Teaching Resources


Evolution

Understanding Evolution
An excellent learning and teaching site produced by the University of California Museum of Paleontology with support from the National Science Foundation. A thorough site with easy navigation, excellent illustrations, teacher guides, sample quizzes, etc. This site covers all of the important aspects and evidences of evolution. A real gem!

Evolution, a journey into where we are from and where we are going
Public Broadcasting System indexed to many topics on evolution and science; an authoritative resource.

How Evolution Works
From the Science Stuff section of the How Stuff Works web site.

EvoTutor
Interactive simulations for teaching evolution. Downloadable.

EVOLUTION RESOURCES FOR TEACHING K - 12
Provided by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). Has many links to NSF funded sites, statements by scientific socieities, forums, interviews, lessons, etc.

Evolution vs Intelligent Design: An Excellent Summary
The expert witness report of Dr. Kevin Padian prepared for the Dover, PA Kitzmiller trial is a fairly succinct and to the point demolition of all of the major ID arguments. Padian's examples willShubin's Your Inner Fish Free Slides make good teaching tools. Anyone seeking refutation of ID arguments will find solid, clear arguments here.

Dembski's 'Intelligent Design' Questions for Teachers: Answered
By Wes Elsberry. Excellent and valid responses to questions students may ask about IDist claims

Darwin Educators Guide
The American Museum of Natural History teaching guide to the exhibit on Darwin with correlates to National and State teaching standards.

Evolution Research News
News, research, links, books, archives since 1997, on-line journals.

Complete Works of Darwin
The complete works of Darwin including his correspondence and with images. Largest collection of his writings ever assembled.

EXPLORING LIFE'S ORIGINS
Molecular illustration and animation describe origins of life research and theories to broad audiences. Illustrations and animations may be downloaded in the Resources for Educators section. Excellent site funded by NSF.

Innovative Teaching of Evolution
The Guardian has this video up on innovative approaches to teaching evolution by Adam Rutherford.

Evolution of Evolution
"Going wide and deep, Evolution of Evolution: 150 Years of Darwin's On the Origin of Species provides a uniquely sweeping, at-a-glance explanation of how Origin cut an intellectual swath through anthropology, biology, the geosciences, polar sciences and even astronomy, and why it likely will continue to serve as the organizing framework for the sciences into perpetuity." OU's Department of Geology and Geosciences Lynn Soreghan is featured in the introductory video.

Smithsonian Human Origins Program
A new web site focused on human origins. It includes a good deal of material on the evidence (behavior, fossils, genetics, and dating) and Smithsonian's research projects, along with what looks like a very useful set of education resources including lesson plans for teachers, a teachers forum, and student resources including an interactive mystery skull interactive exercise.

Darwin's Web Ring
Links to many Darwin and evolution websites.

Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science
Teacher's handbook.

McGraw-Hill Evolution Links
Offers very good sources of information from a variety of published sources.

The Scopes Monkey Trial
History of the famous trial, the Tennessee Butler Act, aftermath of the trial, Questions and answers, all from a British perspective.

Evolution and the Nature of Science Institutes
Includes lots of teacher-devloped lessons.

The Tree of Life
An online phylogeny project that continues to grow with thousands of pages and is database-driven. Visitors can create custom pages with glossary, images, etc.

Stephen Jay Gould Archive
Writings by Gould and others this site also has a multimedia section with interviews of Gould and other evolution experts. Links to some full-text versions of Gould's books, etc.

Evolution Matters
From The University of California San Diego this is an excellent series of video lectures on the scientific understanding of evolution from plants to humans. Highly recommended.

Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish Free Slides
Compiled figures from the book as a deck of PowerPoint slides for use in the classroom. All slides from this popular work on evolution are available for free for lectures.

Evolver Zone
A wide range of resources on evolution, including online databases, software, teaching resources, multimedia and games.

Correcting some common misrepresentations of evolution in textbooks and the media
Kevin Padian's recommendations to teachers and popular and textbook writers on how to clarify some evolution concepts that are frequently misrepresented.

