Dream Up a Cool Invention
Wouldn’tIt Be Cool If ... isa new contest from TimeWarner Cable’sConnect a MillionMindsand i.am FIRSTfor youth aged 10–15. Entrants are asked to dream up a coolinvention idea that makes life more awesome and demonstrate howscience, technology, engineering and math (STEM) can make their ideasa reality. Parents who visit the contest’s website can download afree guidethat includes tips on how to talk about, brainstorm and create coolideas with their children. Teachers will find a free,downloadable guidewith educator-created plans for easy activities that integrate theexcitement and star power of Wouldn’t It Be Cool If into theirongoing math and science curriculum. The site also offers a free,downloadable guide with activities and projects to extend thecompetition into an after-school program.
Deadline:Contest opens on February 21; visit website for details
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Click Here for Parents' and Educators' Resources

Generate Passionate Engagement with Books
Eachyear the National BookFoundation awards anumber of prizes of up to $2,500 each to individuals andinstitutions—or partnerships between the two—that have developedinnovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love ofreading. In addition to promoting the best of American literaturethrough the National Book Awards, the foundation seeks to expand theaudience for literature in America. Through the Innovationsin Reading Prizes,individuals and institutions that use innovative methods to generateexcitement and a passionate engagement with books and literature willbe rewarded for their creativity and leadership. All United Statescitizens and American institutions are eligible for this prize.Examples of targeted individuals include teachers, librarians,after-school and community center staff and technology specialists.Important criteria are creativity, risk taking and a visionaryquality as well as a novel way of presenting books and literature.Details about the complete nomination process appear in theapplication form, which can be downloaded from the foundation’swebsite.
Deadline: February 21, 2012 for nominations
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Encourage Curious Minds
TheGoogle Science Fairis an online science competition seeking curious minds from the fourcorners of the globe. The 2012 Google Science Fair is an opportunityfor students aged 13–18 to ask questions and use science to searchfor answers. Prizes include a scientific trip to the GalapagosIslands with National Geographic Explorer, scholarships and real-lifework opportunities in science centers of excellence, such as CERN inSwitzerland.
Deadline: March 30, 2012
Click Here for More Information About Google Science Fair

Plus:This year ScientificAmerican ishelping to expand the Google Science Fair honors by sponsoring a$50,000 Science inAction award for aproject that addresses a social, environmental or health issue tomake a practical difference in the lives of a group or community.Volunteer mentors will help foster the continued development of thatwinning project for a year.
Click Here for More Information About Science in Action Award

Win a 21st Century Classroom
CDWGovernment (CDW-G)and DiscoveryEducation’s 2012Win a Wireless LabSweepstakes willaward three grand-prize 21st-century classroom technology packages,which will include 20 tablet or notebook computers, an interactivewhiteboard, student response system, printer, document camera and$5,000 Discovery Education digital media grant. The total value ofthe wireless lab is $40,000. All K–12 educators employed ataccredited public, private or parochial schools in the United Statesare eligible to enter the sweepstakes. CDW-G and Discovery Educationwill also provide on-sitetraining at eachwinning school. Public and private school employees are eligible toenter the sweepstakes once a day.
Deadline: May 3, 2012
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Plus:CDW-Gand DiscoveryEducation areoffering educators the opportunity to increase their daily entries byspreading the word via Twitterand Facebook.Through the Win a Wireless Lab website, entrants can submit 30-secondvideos and writtenessaysthat describe how their school is encouraging people to enter thesweepstakes and how they will use the technology. CDW-G and DiscoveryEducation will post selected videos to the Win a Wireless LabFacebook page, and entrants will be included in a special drawing foradditional prizes, including a Kindle Fire.
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Talk About Responsible Citizenship
Choosingto Participatefocuses on the civic choices—both large and small—people makeabout themselves and others in their community, nation and world. Asteachers and students explore the readings in this collection, theywill come to understand that the choices people make may not seemimportant at the time, but little by little they shape us asindividuals and responsible global citizens. The stories in thiscollection focus on individuals and groups—the famous and the notso famous—wrestling with a question that many young people ask, Howcan I make a positive difference in the world?This resource is a valuable addition to units on civics, governmentand United States history. A translation of this resource is alsoavailable to educators teaching in a Spanish-speakingsetting. Find three freelesson ideasto accompany the reading online: “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,”“From Sympathy to Action,” “Not in Our Town.” Accompanyingvideo/audiolinksadd a multimedia component to each reading, and ConnectionQuestions stimulateclassroom conversation. Download or purchase the resource book fromthe Facing History andOurselves website.
ClickHere to Download Free Resource [English]
ClickHere to Download Free Resource [Spanish]

