environment / animals / nature

Why Do Leaves Change Color in the Fall?

Site is by "Science Made Simple" and has easy to read explanations along with some neat activities and projects for all age students.

http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/leaves.html

Butterfly Mobiles

Celebrate spring with these beautiful print and assemble butterflies. Your students will color and cut the patterns, and then create their own butterfly mobile.

http://www.billybear4kids.com/butterfly/craft/craft1.html

Butterfly Life Cycle Mobiles

This version of the butterfly mobile reinforces life cycles; have your students create the correct order by placing them top to bottom in sequence.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/butterfly/lifecyclemobile

Create a Butterfly Mobile

This project is a bit more advanced than the previous butterfly mobiles, but still suitable for upper elementary classes. Includes background information on Calder and his ideas.

http://www.kid-at-art.com/htdoc/lesson23.html

The state of California has obvious interest in educating its children to understand and conserve energy. This is the website from the California Energy Commission and it is very well done. Attractive links, easy to navigate and read.

http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/

Live from the Rainforest

"Follow in Darwin's footsteps, courtesy of Passport to Knowledge, to the heart of our planet's largest rainforest, guided by some of the world's leading biologists." The Geosystem maps and graphics set rainforests in a planetary perspective. The Ecosystem link provides a gallery of images and information on the trees, plants, birds, animals and insects of the rainforest. It's a wonderful virtual expedition to find out about the organisms and issues of the world's rainforests. NSF (the National Science Foundation) and other public and private collaborators support passport to Knowledge, in part.

http://passporttoknowledge.com/rainforest/tunnel.html

The Waltham Public Schools' environmental policy includes a commitment to "preserving environmental resources, preventing pollution and continual improvement of environmental management." All members of the school community are striving to carry out this policy. One of the ways this is done is to "enhance school curriculum in addressing environmental issues and conservation." Go to the word "sites" on their homepage to see a very comprehensive list of links.:

http://www.city.waltham.ma.us/SCHOOL/WebPAge/EMS/EM.htm

http://www.epa.gov/teachers/curriculum_resources.htm

http://www.epa.gov/students/

http://www.epa.gov/OWOW/index.html

The Environmental Site Homepage

"...dedicated toward public understanding of environmental issues" - A comprehensive list of links, more suitable for older students and adults.

http://www.envirosite.com/

Earth Day

April 22 - There is no official Earth Day organization as Earth Day belongs to the public. This site links resources and spotlights many grass roots efforts. The section "For Educators" is a good starting point for planning activities. This site is more appropriate for older students and adults.

http://www.earthday.org/

Kids Domain Earth Day

http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/earthday/index.html

EPA Explorers Club

http://www.epa.gov/kids/index.htm

These two sites are geared toward younger students. They contain many activities, clip art, games, stories and literature suggestions.

Kinder "Garden"

From the Dept. of Horticultural Studies at Texas A&M University, this site is a wonderful source of info on how to get kids interested in gardening. There are "how-to" sections on starting school and community gardens, a cyber-tour of famous botanical gardens, lots of project ideas for all ages and some great related links on bird-watching, weather, insects, literature and even the rain forest!

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/kindergarden/index.html

National Wildlife Federation - Kidzone

Interesting variety of activities divided by age group

http://www.nwf.org/kids/

Come Along on a Nature Walk

Learn about life in the forest and in the wetlands with resources from World Book™. Other areas of this site include brainteasers, camp recipes and crafts. Nice before or after activity for 5th grade science overnight.

http://www.worldbook.com/fun/wbla/camp/html/walk.html

Jungle Walk

This is a web site which will give you quick access to information available in the web about all the animals in the world, big and small. Their large compilation of video and audio clips, which is currently the primary focus of this site, should complement other available animal directories in the web. They do not use precise scientific classification and references to academic work to keep this site accessible to the younger crowd.

Superb sites - webcams, real video of animals, career info, links to other animal webpages and on-line activities

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/

http://www.birminghamzoo.com/

Kratts' Creatures

More like a virtual zoo with info on animals all over the earth - taken from the popular PBS series.

http://www.pbs.org/kratts/

Animals of the World

Part of the KidsCom site - a set of interactive games where the answers to questions about description, habitat and behavior lead children to guess the animal.

http://www.kidscom.com/orakc/Games/Animalgame/index.html

Kids Corner at US Fish and Wildlife Service

Information and activities for Junior Biologists who are concerned about endangered species.

http://endangered.fws.gov/kids/index.html

The Environmental Education for Kids!

From the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources this site lets kids learn more about the great outdoors with content and activities that are interesting and fun. The Daily Riddle is neat.

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/caer/ce/eek/

Animal Coloring Information Pages

This site offers a wide selection of categorized animal pictures each with a printable outline to color in. Perfect for projects K to 6

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/coloring/

Perfect for the primary grades, this adorable webquest guides students through the process of researching an animal, designing a habitat, creating a brochure, and other cross-curricular activities. We love this!