Stated Clearly
Our Mission is simple. To promote the art of critical thinking by exposing people from all walks of life, to the simple beauty of science. We do this by taking complicated scientific topics and creating short, information rich animations that explain the topic in clear language.

Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES)
The Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES) will give middle school teachers the tools they need to effectively teach evolution and answer its critics. Based on new Next Generation Science Standards, the foundation has developed full-day workshops, free to middle school teachers.

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Climate & Earth Science

Climate teaching resources from NOAA
The collections under this theme are developed to improve Climate Literacy and to provide access to scientific information, which can inform personal decisions about actions that influence climate.

Teaching Climate Change: Lessons from the Past
From the Science Education Research Center at Carleton College. This site allows educators to locate and use the best resources for teaching about Earth's climate system and the changing climate over the past one million years. Here you will find climate data, visualizations, teaching activities, workshops and more.

Teach Climate Change: Classroom Resources for Teachers
Climate change is an important environmental challenge facing the world today. We recognise that teachers want to engage with the subject and grasp the complexity of the topic to enable them to teach it. This website aims to be a comprehensive and authoritative tool allowing teachers to select the most appropriate resource for their needs.

Global Warming Education
Science, Solutions -- Directory of Vetted Resources & Programs from climatechangeeducation.org.

Teachers Guide on Climate Change and Global Warming
This guide points K-12 educators to the best sites for teaching about climate change: several that offer first rate background material, and others that include detailed lesson plans and experiments. It begins with Top Ten Things You Need to Know about Global Warming and a note about why there is so much controversy surrounding this issue.

Teaching Resources for Climate Change Education
Course of Study in Understanding Climate Change from Australia.

Practical Action: Climate Change
Class activities and images from a UK charity site.

Earth Exploration Toolbox
Detailed instructions for teachers and students to use real data to explore Earth. Thirteen chapters written by teachers and researchers guide students through exercises.

Energize Your Future
From Shell Oil. For middle and high school students and teachers with worksheets, lesson ideas and more on energy.

Jetstream - An Online School for Weather
National Oceanic and Atmosphericc Administration (NOAA). site provides comprehensive colorful illustrated curricula to help teach about Earh atmosphere. Includes complete lesson plans and review questions.

All About Water
The USGS water web site for schools. Water cycle information and diagram and Follow a Drop of water link.

Encyclopedia of Earth
This is a good online resource for articles and pictures. Search by topic to find information for Biodiversity, Energy, Ecology, etc.

All Weather is Good
The library at the University of Oklahoma's National Weather Center web site provides useful weather and climate Web sites, books, and a webliography, for high school students and adults.

USGS (US Geological Survey) Video and Animations
This database makes available videos and animation from the USGS research. Videos such as Distribution of Bats and Tracking Animal movement in Alaska would be useful for student discussion and prediction of behavior of animals.

Alliance for Climate Education
ACE is an award-winning national nonprofit dedicated to educating America's high school students about the science behind climate change and inspiring them to do something about it–while having fun along the way.

National Park Service Teachers Resources
Lesson plans on climate change and other subjects from the National Park Service.

A Student's Guide to Global Climate Change
From EPA. Includes teacher resources, a FAQ about climate change, and lots of other fun stuff.

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Biology

Biology Animations
Collection of lively visuals to help students understand key processes. From North Harris College in Houston this site also has more than 100 links to other teaching animations.

Action Bioscience
From the American Institute of Biological Sciences. Good site for teaching materials on evolution, but has many other resources for biology instruction.

Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS)
Develops inquiry-based science curricula. Site has downloadable curriculum modules, catalog, annual report, job opportunities, professional development opportunities.

BioQuest Curriculum Consortium
Promotes useful curriculum innovation through simulations, data sets, and analytical tools.

The eSkeletons Project
Human and primate comparative anatomy of skeletons in 2D and 3D.

Learn Genetics
From Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah. A graphics-rich tutorial for teachers, high schooland beginningcollege students.

