, chemical and physical sciences. This Web site brings the emerging field to a broader public through its explanations of the history of the field, descriptions of scientists doing the work and simple definitions of projects.

The site also brings together scientists who may be working on biogeoscience projects through its resources section (which offers links to funding opportunities as well as jobs in the field) and its discussion forum. Similarly, biogeoscientists or those in training might benefit from the events calendar. Finally, this well-designed Web site offers quite a few external links to sites for more information on any aspect of biogeoscience — good for kids, parents and teachers, as well as biogeoscientists.

wine-regions-of-the-world.co.uk
While traditional winemakers of France, Italy and Spain still lead the world in total wine production, many other nations are not far behind, including the United States, Argentina, Australia and South Africa. Today, wine production is truly a global affair, as you’ll see on the Wine Regions of the World Web site. Featured on the site is a global map with highlighted wine-specialty areas. Click on a location and you are carted off to learn about the types of wine grown in that particular area and what climate and soil make the region conducive to growing grapes. New Zealand, for example, hosts nearly 400 individual wineries and is most famous for its Sauvignon Blanc varieties of wine, although the country’s diverse soils and climate allow nearly every variety of grape to grow. In addition to learning about regions, you can also learn about the science behind growing grapes, such as how microclimates affect different grapes and how grapevine roots can reach up to 10 feet below ground to reach water, negating the need for irrigation.

Although this Web site may not make you a connoisseur of wines, it will give you some idea of what to look for next time you step into the wine shop, and it will give you some fascinating tidbits to share with colleagues and friends over a glass of Chardonnay at the next geology conference or happy hour.

homepage.smc.edu/robinson_richard/geologycentral.htm
Geologist Richard Robinson at Santa Monica College in California has created the “Geology Central” Web site, which is essentially a giant list of links to other cool geology sites. Divided into three categories — virtual geology fieldtrips, geology links and animated sites — the site offers something for everyone. The field trips section includes hundreds of links to Web sites of places to visit, either virtually or in person, such as the beaches in Monterey Bay, Calif., or fossils in Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska. This Web site can be a great resource for teachers and a good site for students learning about the geology of different parts of the world.

www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects
If you have ever wondered what would happen if an extraterrestrial projectile — meteor, asteroid or comet — were to hit Earth, the University of Arizona has a Web site for you. Designed by impact specialists at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, this site allows you to enter any number of factors, including the size, velocity and density of the projectile, as well as the type of surface it is hitting (ocean, soil or rock), to determine the environmental consequences of an impact striking anywhere on the planet. Watching the various scenarios unfold around the world, such as global fireballs and seismic shaking, is a fun, if morbid, experience.

www.uc.edu/geology/geologylist/
A University of Cincinnati geology master’s student created the Geologist’s Lifetime Field List Web site in 1996, based largely on a Geotimes column in 1990 by Lisa Rossbacher. This site expands upon that column, providing a full list of geologically significant places and events to experience. The site is subdivided into four main categories: generic geology sites, such as an erupting volcano and the K/T boundary (and lists places to view said volcano or boundary); specific locations, including Terra del Fuego in South America, Michigan’s banded iron formations and the Great Rift Valley in Africa; things that need to be experienced rather than seen, such as feeling an earthquake that’s greater than magnitude 5.0 and finding in situ dinosaur tracks (try the backcountry of southern Utah); and finally, “the best of the rest,” which includes witnessing a tornado (and rules for storm-chasing) and viewing the Aurora Borealis.

The site has pictures and links to almost every place it suggests you visit. Be aware, however, that some of the links are broken. So, you may have to do a little additional work yourself, but learning about these places will be well worth it.

whc.unesco.org/heritage.htm
While not as flashy as the Lifetime Field List Web site, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Web site is a comprehensive list of all of the World Heritage sites in the world. If you’ve ever wondered what places are World Heritage sites, how they were chosen and where to find them, this Web site will answer your questions and provide you with an extraordinary tour of some of the world’s most magnificent places. Covering more than 700 sites, the list is divided by country and date of designation.

Clicking on one of the sites (for example, Mesa Verde in the United States) will give you a brief description of the site (a concentration of Pueblo Indian dwellings deep inside cliffs in the Southwestern United States) and why and when it became a heritage site. It also includes pictures of the sites; and in the case of some of the more well-known locations, such as Mesa Verde, Stonehenge, the Acropolis in Athens and the Galapagos Islands, you can link to other Web sites about the locales.

http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov
For a new view of some of the West’s most impressive scenery, check out the Geology of National Parks 3-D Web site. The site features 3-D and 2-D images of scenes in 14 different national parks, with plans to add four new parks in the next few months and hopefully more after that, says site creator Phil Stoffer.

