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"What kinds of questions make for good inquiry-based projects? As we said, they must first be questions that the kids truly care about because they come up with them themselves. In addition, good questions share the following characteristics: The questions must be answerable. "What is the poem 'Dream Deferred' based on?" is answerable. "Why did Langston Hughes write it?" may be answerable if such information exists, or if the students have some relevant and defensible opinions. "Why did he choose this particular word in line six?" is not answerable because the only person likely to know such a specific answer is Hughes himself, now deceased. The answer cannot be a simple fact. "In what year was Lincoln killed?" doesn't make for a very compelling project because you can just look it up in any number of books or Web sites. "What factors caused the assassination attempt?" might be a good project because it will require research, interpretation, and analysis. The answer can't already be known. "What is hip-hop music?" is a bit too straightforward and the kids are not likely to learn much more than they know already. "What musical styles does hip-hop draw from and how?" offers more opportunity for exploration. The questions must have some objective basis for an answer. "Why is the sky blue?" can be answered through research. "Why did God make the sky blue?" cannot because it is a faith-based question. Both are meaningful, valid, real questions, but the latter isn't appropriate for an inquiry-based project. "What have people said about why God made the sky blue?" might be appropriate. Likewise, "Why did the dinosaurs become extinct?" is ultimately unanswerable in that form because no humans were around to know for sure, but "What do scientists believe was the reason for their extinction?" or "What does the evidence suggest about the cause?" will work. Questions based on value judgments don't work for similar reasons. You can't objectively answer "Is Hamle

Time lapse mosaic of the sky over San Francisco over 365 days. Mesmerising.

Project Blue Sky allows instructors to search, select, and seamlessly integrate Open Educational Resources with Pearson learning materials.

Stellarium is a free open source planetarium for your computer. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope.

"n brief, because there are a lot of tricky steps to get oil from inside the Earth to inside, say, your gas tank. Oil spills can be caused by the accidental or intentional release of any form of petroleum during any point in the oil production process, from drilling, refining, or storing to transporting. Oil can be spilled when a pipeline breaks, ships collide or are grounded (as happened earlier this month along the Great Barrier Reef), underground storage tanks leak, or in the current case, when an oil rig explodes or is damaged. IN PICTURES: Big Environmental Disasters Some oil was spilled when the Deepwater Horizon rig first burst into flames on April 20 in the Gulf, injuring crew members and sending a billowing plume of black smoke into the sky that could be seen by satellite. The oil rig, located about 51 miles (82 kilometers) southeast of Venice, La., then sank into the Gulf waters Thursday morning, creating concern that more oil could spill. Oil spills can also happen naturally: Oil is released into the ocean from natural oil seeps on the seafloor. The best known such seep is Coal Oil Point along the California coast where an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 gallons (7,570 to 11,400 liters) of crude oil is released each day."

Positive results of a recent evaluation of the mobile phone game, 9 Minutes, that was produced as part of the "Half the Sky Movement". The game was developed for feature phones commonly used in India and East Africa. 9 Minutes plays out the adventure of pregnancy and rewards pregnant women and their spouses for keeping both mother-to-be and the baby inside her healthy and happy.

20% Time GeniusHour Blue Sky Self-Directed Learning Project proposal form for student's self-directed projects

Are you looking for ways to inspire your students using the Hubble Space Telescope? Visit our showcase to see what other educators are using-formal lesson plans, blogs, games and presentations-the sky is the limit! Join us on Twitter

Amaze your class by showing them the International Space Station in the sky. This site shows you when it is visable. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

Stargazing Live is a wonderful BBC programme on air in January. The site has lots of great resources to help you understand the night's sky. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

The best way to know what is happening in the sky.

Blog post exploring the opportunities for professional development

Shows nice, simple pics of constellations around polaris in different seasons as well as animation. Nice descriptions of stellar movement. 

A easy to use, versatile mapping tool. Students can annotate and draw on the maps. Great with an interactive whiteboard. Because this site uses Google Maps you can not only use a map of Earth, but the Moon, Mars and the sky too. Great for Sci-Fi creative writing. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE,+RE,+Citizenship,+Geography+&+Environmental

Microsoft has begun to lift the 2 GB file limit restriction on OneDrive cloud storage accounts.

The now infamous computer hacks infuriated consumers who had personal information compromised and Hollywood honchos who had embarrassing emails made public. But headline-grabbing computer intrusions are only a fraction of what is going on in the Wild West of cybercrime. According to Nextgov, the online resource for federal technology decision makers, energy giant BP faces 50,000 attempts at cyberintrusion a day. The Pentagon? Ten million a day. The National Nuclear Security Administration? Another 10 million. Dramatic websites from two major computer security companies, Norse Corp. (http://map.ipviking.com) and Kaspersky Lab (https://cybermap.kasper sky.com) display vivid real-time maps of ongoing cyberwarfare being waged around the globe. That has sparked a mad dash for cybersecurity experts - and another mad dash to recruit and educate students in that field.