Understanding Genetics
Interactive exhibits on a variety of topics in genetics.

Species Crawl
By entering a species name or even a common name, this link will return information links and even images.

Discover Life
A field guide and biological encyclopedia rolled into one with free on-line tools, identification of species, ways to teach, etc. A major work in progress, it already covers almost 278,000 species.

BioEd Online
Download more than 30 slide sets from cloning to population ecology from Baylor College of Medicine. Most designed for high school, some for introductory college level. More than 40 video lectures and a 'hot topics' current issues tab and news stories from Nature.

What's That Bug?
Photos to identify bugs—aphids to worms.

Biology4kids
Lots of coverage of plants and animals with quizzes and more.

Neuroscience for Kids
A highly rated site with resources and games.

Biofilms
Information and lab activities for the study of biofilms from Penn State University.

NOAA Corals Discovery Kit
Designed for high school teachers and students,lesson plans focus on coral reef biology.

Cell City WebQuest
Interesting and unique way to study cell parts.

Ask A Biologist
An excellent and easy resource. Kids, teachers - anyone - can fire off a quick question that gets tucked into the database, and then someone on their team of volunteer professionals will try to answer it. There are some big names on that list!

Microbe Library
New resources have been added to The American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) MicrobeLibrary. They include a new issue of Focus on Microbiology Education that emphasizes bioinformatics and microbial genomics, and a new article in the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education on a student project to examine complex traits in Drosophila. Three new curriculum activities and three new visual resources are also available for downloading.

Free Biology Videos/Lessons
From Virginia Commonwealth University 50 excellent and free videos/lessons on a wide variety of life science subjects. Supported by the National Academy of Sciences and Pfizer Foundation.

Learn Genetics web site
There is an amazing animation on the cell called Amazing Cells (click teachers resources top right hand box. Lots of great teacher resources are provided.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute website
Has teacher resources available including animations, video clips, and activities. Topics include Evolution, DNA, RNA, Immunology, Infectious Diseases and more. Titles under Evolution topic include Dog Breeding and a fun Fruit Fly Courtship clip. Animation under the topic DNA features replication, transcription, translation, Chargaff's ratio, etc. Click the Topic link at the top for a dropdown list.

Biotechnology: A Life Sciences Online Resource Guide
From the University of Illinois at Chicago's Health Informatics and Health Information Management Department. Includes a link to a Glossary of Biotechnology terms and lots of other useful links.

Access Excellence
Resource for high school biology teachers with interactive forums, science updates, graphics center, biology education online, many others.

The Biology Project
Extensive interactive resources for high school and introductory college courses.

Planting Science
Hands-on plant investigations with teachers and botanists from around the country.

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Dinosaurs & Paleontology

Find Dinosaur Pictures
Many images of dinosaurs in this lode of links, many are downloadable for teaching purposes.

Animated Dinosaurs

Virtual Fossil Museum
Educational resource with high quality pictures and information on geological sites, paleobiology, phylogenetics and evolutionary biology.

Paleography and Geologic Evolution of North America
Maps that track the ancient landscapes of North America.

Dinosaurs from BBC
From the BBC's Nature: Prehistoric Life series.

Dinosaurs: Facts and Fiction
From the U. S. Geological Survey.

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Physics & Chemistry

Physics Law School
Defines and explains laws of physics with physics glossary that explains ideas and terms.

I Love Physics
Designed for everyone from high school up. Timely examples for the classroom.

Physics Classroom
Learn basic physics concepts and review them in this excellent tutorial. Contains quizzes that are adaptable for teachers.

American Chemical Society: Chemistry for Life—Education page
An excellent site for chemistry for students and teachers.

Star Light, Star Bright
Created for upper elementary and middle school students, this site explores the nature of the electromagnetic spectrum. Students identify properties of waves, energy, wavelength, and frequency. An educator's guide is available.

Home experiments on scifun.org
A chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has developed a collection of simple science activities.