Stoffer and his partner, Eleyne Phillips, are both geologists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Western Earth Surface Processes Team in Menlo Park, Calif. Stoffer developed the Web site out of a personal interest in stereophotography that hearkens back to his great-grandmother. He and Phillips take all of the pictures themselves, make them into 3-D images and write all of the captions.
For optimal viewing, you should first locate your old comic-book 3-D glasses or purchase a pair. Although every image on the Web site is available as a standard digital image as well as in 3-D, you’ll certainly get more out of them in 3-D. Red and cyan 3-D viewing glasses will work best for these anaglyphs.

When you enter the site, you encounter a list of the parks available. Put on your glasses and click on a park. (I recommend doing this in a private place, or like me, you’ll have colleagues walking by and giggling.)

The first image that pops up for each park is a map. Some are detailed geologic maps and some are National Park Service maps. When you’ve figured out where you are and what you’ll be seeing, click on Next Image. You’re suddenly whisked away to a beautiful landscape (although some pictures are large and may take a little while to load). Accompanying each image is a detailed explanation of the landscape features that you’re seeing and the geologic processes that formed each feature. For example, in Arches National Park, you can learn about exfoliation, “the process of the peeling off of bedrock slabs or shells in a series of concentric layers,” (from the discussion of Landscape Arch). And in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, you can learn about the ribbon chert layers that were deposited in the Marin Headlands during the Jurassic.

Whichever park you visit, images abound — 20 or so per park. The site, funded by the USGS National Park Service Cooperative Project, is quite user-friendly, with a link back to the main page at the bottom of every image and links to the National Park Service’s Web site, should you want more than just geologic information about the parks. Use the site as a learning tool or as an excellent escape from your usual workday.

And stay tuned… Stoffer and Phillips next plan to add all the 3-D photographs collected during the Powell Survey of 1871 to 1872 of the Canyonlands and Grand Canyon country.

www.intuitor.com/moviephysics
In the day and age of multi-million-dollar blockbuster movies that have more and more implausible action scenes, one Web site is taking a stand. The Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics site, run by an engineer and some self-proclaimed computer nerds, has reviewed quite a few movies for their scientific accuracy — or complete lack thereof. The rating system is simple: GP means good physics in general, PGP means pretty good physics (enough to be fun, the site owners say), PGP-13 means kids under 13 might believe the physics, RP means "retch," XP means obviously subject to physics laws of another universe, and NR means it wasn't even rated.

Take The Core, for example, which Geotimes also reviewed and found to have scientific inaccuracies (Geotimes, October 2003). This Web site says the poor physics provide nonstop surprises, and it is rated the worst physics movie they've reviewed. The site also reviews Armageddon, an asteroid-impact movie from 1998, starring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, where a group of misfits from an oil-rig have to save Earth from the impending doom of an asteroid impact. As the reviewers say, even if you disregard everything else scientifically wrong with the story and the crew manages to blow up the asteroid before it hits Earth, the gravitational pull from the asteroid pieces flying by Earth would disrupt the tides so much as to destroy most of life by way of tidal surge.

And as a final blow to many blockbuster hits, the site debunks generic bad movie physics, from flashing bullets to exploding windows and falling objects. So next time you're watching a movie and wondering "can that actually happen?" — you know one place to go for answers.

www.ScienceEverywhere.org
“Science. It’s everywhere” — that’s the message of the Partnership for Science Literacy, a new public awareness campaign launched by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The goal is to increase awareness among families of the importance of science education for all children. The Web site, run by TryScience.org, provides information for parents and teachers, including fieldtrip suggestions across the country and around the world, and a plethora of home science experiments ranging from turbidity experiments to DNA tests. It also suggests science activities for families, listing organizations that sponsor activities. The site allows parents to click through to other Web sites to help answer questions about science education. And teachers will find the “Teacher Tips” and links to additional resources helpful as well.

www.geomac.gov
The U.S. Geological Survey hosts a Web site that provides access to current fire locations and perimeters across the country, something that became vital for millions of people during the recent fires in California. The Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination Group, or GeoMAC, site was created during the 2000 fire season to provide fire managers with real-time geospatial information on the status, location and proximity of wildfires to property and infrastructure to help them better focus resources. Updated daily, the site first shows a map of all the fires in the United States at that particular time. Clicking on an individual fire provides more details. The site also keeps a running log of all fires in the country in the past year.

observe.arc.nasa.gov
NASA’s Observatorium is an engaging Web site for earth and space data. Not only does the site include pictures of Earth, planets and stars and the stories behind those images, but it also includes information on remote-sensing aircraft, how remote sensing is used in astronomy and information on space flight. One section illustrates NASA’s efforts to understand how Earth is changing and how humans influence and are influenced by these changes. The site also details NASA’s planetary and deep space exploration programs, including origins-of-life exploration, and hosts an image gallery of Landsat images from around the world.