Develop Rich Digital Learning Experiences
TheDigital TextbookPlaybook is aguide to help K–12 educators and administrators begin building richdigital learning experiences for students in districts across thecountry. The playbook offers information about determining broadbandinfrastructure for schools and classrooms, leveraging home andcommunity broadband to extend the digital learning environment andunderstanding necessary device considerations. It also provideslessons learned from school districts that have engaged in successfultransitions to digital learning. The DigitalTextbook Playbook wasdeveloped by the DigitalTextbookCollaborative,a joint effort of industry stakeholders, school officials andnonprofit leaders to encourage collaboration, accelerate thedevelopment of digital textbooks and improve the quality andpenetration of digital learning in K–12 public education. Thecollaborative was convened by the FederalCommunications Commissionand the United StatesDepartment of Educationand builds upon the FCC’s NationalBroadband Plan andthe Department of Education’s NationalEducation Technology Plan.Read the playbook online or download a PDF version at nocharge.
Click Here to Access Free Resource

Meet Animals Shaped Like Letters
Alphabetimalsis an interactiveonline flipbookfeaturing animal sounds and the pronunciations of animal names. TheAlphabetimalscharacters can spell out any word that you would like. Just type theword in the word box, and it will appear as alphabet animals, whichyou can print out and use as flashcards. Also, on the AlphabetimalsFacebook page, you’ll find freecutout flashcardsand an alphabetposter, which you candownload and print.
Click Here to Access Free Resources

Tell Stories in 3-D
ZooBurstis a digitalstorytelling toolthat lets anyone easily create his or her own 3-Dpop-up books. UsingZooBurst, storytellers of any age can create their own rich worlds inwhich their stories come to life. ZooBurst books “live” onlineand can be experienced using nothing more than a web browser runningthe Adobe Flash plug-in. Authors can arrange characters and propswithin a 3-D world that can be customized using uploaded artwork oritems found in a built-in database of more than 10,000 freeimages and materials. Once constructed, books can be inspected fromany angle from within a 3-D space. In addition, authors can choose tomake items “clickable,” allowing readers to learn more aboutindividual characters within a story. Each character can have its own“chat bubble” that pops up when that character is clicked.Authors can also record their own voices using the ZooBurst audiorecorder to have their characters really speak when clicked. Aclassroom managementfeature lets teachersset up protected, safe spaces for their students. Teachers can assignusernames and passwords to their students without having to input anysensitive or personal information and can manage and moderate studentwork in a protected environment.
Click Here to Access Free Tool

Create Collaborative Outlines
Knowcaseis a freetool forrecording ideas and creating outlines.To get started using the tool, just click create and then starttyping. Each time you press enter or return, a new element of youroutline is started. To rearrange the sequence of elements on youroutline, just drag them into a new order. Knowcase outlines can bemade private or public. There are two public settings—one thatallows people only to view the outline and another that allows othersto edit the outline. Knowcase can also be used on iPhones and iPads.
Click Here to Access Free Tool

Celebrate the “G” in Engineering
NationalEngineers Week isFebruary 19–25,2012, and Introducea Girlto Engineering Day entersits second decade of outreach on February23, 2012. For thepast 11 years, women engineers have introduced more than 1 milliongirls and young women to engineering. More than just one day,Introduce a Girl to Engineering is a national movement that showsgirls how creative and collaborative engineering is and how engineersare changing the world. Visit the 2012 Girl Day website to see aroster of events and request a kit. Then visit the EngineerYour Life website andlearn some effective ways to talk to girls about engineering.
ClickHere for More Information on Engineers Week
ClickHere to Visit Girls Day Website
Click Here to Visit Engineer Your Life Website

Step Up to the Challenge
Witha world population of 7 billion, finding ways to provide for all ofus requires the most innovative and creative thinking from theworld’s best minds. Women in engineering and technology will stepup to the challenge during the 8thAnnualGlobal Marathon For, By and About Women in Engineering andTechnology.Originating from a different part of the world each day, this free,virtualconferenceis the only event of its kind connecting women in engineering andtechnology worldwide across a diverse range of disciplines,experience levels, ages, interests, backgrounds, cultures, industriesand employers. Each day features a live, hour-long webcastdiscussingsuch issues as clean water, clean energy, food and entrepreneurship.Prominent panelists from all parts of the world will offer a pictureof what tomorrow can look like (dreams), projects and plans on how toachieve a better tomorrow (ideas) and concrete steps participants cantake today (actions). The Global Marathon for 2012 will take placefrom March5 through March 12.Register now to participate in the virtual conference.
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Bookmark Innovation
TheDiscoverEngineeringwebsite provides free,downloadable full-color bookmarkswith scienceactivitiesprinted in English/Spanishor Chinese/English.The English/Spanish bookmark activities involve students in using thesun’s energy to turn saltwater into freshwater; recording theamount of water used at home over a one-day or one-week period; andengineering their own “flying tube.” One of the Chinese/Englishbookmarks has students compare their walking, running, bike-ridingtravel times to the Wright brothers’ flying times. Another hasstudents engineer a bigger, stronger, taller “skyscraper” using aweak material, such as a newspaper.
ClickHere to Access Free English/Spanish Science Bookmarks
Click Here to Access Free Chinese/English Science Bookmarks