The Physics Front.org
The Physics Front is an online library of physics and astronomy resources whose goal is to provide enhanced accessibility to peer-reviewed quality physics teaching resources for all pre-college teachers of physics and the physical sciences with special support for new and "cross-over" teachers of all levels of science. The collection contains references, lesson plans, activities, labs, assessments and best teaching practices all searchable by subject and course type. Users can also contribute to this dynamic and growing online physics teacher community by sharing, accessing and archiving exemplary teacher-designed materials.

Physics To Go
A collection of more than 550 carefully selected online resources for informal physics learning, and it has great potential value for teachers as well. The homepage features "Physics in Your World" and "From Physics Research" present striking images, with links to related sites that discuss the physics, and both features can be useful as examples of the application of physics concepts.

The Science Behind Aircraft Flight
The physics of flight is explained for various types of aircraft.

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General Science

Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education
ENC Online is a K-12 math and science teacher center.

Science Net Links
Comprehensive help for K-12 science teachers and sponsored by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Lessons, tools, resources, benchmarks.

Try Science
For ages 8-14 with interactive material from more than 400 museums from around the World.

Live Science
Up to date science news with a few humorous entries and lots of fascinating and useful materials.

Science Daily
News on all things scientific with breaking news, the day's top stories, and sections for various fields of science.

EDC Science Education
From the Education Development Center. For the improvement and support of science education reform nationwide. Provides list (and links) for resources for educators through high school level and more.

Teaching Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy

National Science Teaching Standards
For evolution and the living environment.

SETI INSTITUTE
Mission of SETI is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe. Education programs and links for teachers are provided.

Virtual Coursework for Inquiry-based Science Education
A wide variety of excellent teaching aids from California State University, Los Angeles.

Learning Science.org
The LearningScience.org web site provides free, high quality, newer and emerging Web interactive learning tools of science education based on National Science Education Standards (NAS, 1996).

Math and Science Digital Laboratory
Teaching tips based on national teaching standards, resources for lesson plans and much more. Project was funded by National Science Foundation.

BrainyKids
Another good site on science for parents, students and teachers.

National Geographic Science and Space Web Site
Features many articles, quizzes, features on health and human body,earth,space, prehistoric world and more.

Teachers' Domain
PBS site of multimedia resources for the classroom and professional development. The site contains teaching materials that can be used in conjunction with NOVA programs. Currently featured are resources for the NOVA segment Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, the excellent NOVA about the Dover Trial.

Understanding Science
An excellent site for what science is and how it works. Includes resources for teachers and easy for students to use.

The Why Files
Science behind the current news.

Science in School
On-line magazine featuring teaching activities, scientist profiles and more.

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General Education

Top Teaching Resources
Operated by Merit Software. Offers lots of links to useful teaching resources. Lists grants and funding sites for teachers.

Free Online Graph Paper
From incompetech. Downloadable and very printable.

Smithsonian Education
This new Smithsonian site aligns more than 1,200 free educational resources to standards of learning in every state.

World of Teaching Powerpoints
Free presentations for biology, chemistry, math, English, physics, history, geography, Spanish.

Highlights for High Schools resources
The Web site created by MIT offers free video, audio, and print lectures and course material taken straight from the school's classes. Those resources target K-12 teachers and students.

Wiki-Teacher
Created by the Clark County Schools in Nevada but open to all, this website features K-8 lesson and unit plans that are searchable by topic, level, and textbook. There are also short video clips.

teAchnology
This site has 28,000 free lesson plans for K-12 teachers and a variety of tips, printable worksheets, and games for all subjects.

Curriki
his site has searchable collections of math, science, language arts, and social studies lesson plans and activities for all grades. Teachers can also contribute resources.

BBC Schools on Line
Voted as best online learning source in 2000.

Top Online Courses on the Web
A free and comprehensive resource that is a collection of open college courses that spans videos, audio lectures, and notes given by professors at Harvard, Princeton and MIT. They offer highly relevant courses such as iPhone Application Development from Stanford and Cyber Humor from Oxford.

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If you have questions about the website, please e-mail dhough@ou.edu