Teachers will love the educator resources section that provides fact sheets, activities and other resources for use in the classroom or at home. And scientists of all ages will enjoy the coolest part of the site — the “fun and games” section, filled with crossword puzzles, space trivia, a martian version of the old video game “Lunar Landing,” a geography quiz where viewers identify world cities from just the images of their lights at night, and a “Where in the World” quiz where you identify cities from only their satellite views. I challenge all you connoisseurs of world travel and satellite imagery to identify these cities without clues — I certainly needed help!

manufacturing.stanford.edu
If you’ve ever wondered how things were made, this is the Web site for you. The Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing at Stanford University recently developed the site to give the general public an introductory look at manufacturing. It explores the making of more than 40 everyday products, from jelly beans and plastic soda bottles to denim clothing, golf clubs and airplanes. When you click on “Materials,” for example, you are first asked a question about the manufacture of a product: I was asked how molten glass is formed into sheets of glass for windows. After I typed in my response, I read what others had written, and then a congenial narrator walked me through the true process of making glass — from the mining of sand, gypsum and dolomite, to its melting, molding and cutting. And if you want to learn more about the manufacturing process, the site also has an extensive section that details processes, such as casting, forming, molding and assembly.

www.climatescience.gov
In December, more than 1,200 scientists, industry representatives and lobbyists met in Washington at a workshop sponsored by the Bush administration to get feedback on a 177-page draft statement about U.S. climate change research. At the U.S. Climate Change Science Web site, you can read this strategic plan along with public commentary and related developments in climate change policy.

Thirteen federal agencies sponsor the Climate Change Science Program, which integrates federal research on climate change. Last month, the president identified the climate change program as one of the key crosscutting initiatives in the proposed fiscal year 2004 budget. The site provides a good overview of the budget, recent structural changes in the program and text on where the administration sees the future of climate change research, through Hill testimony and supporting documents.

www.science.gov
Ten major U.S. science agencies have collaborated to launch the FirstGov for Science Web site, a one-stop shop for government scientific information. The free site provides alphabetical listings of more than a thousand resources under specific topic headings, such as “Geology and Landforms.” A search under that topic could bring you to NASA’s archive of earth photographs or the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. The site is easy to use and saves lots of time in looking for specific federal programs.

www.uky.edu/KGS/pubs/lop.htm
In July, the Kentucky Geological Survey (KGS) launched the country’s first free, Web database of a state’s oil and gas records. The site contains information on more than 150,000 oil and gas wells drilled in Kentucky, including scanned-in images of geophysical logs. The logs are long documents, up to 100 feet in length, that record rock properties and show findings at various well depths.

Previously, if you needed well information, you had to contact KGS or travel to its local offices in Lexington or Henderson. Now the data are electronically accessible. KGS hopes this online accessibility will help industry increase production of oil and gas in Kentucky — exploring both new sources and older fields that might offer new prospects. Electronically archiving these records from the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s extensive paper archive took more than 20 years and about $10,000 in new equipment.

The site is fairly user friendly. With a simple download of specific image-viewing software, you can view scanned records from oil and gas wells in a specific quadrangle of Kentucky — geophysical logs, permitting documents and helpful information about how to navigate through the records themselves. The site also provides a useful map for more precisely locating the wells within Kentucky counties.

epod.usra.edu
The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) Web site collects and archives images that highlight Earth’s diverse processes and phenomena. Every day, the site features a new photograph, graphic or piece of artwork of the latest earth science events, along with a short description. Supported by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Universities Space Research Association, the site offers interesting and fun visual diversions for your day.

www.wku.edu/~smithch/biogeog
Biogeography explores the relationship between geography and the ecological distribution of life — “what lives where, and why,” says Charles H. Smith, science librarian for Western Kentucky University’s Helm-Cravens Library. To advance the study of this field’s evolution, Smith has opened a free Web site that contains a bibliography of works on biogeography that were published before 1950. The online bibliography has source links color-coded according to their availability. Links in blue take the reader to an online copy of the article. Green links show you source available through the JSTOR electronic journal archive. And some links take you to biographies of the authors. Any student or teach of biogeography will find this site a comprehensive resource for studying the history of this field.

