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Caroline Wittman (Virginia) January 31, 2011 Overview Ology is a fun website that allows children to collect virtual trading cards and use them to make online projects as they learn about different science topics. The list of topics is varied, including anthropology, archeology, astronomy, biodiversity, the brain, climate change, earth science, genetics, marine biology, paleontology, water, and zoology. Each area presents a plethora of interactive applications for children to explore: games, animations, quizzes, and suggestions and guidance for completing simple offline science investigations and experiments. There are also book lists and other helpful internet sources that can be consulted for further information. Content Ology is sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History. Accordingly, information was accurate and up-to-date. It was also well organized and communicated on a level that elementary school age children can understand and relate to. Information is also in line with what is covered in the typical elementary school science curriculum. Although specific authors of articles are not usually listed, it is easy to find contact information for the sponsoring organization. Links to other internet resources were relevant and informative. Overall, the content of the site serves to ignite children's curiosity about the natural world. Design The Ology homepage, as well as its interactive applications, downloaded quickly. The overall design is appealing to elementary school children, incorporating lots bright colors and bold shapes. Navigation is simple, even for young children. The major areas of the site are located in an obvious place on the homepage. Information is easy to locate within each of these areas. Directions for games and other interactive content are very straightforward and explained clearly. Close inspection reveals that each detail of the site's design works toward enhancing children's learning.

Shelley Limegrover January 22, 2011 OVERVIEW The second site I evaluated was phet.colorado.edu. This site contains interactive simulations of math and natural science concepts relevant to all grade levels including college. This site is intended primarily for Teachers. Besides science simulations, the site contains suggested classroom activities and lesson plans corresponding to the simulations. All content can be downloaded or run directly from the site. CONTENT The content and intended audience of the site is made immediately clear on the first page. More detailed information about the intent of the site as well as about the authors and sponsors is made available via a list of links at the bottom of the homepage. The information on the site is not immediately easy to understand. However, this is remedied by instructions and suggested uses of all the content on the page. The site also offers dates for teacher workshops so that they may learn how to apply the material. As I mentioned in the overview, this site is primarily for teachers. A student would not be able to navigate through the material effectively without guidance. DESIGN The homepage downloads quickly and is clear of distraction. A simple navigation bar is provided at the bottom of the page. No scrolling is necessary to see it. The copyright date is clearly identified though dates of last revision are not. There are no broken links and all material appears to be up-to-date. The format of all pages is consistent and a navigation bar is always present. The site was compatible with all three browsers that I had available to test. The simulations are neatly presented on a single page, searchable by subject matter or grade level. There are no unnecessary graphics or video files on other pages of the site.

A website full of interactive games for math, english, science, etc.

Overview: This site is all about interactive and fun games to help enhance learning for elementary school-aged children. You can sing songs, play games in math, language arts and vocab. It is child friendly so you can easily find what it is you want to play. Content: The author is not very clear but at the bottom lest side of the page shows the sponsor which is Time4Learning, a online home educational program for homeschooling, afterschool and summer learning. There are links to all the different activities the site has to offer from fun interactive learning games to free worksheets to online learning. The content is mainly the focus for elementary aged kids. It provides the needs to teach and help children learn new concepts and refresh old ones. The information is consistent and updated frequently. Design: The design is fun and appealing for kids. There are pictures to go along with the links which make it easy to navigate and know exactly were to go. Everything loaded fine and had extra places to visit for extra help.

Overview: This website provides games for young learners to explore even before they reach classroom age and throughout the early elementary years. The website covers several subject areas including but not limited to Health, Spelling, Animals, Science, Math, Art, Geography, and Literature. The games are fun and challenging. Content: There are games for young learners that are both challenging and entertaining in a wide variety of topics. Each topic has sub topics and then a multitude of game options for that sub topic. There are illustrations of cartoons throughout the site. The author is not clearly identified but the sponsor is. The website links to other young children's websites and cartoon television shows. Design: The amount of subjects and then sub-subjects is outstanding. The entire website is geared towards young children which is not only seen through the illustrations but also through the advertisements. The games are easy to get into the first time but after you have gone into one of them it is difficult to get back out to the website's main menu. While it has links for the subjects it doesn't have links such as home, about, contacts that may be helpful additions. A copyright is not readily available. The directions for the games are clear and concise.

