Useful Information In and Out of the Classroom 6/30/2023

Here are some interesting sites that I’ve found this week, thanks to my PLN. As a teacher, I feel we have to keep up to date concerning research in our field and current issues in the education system. I hope some of these inspire you, inform you, and even have you asking questions. Thank you for coming by and visiting!

Note: Each resource is labeled with a level and subject area to make it easier to use.

Levels: E: Elementary; M: Middle; H: High; G: General, all levels; SN: Special Needs; T: Teachers

Subject Areas: LA: Language Arts, English, Reading, Writing; M: Math; S: Science; Health; SS: Social Studies, Current Events; FA: Fine Arts; Music, Art, Drama; FL: Foreign Language; PE: Physical Ed; C: Career; A: All

Sounds of the West - “An audio tour of Montana’s four major ecosystems (L:G; SA:S, LA, FA)

Optical Sound Effects Library - “The Gold and Red Libraries (Gold effects start with “G”, Red with “R”)) consist of high-quality, first generation copies of original nitrate optical sound effects from the 1930s & ’40s created for Hollywood studios. They were collected by a prominent sound editor who worked in the industry for 44 years. The fragile optical elements were donated to USC, and transferred to tape by USC Cinema students in the early 1970s. The Sunset Editorial (SSE) Library was also donated to USC around 1990. It includes classic effects from the 1930s into the ’80s. These effects are from 35mm magnetic film. They were often several generations removed from the originals, and not as clean, so some careful restoration was done to make them more useful. SSE effects start with “S”” (L:G; SA:S, LA, FA)

1001 Novels: A Library of America - “For five years I’ve read classic novels of American life, and stories deeply embedded in the many regional places of the United States, with the intent of placing them—literally—on a map.” (L:H; SA: LA)

Museum of New Zealand - “Collections Online has information on almost 800,000 artworks, objects and specimens from Te Papa’s collections; from dinosaur teeth to contemporary art, buzzy bee to Xena. Collection areas cover Taonga Māori, Pacific Cultures, History, Photography, Art, Botany and Zoology. These items are complemented by over 190,000 images, with over 60,000 available for high resolution download. There’s also a wealth of information on related people, places, topics, species and research from Te Papa.” (L:H; SA: FA)

How to Design a Mars Rover! - from SciShow Kids; “Today, the crew at The Fort learn about engineers and how they design different ways to solve problems like they did for the rovers exploring Mars!” (L:E; SA: S)

Original photo by Pat Hensley