Earthobservatory.nasa.gov/naturalhazards
NASA’s Earth Observatory Natural Hazards Web site features satellite images in near real time to capture natural hazards around the world. The Earth Observatory team tracks five categories of natural hazards: wildfires, severe storms, volcanic eruptions, floods and major air pollution events. A different icon represents each natural hazard on a global map that organizes the natural hazards by location. Just click on the icons to view the most current images. The site is easy to use and provides visitors with remarkably crisp visualizations of natural hazards around the world.

www.google.com
A favorite among Geotimes staff members. Try this site the next time you need to search the Web for a science-related information. We’ve found that it brings up myriad sites from reliable sources. Give it a whirl.

mars.google.com
“Moon, Mars and beyond” is now more than just President Bush’s vision for space exploration; Google also made the jump from the moon to Mars on March 13, when the company launched its latest interactive image Web site.

The company began with Google Earth, which combines satellite images with other data into extensive 3-D presentations. Browsers can navigate Earth and view the details of everything from the Grand Canyon and hurricane damage to a local restaurant (see Geotimes, December 2005). Next, Google created interactive maps of the moon that allowed browsers to explore a lunar landing site or to peek inside an ancient crater. Visit Google’s latest addition, however, for a close look at Mars.

The Google Mars homepage starts out with a colorful image of the planet’s surface elevations that looks anything but red. Elevation differences range from 9 kilometers below the planet’s average surface level (depicted by black) to 21 kilometers above average (depicted by white), but every crater and trench that falls between those elevations spans the rainbow.
Use the navigational tool in the upper left corner to scroll around a seamless melding of 17,000 individual photos obtained by NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which has been orbiting the planet for about five years. Also, use that same tool to zoom in on details of features down to 230 meters across, about the size of 2.5 football fields.

If you want help finding the most interesting surface features, look to the top of the page for lists of mountains, canyons, dunes, plains, ridges and craters. Click on any of the 118 alphabetized mountains, such as Olympus Mons, which the elevation scale depicts as mostly white, as this volcano, the tallest known in the solar system, stands about 27 kilometers high — about three times the height of Earth’s tallest mountain, Mount Everest.

After you choose a feature to explore, markers appear on the image with text boxes that provide information about the size and history of the object. Links lead to an Arizona State University Web site that describes the object’s geology in greater detail, and provides additional imagery and statistical information.

And if you have ever wondered what it would be like to fly through a canyon on Mars that is as deep as Mount Everest is high, download “Flight Into Mariner Valley” from Google video at: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1622667251598627943. About 10 times as long, five times as deep and 20 times as wide as Earth’s Grand Canyon, it is difficult not to feel small (or sick) while maneuvering around the winding branches of Mariner Valley.

A team at Arizona State University compiled more than 500 images of the canyon obtained from NASA’s orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Digital Image Animation Laboratory then used those images to create this detailed virtual airplane tour.

As a bonus, the movie’s narration describes how different features within the canyon might have formed. For example, while cruising alongside a valley wall, you learn that such cliffs likely began to form billions of years ago as a result of earthquake faulting. Another side of the canyon possibly formed as groundwater led the ground surface to collapse in on itself. Keep in mind, however, that planetary geologists are still finding out details about Mars’ land and water processes, and current ideas could one day be revised.

websitegarage.netscape.com
Trying to get your Web site up and running all on your own? Not sure if all of your links are working or if pages are loading too slowly? This “Web site garage” can help you pinpoint the areas that you need to work on to make your site as user-friendly as possible. To use the site, simply type in the URL of your Web site and the e-mail address you want your results sent to. In addition to pointing out the specific reasons why you should fix problem areas, the site is a how-to guide for making repairs. It can also run a monthly check on your site.

www.findsounds.com
When it comes time to present your work to your peers you have some options available. There’s the old overhead and emergency index cards presentation, but some geologists now feel comfortable using various slide-show programs on their laptops that take advantage of hi-tech lecture halls. Regardless of the favored method of presentation, there’s always one funny guy who throws in a goofy picture of someone at field camp, doing something only a wild and crazy geologist would do, and summons a few laughs out of the drowsy crowd. Go one step further: Wow them with your technological know-how and your stunning wit. Visit FindSounds.com and download a few sounds to accompany your presentation. It’s free and you can choose from rain, earthquakes, volcanoes, waterfalls, avalanches or the usual animal and miscellaneous noises. You’ll surely get a—or at least a few of your colleagues will wake up to catch the end of your presentation.

