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Elaine Westbrook Home Page
Greetings from Omaha,
Nebraska
I am a teacher at
North High School in Omaha, Nebraska. Our school has about 2,100
students and is the high school math and technology magnet for Omaha Public
Schools. My summer activities will include working with two other
science teachers in developing and organizing a useful science web
resource for our school system. This fall North High School will be
starting its first year of a flexible time schedule called blocking.
- I am
part of a team of teachers developing a two year non-textbook based course
called Integrated Science. One of the most powerful educational tools
available today is the Internet. Using dynamic Web resources such as
international data bases and world class supercomputing resources our
students study and research real scientific problems. We are currently
developing a two year interdisciplinary water unit that researches the
history, biology and chemistry of the Missouri River and its
tributaries in our state.
- This year as part of the NSF funded SEERS Program called the
Nebraska Water Project-An Interdisciplinary Approach, 100 teachers across
the state developed and shared innovated curriculum that is relevent to
the unique ground and surface water resources of our state.
- As part of the NSF funded Resource for Science Education
Program
at the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications our
team developed a Web-based resource for implementation of cutting-edge
technology into math and science high school curriculum. Visit our web
site to learn about this resource.
- As a 1996 Nebraska Education
Techology Assoction (NETA)
grant winner our science department will be able to effectively access and
store
world class resources from the Web. Learn more about our active statewide
organization at our NETA web site.
- As a participant in an Action
Research project at the
University of Nebraska at Lincoln, I researched
integrating computer technology into the existing curriculum and its
effect on student's achievement.
- As the Chemistry Visualization Resource person for our state, Nebraska
teachers and students have access through Internet connection to the Silicon
Graphics supercomputer at NCSA. This exciting computational science
program allows
high school students to visualize electron cloud
configurations and create bonding movies to enhance their learning of
chemistry.
ChemViz has an excellent web site that is maintained by Keith
Wessel of NCSA.
- Thanks to a grant from US WEST and support provided by ESU19 and ESU3
our students
participated in a research project studying the implementation of Virtual
Reality into the science curriculum. We evaluated several of the
University of Washington's HIT lab VR applications including ChemWorld.
To find out more about the
Virtual Reality Roving Vehicle
Project check out this excellent site maintained by Terry Wolfe.
My Favorite Internet Stops
- The science
educator is a great resource for all areas of science.
-
Teachers interested in teaching a
Genetics unit would find this site useful.
- Hubble Space Telescope
has the lastest press release about what is happening with the Hubble Space
Telescope.
- Take a look at Omaha
Publics Schools' Home Page to learn about the exciting things going on in our
school district.
- For learning more about the mapping of genes Flybase-Drosophila.
- For a wide
variety of interesting internet links, try Yahoo.
-
A great site for teachers interested in learning more about
Computational Science
in education.
-
The
CEARCH Virtual Schoolhouse
has a meta-library of K-12 links categorized by subject.
-
Access Excellence is an excellent site for biology teachers.
Classroom and lab activities, interviews with prominent biologists and
research updates are just a few of the things you will encounter at
this site.
-
K-16 Science Education is an excellent site for science teachers.
It serves as a clearinghouse of software and websites pertaining to
physical, earth and life sciences, mathematics and engineering.
Additional sources include Martindale's Health Science Guide and
Reference Desk.
- The
Biologist's Web Resource Page is a good molecular biology resource.
- The
Tree of Life is a new phylogenetically-based resource that
encompasses all
kingdoms of living things.
-
Biologist's Control Panel is another good molecular biology
resource.
- The
RSE Home Page is a the Home Page of the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications program which brings visiting educators to
develop technology-based materials and curricula.
- The
Discovery Channel Online is an enjoyable, educational site that
changes daily. Science and Nature sections are particularly well done.
-
Biological WWW Sites is just what it says...
- The
The WWW Virtual Biology Library is a great resource for research,
student or teacher.
- The
Biodiversity and Biological Collections WWW Server is a useful
database of organisms in a number of different kingdoms.
- An excellent source of health information is the
World Health Organization WWW Home Page.
- An ever-changing biology-based website is the
CSUBIOWEB.
- The
Environmental Protection Agency WWW Home Page provides a huge
number of links to environmental and legal resources.
- The largest environmentally oriented WWW site is
EnviroWeb. Great graphics and information.
- Netscape's Internet
search engines (InfoSeek, Lycos, WebCrawler, W3 and CUSI) make up
the most useful resource I've found up to this point.
- Anyone looking for a well-organized and concise site with lots of
info and great links will find the Chemistry
Teacher Resources site fantastic.
- For a wide variety of interesting internet links, try Yahoo.
Elaine
Westbrook, ewestbro@ops.ops.org