Adrianne Lauman September 02, 2011 Overview The purpose of this free website is to provide knowledge and awareness of North American bird species and their habitat. The site encourages people to make connections to science and nature through bird watching. The information is directed toward people of all ages who have an interest or curiosity to learn more regarding ornithology. Video clips, audio clips, colorful photos, range maps and life histories are available for investigating bird species. The site provides expert knowledge on the subject of birds in a clear and visually pleasing manner. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology developed this website and the National Science Foundation supports it. Content The site appears well organized with a visible heading to initiate a search for information on bird species. The search feature has an automatic fill in based on the first letters typed to allow the user to locate the bird of interest. Interactive selections allow a person to listen to bird sounds, as well as watch video footage of the bird. The site provides opportunities to "ask an expert" about topics concerning ornithology and information on how to participate in bird projects. One project named Feeder Watch allows people to send in their own data based on their bird watching experiences. Design The website has clear headings to locate topics and information. The copyright information and developer of the site are displayed at the bottom of each page. The photos of the birds are eye-catching and appealing. The information provided by the site is abundant and well worth viewing.

John Ripley 9/12/11 Web Rangers Overview: This site is produced by the National Park Service (Department of the Interior) and I found it through the Yellowstone National Park website. It is listed under the heading "for kids" on the YNP homepage. The intended audience is kids, and not necessarily kids who have been to YNP or any other park. Content is varied and covers several different fields pertaining to history and natural science mostly. Content: The basic content of the site is not immediately clear, but once you navigate into the site a table of contents appears. While I could not find a date for the most recent revision, all the links of the site worked properly and I have no reason to think that anything on the site is out of date. The information is accurate as far as I can tell and fairly diverse. There are several different games under each subject heading. Design: This website looks like it was designed by the National Park Service with the logo in the top right corner of each page and the colors of the NPS on all the pages. The home page is not especially catchy and if I were not doing this assignment I would not go wandering around this site. However, once you get into the site to the contents and the games it gets a little more interesting. It's still not what I'd call exciting though.

Overview: The National Geographic website is informational and entertaining it is Is full of startling photography and mind-expanding writing on space, the environment, animals, and even world music. Its purpose is to inform people on interesting news and events along with many entertaining stories and topics. Its intended audience is for anyone and everyone even a link for children. Content: There is so much content and information on this site. On the homepage there are top stories, videos, photos, and polls. There are tabs to photography, environment, travel, adventure, National Geographic TV, kids, and shop. There are also links to the magazine, news, animals, science, video, education, maps, games, music, blogs, movies, in the field, and a site index. When you access the site is easy to determine the content and intended audience. There is available information about the authors and researches for the different articles. The information is always constantly being updated and revised so nothing is out of date. The links also are easy to use and work properly. The information and content presented is not biased and achieves the intended purpose of informing and entertaining Design: The design of the National geographic website is very organized and easy to navigate through its many links of information. It is full of eye-catching photos and colorful links and tabs. It is easy to read and very understandable and accessible. The website downloads efficiently and the site is appealing and grabs tor attention. There is a site index and search box. The sites also provide copyright informational the provider is clearly identified. The links are clear and helpful and all the information including the photos videos and articles serve a clear purpose to the site.

This website is highly recommended in the world of educators. National Geographic is a well-known magazine. The purpose of the site is to make their information more accessible. When looking for an article for a science report this is a good site to go to. The audience for National Geographic is from 5-100; they have articles designed for young children but also sophisticated articles for a more mature audience. Also on this website if you wanted a hard copy of the magazine you could subscribe. My overall impression was very good. The content of the website is easy to maneuver around and find. Because National Geographic is a well-known magazine you know that the information presented is reliable and accurate. The website has access to games and videos to further explore the concepts.  As for design, it scores just as high as content. The homepage is appealing to look at and easy to use. When searching for a topic many articles come up giving many different perspectives one could choose from. The site has many colorful pictures that make your research more appealing to conduct.  Overall this website is very well designed and easy to use. 

Cells are expert recyclers. They disassemble large molecules into simpler building blocks and then use those building blocks to create the new components they require. The breaking down of complex organic molecules occurs via catabolic pathways and usually involves the release of energy.