www.scienceprof.com
ScienceProf.com is a collection of Windows, Macintosh and Web resources for professors specializing in geosciences and physical sciences. The high quality images and information are for the college level. Many of the programs are run as interactive Web presentations ready-to-use on a teacher’s Web page. Links to the movies and other information can be included in a Web page with additional explanatory notes or used on a local computer.

The Web site includes access to photo collections and slide sets, as well as teaching products for earth and planetary science to sedimentology to strain analysis to physics. The site offers products for teaching growth faulting, the process of crystallization in igneous rock, magnetic reversals, and much more. Users can download demos of the products but subscriptions—for individual professors up to an unlimited number of students—are required for professional use.

www.chemfinder.com
Looking for that tricky chemical formula that you always seem to forget? Need to know the density of a particular substance? Try ChemFinder. Not only will you find the answers to the questions above, you’ll also find information such as the boiling and melting point and solubility of various chemicals. Link to other information about the environmental and health hazards of the chemical or view the chemical structure in 3-D.

personal.cmich.edu/~franc1m/homepage.htm
Bookmark this site: Resources for Earth Science and Geography Instruction. It contains googles of links to credible earth science Web sites in myriad disciplines. What’s more, the site is updated several times a month by Mark Francek, a professor of geology at the University of Michigan. Its volumes of helpful links are organized by subject matter. It has no images, just quick-loading, easy-to-read text. Not much else needs to be said other than take a look and see for yourself.

www.athro.com/geo/hgframe.html
Unless you carry a geological time scale in your wallet (the trademark of my university’s paleontology students), you’ll have to rely on memory to pass this site’s Geological Time Line Quiz. Fill in the eons, eras and periods that span Earth’s history, hit Submit and prepare for responses like, “The Neogene was not found.” After this humbling experience check out the site’s Metaphors for Geologic Time to fill in your Earth history knowledge gaps.

www.windows.ucar.edu
It's summertime — time to explore and leave your work behind, at least for a few days of vacation … but, if you can't, try a fun Web site, like Windows to the Universe, run by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. Offering a rich array of images, animations, datasets and documents, the site looks at the cultural ties between science exploration and history. It provides a wealth of information on earth and space sciences — including information on every planet in the solar system and what we know beyond. The "Amazing Water Facts" page is a great page for reference, in case you cannot remember the longest freshwater lake or the muddiest river in the world. Be sure to check out the mythology section, where you can read up on lore from ancient societies, including the Greek, Mamaiuran (an Amazon Indian tribe that lives in Brazil) and Norse, to name a few.

This engaging site is mostly aimed toward kids, with beginning, intermediate and advanced levels each corresponding to elementary, middle school and high school reading levels, respectively. (I found that the major difference among the levels was simply in text size on the screen.) But the site has something for everyone — students, teachers and those looking for some summertime Web fun.

www.fi.edu/earth
After touring the universe, you can narrow-in on Earth and the forces that shape it, by visiting the Franklin Institute's Earthforce Web site. Part of a larger site for the Philadelphia museum, the site offers great information on how Earth forces are manifest in the water, the crust and deep within the planet. Most notably, it features tons of great Web links to learn more about earthquakes, avalanches, tsunamis — the list goes on. Also, stop by the Franklin Institute home site (www.fi.edu) to learn more about the museum and other areas of interest.

www.nps.gov/parkoftheweek
Don’t have time to drive from Cape Cod National Seashore to Yosemite? Denali National Park to Everglades? Thanks to a new National Park Service Web site, you can virtually visit a different national park each week. The Park of the Week site provides you a picturesque glimpse into the park’s history, attractions and ongoing projects. And if by chance you are planning a trip to that park, the Web site offers information highlighting current events and activities at the park, as well as any construction projects or need-to-know information. Once you’ve explored the Park of the Week, with just one click, visit any other national park through the Park Service’s main Web site. Updated each Monday, the Park of the Week can also be accessed via www.whitehouse.gov and www.doi.gov.

