Science & School Links

Listed below are links to websites we will be using this year and other useful resources. Some sites can be extremely helpful getting you started with your sceince project. If you come across another great site that would be highly useful to our class, please email me.

Science Links:

Science Project Ideas:

All Science Fair Projects - A great resource that is broken down for you by subject and difficulty level. The site provides the question to be asked and the variables. Many projects can be modified to meet our requirements.

Science Buddies - This site focuses on science projects including a topic selection wizard and "How-To" information.

Science Buddies Topic Selection Wizard - Great tool to help you find a topic! You enter in your information and interests and the wizard gives you some ideas for your science project based on your interests, location, and grade level.

ZOOM! Science Activities. This site has some activities that tie in directly to CIPS. You may also get an idea here for your science project.

Greater San Diego Science & Engineering Fair - The official site of the county science fair. Your science project must also follow the rules outlined for the county fair.

California State Science Fair - If your project wins at the county level, the state fair will be your next destination. Last year's state science fair was held in Los Angeles where students competed for awards that totaled over $50,000. Who says it doesn't pay to go to school!?

California State Science Fair Getting Started Links Page - This is a great set of links at the California State Science Fair site with more useful information and ideas.

Energy Quest Science Projects - Includes several project ideas. Remember that your science project must collect quantitative data, not a qualitative study.

National Energy Education Development Projects - Has a few project ideas downloadable in PDF format.

Science Bob. Science Bob shows how to conduct several experiments at home. Some well-known young actors are featured doing science experiments. Remember that you must choose a project idea suitable for an 8th grade student!

Virtual Library of Science Fairs - This is a page of links to other science fairs across the nation and world. Don't stop at Correia's Science Fair, go big! Enter you science project in other competitions.

General Science Sites:

Bill Nye the Science Guy - A very simple site but has several activities you can do at home. We will see a few of Bill Nye's episodes this year.

Exploratorium - The Exploratorium web site has a number of good articles and activities for students. For articles, the Explore section has a number of useful subsections, especially Sports Science (see below), Global Climate Change, Faultline, Solar Max and Solar Eclipse.

• Exploratorium Sports Science - This site is a great resource for your Sport/Activity project.

How Stuff Works - This site has lots of information about how different machines work, along with tons of other information. See especially science stuff, electronics stuff, home stuff and auto stuff.

New Scientist. New Scientist describes itself as the world’s number one science and technology news service. With the variety of news articles available here, written in easy-to-understand non-technical language, this may be the best site on the web for students doing projects that involve reading and analyzing science articles. The news articles are free. To read feature articles, you need to subscribe, but you can read the archive of feature articles for seven days without charge.

Science News. This is a science news weekly that may contain a few interesting articles.

Scientific American. This is the web site for America’s leading non-specialist science magazine. You could use this as a site to look for a topic to research. For the magazine itself, check out your school library or your public library.

Smithsonian for Kids: Science and Nature. This site has some CIPS-related topics. The best part is the Lemelson Center’s Invention at Play site, which is interactive and uses some CIPS-related ideas and lessons.

Wikipedia, the On-line Free Encyclopedia. This site is good place to start searching for information on a wide variety of topics, including numerous scientific topics and history of science topics. Be careful though, content here is created by users so be sure to check the reference with another source.

Famous Inventors A-Z - This site created by About.com is a great resource to look up inventors as well as inventions.

Physics:

Cavendish Experiment - Outlines the details of the Cavendish Experiemnt we studied in CIPS.

Energy Kid’s Page - The U.S. Department of Energy’s site for kids. Information and activities related to energy resources. See particularly "Related Links" page.

Energy Quest - This is a student site sponsored by the State of California. This site is concerned with energy resource education, but it also features a set of more general science and environment links, which students doing web-based research might find useful.

Fear of Physics - The name of this site ought to elicit interest just by itself. This site helps explain several physics ideas addressed by CIPS, and others that are extensions of CIPS, like the Doppler effect.

Physics.org. This site is useful for its search engine. You need to register, but registration is free. When doing a search, first set age to "11-14" and knowledge level to "School (basic)". If this doesn’t turn up any articles (or nothing useful), reset age to "14-16" or knowledge level to "School (intermediate)," and try again.

Physics Java Applets - I use several of these applets as demonstrations in class. You will need to download Java if your browser does not have this as a plugin.

Chemistry:

Chem4Kids - This site is a great overview/review of the chemical topics we will be exploring this year.

Fast Periodic Table - This site displays a periodic table that provides quick element data.

Chemical Elements - Another site that provides quick element data.

Webelements Periodic Table - A great site that has detailed information about the elements. This site would be useful during our Element Cube Research Project.

Periodic Table of Elements - This site was created by The Los Alamos National Laboratory as a chemical resource for elementary, middle, and high school students. You can use this site to help you with your Element Cube Research Project.

Elements Database - Another site that provides basic element data.

Zoom Kitchen Chemistry - This sites includes a virtual kitchen so you can experiment safely!

Astronomy:

NASA - For science articles, check Exploring the Universe and Life on Earth. These two pages have some science articles on the main page. However, you will find many more articles by clicking on the gray sidebars on the left under Exploring the Universe or Life on Earth. Also, check out Popular Topics and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

• NASA for Students Grades 5-8 and Students Grades 9-12. This site includes a variety of pages geared toward middle and high-school students. In particular, the site has some problem-solving activities that include CIPS-related topics.

Nine Planets - This site offers introductions to the nine planets, their satellites and other Solar System objects, including asteroids, comets and Kuiper Belt Objects.

JPL Planets - This site will be useful for our planet research project. It includes the important data for each planet.

NASA Planetary Data System - This site will also be useful for our planet research project. It includes the important data for each planet and more.

New Horizons - This site is about NASA's latest mission launched on January 19, 2006. The destination is Pluto and Charon. The journey is so far, the probe will not arrive until 2015.

Environment:

EPA Global Warming Site This site provides an overview of the causes of global warming and some of its possible side effects.

Greenscreen - This site offers kids a chance to participate in an essay contest on topics related to the environment. Topics related to CIPS might include global warming and the use of energy resources.

The Environmental New Network - ENN is a great non-partisan news source in the field of environmental science and policy.

Alternative Fuels Data Center - As the world's crude oil supply deminshes, we will need to utilize other fuel types. This site was developed by the US Department of Energy.

Software Links:

Open Office - If you don't have access to MS Office at home, this site has similar programs to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and others. It works on all different types of computers and is mostly compatible with the Microsoft programs.

Firefox - This is the web browser we use in class and has many features that make surfing the net more exciting!

Adobe Acrobat Reader - You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader in order to view and print the online CIPS text pages, record sheets, and practices.

The Gimp - Gimp stands for: GNU Image Manipulation Program. Its a freely distributed image editing program. Similar to photoshop, the Gimp takes time to learn but hey, its free!

Comic Life - Many students ask about how to get this program. Unfortunately, it is only available on Mac and costs $24.95. I've also heard that it comes pre-installed on some new Mac machines.

Parental Control Bar - This is a great free tool for parents who want to ensure web browsers on their home computers do not access inappropriate online content. Please talk to me if you need help with content filtering.

School Links:

Site Created by: Sean Gardinier