Brienna Gregor 10/11/12 Overview: This site would work best for students from late elementary to high school levels (5-12). This website is intended to help students and other educators understand the underlying factors of predicting volcanic eruptions. Available resources provided include: Melting Rock, Dynamic Earth, Judging Hazards, Forecasting, Coping with Risk, and more. Initially I predicted that this website wasn't going to do well in the content standards because the design standards were a little bit lacking compared to other sites however, I have come to find that this website is a very handy tool and does well in both content and design standards. Content: This website is very good in that its information is always up to date, the information quality is great, and it provides more information. Some sites lack in giving the viewer options to leave the site and look at links that are provided. This website does lead viewers to learn out of their site in a constructive way while instilling learning on their site as well. Design: This website isn't the most appealing to the eye after following the introductory page. Despite this fact, it is fast, easy to navigate, and uses videos as a media source. It gets the job done in fulfilling its purpose by instilling the idea that natural disasters, such as volcanoes, can be predicted (not stopped) and then can lead to less of a disaster through preparation. Information is what is most important in educational websites and I believe this website is great due to that aspect.

Overview Garbology is an interactive online game that is designed for educators to use with their kids to learn about waste. I think this game would be best used with kids that are in upper elementary or middle school but you could expand that age range. It is intended to increase awareness of garbage, recycling, composting, and nature conservancy. This website is well designed and easy to operate. It is clear that they have a lot of resources put into this site.

http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/ Reviewed by Angela Eiden 8/31/2010 Overview This site was created by Crayola, the crayon maker. It is designed for kids and teachers alike. There are literally thousands of coloring pages for teachers and children to choose through. This site also includes features such as craft ideas and games for the youngsters. The site is fairly easy to sort through, once the desired page is found simply print and color. There are also hundreds of craft ideas to sort through. There are step by step instructions for each and every craft idea. The game page is loaded with fun and interesting games and ideas for those of all ages. This site is fairly easy to navigate through and it is very age appropriate. Content The only sponsor listed on this site is Crayola due to the fact that this site was designed and created by Crayola. This site does have a copyright listed through Crayola LLC. Furthermore, there are several logos that are copyrighted within the site. There are no outside links to other sites due to the extent of the Crayola content throughout the site. The site is quite useful in the educational information for the younger elementary students. And the content is extremely age appropriate for the intended audience. Design This site has a solid design for the intended audience. It is extremely colorful due to the nature of the creators, Crayola. Furthermore, the background theme plays off of the original theme of the Crayola box.

Photo courtesy Shutterstock. There are four basic mechanisms by which biological evolution takes place. These include mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection. Each of these four mechanisms are capable of altering the frequencies of genes in a population and as a result, they all are capable of driving descent with modification.

The purpose of this site is to interactively be able to learn and create a food web. The specific audience of this site is students around a middle or elementary level. I thought that it was a good website to use interactive learning techniques to learn and review the dynamics of food web interactions. This site is a good introductory level basis for learning about food webs and how different organisms interact with each other. Content It could be a good site to use as a whole class as a supplement to the lesson and have the kids tell you where to put the different organisms and how to link them together. I would hesitate to make this site an activity in class outside of using it to augment the original lesson. Design The design of this site was very simple as well as easy to use. The people that set it up did a good job of making this site accessible to anyone. It had good help menus that would help you navigate the site with ease if you ever got tripped up trying to use the site.

Kids.gov Michelle Petty, January 22, 2011 Overview: This website is aimed at students, ages K-8, and educators. For educators, it offers a wide range of information on topics from science, math, social studies, and health. It then access sites that are relevant to the topic selected and gives links to other sites on a variety of topics within each broad category. For students, it offers them a similar experience. They can go to social studies, and then pick current events, maps, natural history, U.S. studies and world studies depending on what they're studying. This site is great because it offers a variety of information under every category. It is easy to navigate and has very reliable and dependable sources to back its information. Content: The site is very easy to navigate; the top has tabs for students' breaking it down for grades k-5, grades 6-8, and educators. At the bottom of the homepage there is a link to an about us which gives information on the site, who maintains it and who provides the information. The Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC) out of Pueblo, Colorado, maintains this site and if that weren't enough information it gives a link to the Pueblo site. This site is mainly links to other educational pages, but it is easy to understand and use. It is aimed at all educational branches, and provides educational sites as well as fun game sites. I would use this site in a classroom setting, because it is educational and easy to use. Design: The design of this website is pretty straightforward. It is basic which makes it easy for all ages to use, and all of the links lead to the site promised without advertisements popping up. There isn't a table of content, but it is broken down into such specific categories, that a table of contents is not necessary. The date of last revision is found on the about us tab and is clearly labeled along with who maintains the site and how to contact them. A simple, yet effective site that