Back to index

Education

ngwa.org/museum/museum.cfm
Alexander the Great might have been the first person to trace the path of groundwater, using horse carcasses to accomplish the feat, according to the National Ground Water Research and Educational Foundation. And Aristotle perhaps dabbled in discussions about the mechanics of aquifer systems.

Historical factoids about notable groundwater scientists throughout history are just one topic worth exploring at the Virtual Museum of Ground Water History Web site. From the homepage, you can easily navigate all seven wings of this truly virtual museum that exists only in cyberspace, although some items can be found on display at the National Ground Water Association’s headquarters in Westerville, Ohio.

To navigate the site, simply click on the “Select Wing” menu and choose from a variety of exhibits. “Drilling devices of yesteryear,” for example, will take you on a tour of black-and-white photographs of drilling rigs that date back to the late 1800s.

If you enjoy perusing maps, check out the collection of state aquifer maps. Each state is color coded by sediment type, and most provide cross-sectional views of various layers and major aquifers. One problem, however, is that without a date on the map, visitors can’t determine how groundwater levels have changed over time.

evonet.sdsc.edu
The EvoNet Web site, run by the University of Oregon, was set up to provide the educational community with resources to aid in teaching evolution at all levels. The site is divided into three primary sections: research, public outreach and education. There is an additional search engine for finding scientists doing evolutionary research. The home page also is divided by areas of interest, such as geology and anthropology, with each of the interest areas linking to educational curricula, software and researchers.

The research section of the site provides listings of people, institutions and links to other Web sites to connect the scientific community. The public outreach section contains outside sources for information about presenting evolutionary concepts to the public, and how to combat creationist tactics.

The education pages on the site link to various lesson plans through the National Health Museum’s Web site, which provides curricula on a plethora of topics for bioscience and health teachers. Through EvoNet, there are lesson plans on everything from figuring out how fast dinosaurs walked (or ran) to understanding radioactive decay. There are also lab exercises, such as a hominid skull comparison, and a couple of field trip suggestions. Despite a few broken links, this comprehensive site would be a good source for teachers, or for researchers needing to locate others in their field.

www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/Science/Earth_Sciences/Earth_Sciences.html
The geoscience pages of the Awesome Library Web site are terrific for teachers looking for lesson plans on topics ranging from weather on Mars to dinosaur fossils. Part of a larger site that includes 26,000 resources, the pages link to other Web sites where teachers can find out more about a topic to help guide them through lesson planning. The site has a seemingly endless supply of resources for teachers, though its organization is a little bit confusing (for example, a link to a site about caves is listed under “materials”). Still, the site could be a great resource for earth science teachers anywhere, especially with the option to translate each page into one of 14 different languages, from Italian to Malay.

www.discoverourearth.org
The Discover Our Earth Web site, run by Cornell University’s geology department and sponsored by the National Science Foundation, offers a wealth of earth science information for students and teachers. The site is an interactive classroom-based teaching tool about earth science systems, with online mapping and modeling projects for the students — such as mapping the world’s earthquake zones and then seeing where various magnitude quakes have occurred. The site is probably best suited for high school classrooms. While students may not get much out of this site on their own, it could provide a good learning experience with the guidance of a teacher.

In the section for teachers, educators receive the same information as the students so they can walk them through the program, plus additional background information, curriculum guides and suggested questions and answers. The material covers five earth science topics, including topography, earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics and sea-level change. The content is solid, but be aware that the site runs relatively slowly.

evolution.berkeley.edu
As battles over the teaching of evolution in schools ensue in districts across the United States, the University of California at Berkeley has released a new Web site called Understanding Evolution. Designed to provide teachers with the fundamentals for teaching evolution, the comprehensive and easy-to-navigate site includes dozens of lesson plans and activities for varying concepts in evolution.

The site begins with the fundamental tenets of evolution — variation, inheritance, selection and time — and continues on to more detailed topics, such as specific adaptation, classification and evidence for evolution. The site also breaks up lesson plans by grades, and includes a searchable database of lesson plans and activities should you want an activity for a single concept and a single age group. Finally, should you want a few more resources at your fingertips, you’ll find a list of further readings and Web resources.

museum.gov.ns.ca/fgm
Canada’s Bay of Fundy, known as home of the world’s highest tides, is also home to the Fundy Geological Museum. Their Web site is frequently updated, easy to navigate and highlights dinosaur excavation projects, as well as current exhibits at the museum.

www.cnie.org/nle
Looking for credible Web sites to suggest to students beginning research on an environmental topic? The National Council for Science and the Environment’s National Library for the Environment Web site links to myriad environmental resources including news sources, a “yellow pages” directory of environmental contacts and Congressional Research Service Reports. Click on “Researcher’s Bookmarks” to view links to information on international environmental treaties, state and federal agencies, environmental laws, online library catalogs, and search engines.

www.pbs.org/wnet/savageearth/animations/index.html
Teaching an intro geology course in the fall? Want your kids to understand what your talking about when you point out a normal fault in a road cut on your next family vacation? Direct them to this page on the PBS Web site. It has great animations of difficult-to-explain geologic phenomena such as dip-slip faulting, plate subduction, secondary and primary wave propagation and several longer animations with detailed explanations of the geologic processes. The animations are part of PBS’ ((Savage Earth)) section of its Web site, which offers basic information on many different geologic processes.

www.cmich.edu/~Franc1m/homepage.htm
Resources for Earth Science and Geography Education is an education tool. It is continually updated with links to carefully screened sites selected based on image quality, ease with which lesson plans can be developed, organization, authenticity, scope and format. The site covers such topics as maps, GIS data sets, coastal landforms, geologic time, climate and planetary geology. Mark Francek of Central Michigan University maintains the site and also sends out a weekly e-mail alert that features an “earth science site of the week.” E-mail Mark.Francek@cmich.edu to be added to the listserve.

www.scienceprof.com
ScienceProf.com is a collection of Windows, Macintosh and Web resources for professors specializing in geosciences and physical sciences. The high quality images and information are for the college level. Many of the programs are run as interactive Web presentations ready-to-use on a teacher’s Web page. Links to the movies and other information can be included in a Web page with additional explanatory notes or used on a local computer.
The Web site includes access to photo collections and slide sets, as well as teaching products for earth and planetary science to sedimentology to strain analysis to physics. The site offers products for teaching growth faulting, the process of crystallization in igneous rock, magnetic reversals, and much more. Users can download demos of the products but subscriptions—for individual professors up to an unlimited number of students—are required for professional use.

www.enc.org
The Eisenhower National Clearinghouse Web site was designed as an archive of learning and teaching materials for K-12 teachers and students in the fields of mathematics and science. However, it is also a useful tool for teachers, students and professionals who are working on a project or assignment that requires them to dig back into the dustiest corners of their brain to find some obscure formula or theorem they learned back in high school. Users can find information based on topic or based on intended audience. Much of the information is accessed through links to outside sites that the ENC editors have reviewed and deem credible and appropriate for a K-12 audience.

For Kids

feeds.feedburner.com/BytesizeScience
In 1951, Don Herbert — better known as “Mr. Wizard” — started his own television show in order to get kids hooked on science. Saturday mornings found Mr. Wizard building a mini volcano, a sauerkraut battery and a host of other simple devices to demonstrate complex concepts. But times have changed and so has the technology. The American Chemical Society (ACS) is hoping podcasts can do for today’s kids what “Watch Mr. Wizard” did for baby boomers.

In November, the Washington, D.C.-based society launched “Bytesize Science,” a weekly chemistry podcast aimed at children and teens. The three-minute episodes, available for download at feeds.feedburner.com/BytesizeScience or on iTunes, cover new research on everything from how water striders walk on water to how bacteria communicate. The stories come from ACS’s 36 peer-reviewed journals. “We try to choose stuff that kids can identify with that happens to have even a tangential relationship to science,” says Adam Dylewski, the show’s host. Hot topics include bad breath and belly flops.

Turning the technical jargon in journal articles into something kids — or even adults — can understand can be a challenge. “We never try to dumb it down,” Dylewski says. “But we may omit certain portions of an experiment that won’t hold the interest of kids.” Adding sound effects helps too. “Bytesize Science” is sprinkled with gurgles, screams, kissy noises and an occasional groan. Chemistry is “a lot easier to swallow when it’s wrapped in toilet sounds,” Dylewski says.

Only a hundred people have subscribed so far, but the show is slowly gathering steam. A few schools and libraries already recommend the podcast. “ACS is really interested in reaching young people of all ages, especially those who are thinking about what to do with their future,” Dylewski says. Kids who get hooked on science at a young age are more likely to pursue subjects like chemistry in high school and college. And more budding chemists translate into more members for ACS.

The strategy may already be working. We tested the podcast out on Aleksandra, a seventh-grader in Chicago, Ill. She listened to four episodes, including one about a researcher who made a plant’s root system glow by inserting a jellyfish gene. “They made me think that people can have very interesting jobs that people don’t know about,” she says. “Who would think to combine the genes of a jellyfish with a plant root?”