Overview: This site offers all kinds of learning for kids from reading.math,writing to health and fun games to help you learn. You learn about art, music and even money. It is a great learning tool for all kids to have access to. Content: The site has many different links that you can visit but organizes them in groups so it is easier to navigate. This site provides all kinds of useful information for kids and educators. Kids can play fun and interactive games for fun learning on all kinds of topics. They can also learn about everday matters like healthy habits. The author is well recognized on the site as well as sponsor. The information is shown in a way that kids can comphrend the material. Design: The homepage is colorful and has pictures. It keeps you interested in learning with its fun graphics. Every link was well laid out and could be found easily for kids. It is frequently revised so the information is up to date.

Emily Hastings Reviewed 2/5/12 Kids.gov Purpose: The purpose of this website is to provide students with links to other educational and governmental websites for kids. Intended Audience: This site is intended for Kindergarten through eighth grade. Available Resources: This site has many resources available. That is what the purpose of this site is, to link you to other useful and educational websites. Overall Review: This website is easy to use, making it worthwhile. The information is presented clearly and simply making it easy to navigate from one link to the other. It also includes a navigation bar and a site map which are both very useful. The links have great information and do not take long to get to. There are no dead ends, and they bring you to what they say they will. This website is a great resource for finding educational sites. Overview: This site has a link for k-5, 6-8, and teachers with endless links to educational sites. It is extremely organized and very helpful when looking for sites. Content: The content of this site is for students in need of educational websites. It is a great resource for that purpose. When clicked on, the link opens quickly and the information is accurate and educational. It has many links for websites of all different subjects. Design: The design of this website isn't very eye catching, but is welcoming because it is so simple to use. You don't need directions on how to use the site. It is very organized and makes looking for these links easy. It provides you with a site map which is a list of everything in the site, which is very useful as well.

John Pokallus 31 January 2011 Overview: The Ecological Society of America - Ecosphere publication site is an online-only, peer-reviewed journal created to foster prompt publication of scientific findings in the field of ecology. The intended audience of this site consists of professional, or student researches within academia, government agencies, or other private companies that are involved in the broad field of ecology. The resources available are a collection of scientific publications that have been submitted to Ecosphere and accepted after a peer-revision process. Additional resources include links to other journals that are associated with more specific aspects of ecology. This site is very well organized and easy to navigate; the content information is credible and relevant to the intended audience. Content: At first look, the basic content of Ecosphere is easily discernable and it is stated explicitly in a brief paragraph titled "About Ecosphere" located immediately under the title-banner of the site. That same paragraph implies the intended audience via the selected language used to describe the site. Information providers are clearly identified for all publications and contact information is provided. We can assume that all content providers are qualified in the subject matter due to the rigorous peer-review that all publications are subjected to. All information on the site is dated and relevant to the demography of the intended audience and updated on a monthly basis. Information quality is superb and everything is well organized. Further information is available and related sites are linked under the title-banner of the homepage. Design: No errors occurred while downloading the homepage and it did so very efficiently. The basic design of the homepage was appealing and very simple, leaving no uncertainties about the content or location of information within the site. Ecosphere did not provide directions for navigating the site; however, I belie

Elise Verley September 9, 2011 http://www.ecoliteracy.org/ Overview: This site is dedicated to schooling for sustainability, which they have branded "Smart by Nature". They offer resources to teachers to learn how to teach their students how to live sustainably. The site houses a series of essays, books, activities, lessons and resource listings to use as a basis for teaching students to live sustainably. They also offer seminars and workshops that educators may attend. This site is an excellent resource for a "Green" education Content: It was great to see a place where it was easy to find sources for Ecoliteracy. They offered resources in many different topics including: Climate change, health and nutrition, pollution, population and may others. It impressed me that they were interested in creating a relationship with educators to continue to offer them ongoing support. Design: The web design of this site is user friendly and easy to navigate. The top navigational menu made it easy to find the topic you were looking for. Then the sub-navigational menus allowed me to zoom in on essays and events on particular topics. The contact information was listed many places on the site, encouraging educators to interact with this growing community.