Cassandra Willyard

www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash
Ask kids what they want to be when they grow up, and many will respond, “an astronaut!” Now, these aspiring young adventurers have a new site from which to explore outer space in cyberspace. NASA’s recently launched “Kids’ Club” Web site, aimed at children in kindergarten through fourth grade, is packed with fun activities and games that teach children about space, while helping them develop valuable skills.

On the site’s main page, three cartoon computer screens offer the latest about NASA’s space exploration goals and activities. For example, clicking on the middle screen opens the “Now in Space” feature, which provides pictures and updates of current space missions. In July, Now in Space featured the astronauts who traveled aboard the space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station that month.

The main page also offers a menu of games at five different skill levels. At the most basic level, for example, younger children learn letters of the alphabet as they load cargo into the space shuttle. At the intermediate level, kids develop their math abilities while launching a rocket, or exercise their memories and time-telling skills as they prepare an airplane for takeoff. At the highest level, older children can play a trivia game to test their knowledge of the solar system.

The site is intended for use at home as much as in the classroom.

fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/online_interactive.htm
Visiting a museum’s Web site usually lacks the same appeal of perusing the fossils and artifacts in person. But whether you live within driving distance of the Field Museum in Chicago, Ill., or not, browse this museum’s Web site for interactive features you won’t find in the museum’s halls.

From the site’s homepage, choose from eight listed expeditions to follow scientists for a behind-the-scenes look at work both in the museum and in the field. For example, click on Lance Grande to learn about his journey locating and excavating fossils from a 52-million-year-old deposit in southwestern Wyoming.

The Wyoming expedition begins with a series of animated generic graphics that show how fossils are extracted from the Green River Formation. The tour ends at a virtual field site, where you can click on designated portions of the quarry to see videos of paleontologists extracting fossils, or pictures of early Eocene turtle, fish and insect fossils (and the only frog fossil) found in the basin. If you want to review a previous step, however, be careful not to click the “go back” button on your browser, or you will have to start the tour over from the beginning. Instead, select a previous step listed at the bottom of the page under “process.”

For a look inside the museum, return to the homepage and click on “Bill Stanley.” A video takes you into the mammal lab where Stanley shows how scientists prepare samples for collection. From boiling the specimen almost completely down to its bones, to allowing beetles finish the process before the specimen is prepared for storage, the videos don’t leave much to the imagination.

Beyond the expeditions, you can also explore “The Sue Files,” a section of Web-based activities designed to show younger students the detective work involved with a career in paleontology. A quick introduction lists a fictional news story about the disappearance of a dinosaur expert, and students learn about Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, along the way.

Overall, the site will most likely appeal to a younger audience, but browsers of any age can find something of interest, such as the interactive exhibit about chocolate.

www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explorations/tours/geotime/geotime.html
Understanding geologic time scales and how geologists know what they know about the planet might seem overwhelming to kids. To help teachers explain the 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history, the University of California at Berkeley has created a Web site devoted to teaching students in grades 5 through 10 all about geologic time and evidence for events in Earth’s history. It also gives a quick tutorial on relative and absolute dating techniques — the law of superposition and radiometric dating, respectively — and why all this is important.

The site is separated into a teacher’s section and a student’s section. The student’s section is all activity-oriented, beginning with a game where kids put into chronological order various events of the last century, such as the invention of sliced bread and the Internet, and then does the same thing with Earth’s history, including when Archaeopteryx first wandered the planet and when Lucy (the African hominid) was around. It then moves forward through a variety of activities, which teachers can work alongside the students to finish.

One caveat: Students have to work through every single activity in order to move on to the next screen, so it can be time-consuming. But overall, the activity is designed to take less than an hour of class time. It can be done through the Internet or via CD-ROM, which is available from Berkeley.

www.eia.doe.gov/kids
If reading this month’s feature articles on oil left you with the desire to teach your kids all about energy or if you need to brush up on the basics, the Energy Information Administration’s Energy Kids Web site is a good place to visit. Start with the energy facts section and click on “oil” to learn about where oil comes from — geographically and geologically — and some of its everyday uses. There are also links to more detailed information, such as a primer on gasoline prices, that might help older students with reports and projects.

Within the energy facts section, coal, natural gas and uranium are also explored, as are some renewable energy sources, including solar and geothermal energy. The fun and games section offers quizzes, puzzles and riddles about energy sources. The history s