Explore Science in Everyday Life
TheScience Museumin London has launched Futurecade,an online suite of gamesthat allows students to explore the impact of science and technologyon their everyday lives. Futurecade’s four games—Bacto-Lab,Robo-Lobster, Cloud Control andSpace Junker—arebased on scientific research happening today. Use them as a stimulusto engage students in a fun, interactive way and get them thinkingabout how technology might impact their future. The games aren’tintended to teach the science; rather they’re designed to provokequestions around the science so that you can use them in theclassroom to generate discussion. Download the freeteacher briefing notesfor lesson ideas and tips for using the games in the classroom. Alsodownload the freebackground sciencenotes to becomefamiliar with the science portrayed in the games and help developclassroom discussions around the wider issues.
ClickHere to Access Free Games
Click Here to Access Free Resources

Discover the Science Behind Hockey
NBCNews’ educational arm, NBCLearn, and the NBCSports Group haveteamed up with the NationalHockey League (NHL)and National ScienceFoundation(NSF) in releasing Scienceof NHL Hockey—a10-part video seriesexploring the science behind the fastest game on ice. Thiscollaboration between NBC Learn, NBC Sports and NSF uses theuniversal appeal of hockey to drive an understanding of complicatedscientific concepts. Students and teachers see how the principles ofscience enable players to perform actions such as quickly stopping onice, passing the puck to a teammate, shooting a slap shot and makinga great save. The science is broken down by capturing the athletes’movements with a state-of-the-art, high-speed Phantom camera, whichhas the ability to capture movement at rates of up to 10,000 framesper second. These visuals allow for frame-by-frame illustrations ofspecific scientific principles, such as Newton’s Three Laws ofMotion, kinematics and velocity. Other video episodes analyze thehockey science behind reflexes and reaction time, statistics,vectors, linear motion, geometry and more. Made especially forstudents and teachers to use in the classroom, the videos are alignedto lesson plansand national state education standards and are available to thepublic cost free.
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Introduce High-Flying Physics
TheBig Apple Circus’sjugglers, clowns and high-flying acrobats provide an entertaining andengaging way to introduce basicphysics concepts tohigh school students. CircusPhysics is a seriesof eight short videos,each of which feature footage from the PBSCircus series andinterviews with the performers to illustrate the laws of physics atwork. For deeper exploration, each video has a corresponding StudyGuide for studentsand an Activity Guidefor teachers, as well as raw video clips of performances that can beused for analysis in the classroom.
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See Chemistry Through the Lens of Everyday Life
TheChemical EducationDigital Library(ChemED DL] is a large collection of resources for teaching andlearning chemistry. ChemEd DL contains tutorialsfor students that include 3-Dchemical models andexplanationsof what each part of the model does and how those parts worktogether. The ChemTeachersection has free,downloadable lessonplans organized bysubject. ChemEd DL also features a periodictable that links eachelement to data and explanations about that element.
ClickHere to Visit Website
ClickHere to Access Free 3-D Chemical Models
ClickHere to Access Free Lesson Plans
Click Here to Access Free Period Table

Celebrate African Americans in Science
TheAmerican ChemicalSociety’s websitecommemorating Black History Month honors the inspirationalachievements and contributions of African American scientists.Students will learn about famed agricultural chemist GeorgeWashington Carver, blood bank pioneer Charles Drew and lesser-knownscientists, such as Lloyd August Hall who invented a number of waysto preserve food and amassed numerous patents used today.
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Think Before Leaving a Digital Footprint
ThinkB4Uis a new series ofweb safety videosand tutorialsfrom Googleand its partners, CommonSense Media,ConnectSafelyand the NationalConsumer League. Thesite includes three main components that are meant to be exploredtogether. Each location—Home, School, Mall—includes several videoshorts about a modern family’s online experiences. Users determinewhich path the family members take at the critical decision point.These shorts are just snapshots of more complicated issues, but theyall attempt to address a fundamental message of taking a moment tothink before acting. As users view each video, they can collectinteractive objects.An object opens up a quick gameabout the subject of the video. Once users collect an object, theycan access it at anytime during the session. When users scroll downthe site, they’ll find complementary messagestargeted for eachaudience—students, parents, educators. These messages strike aquick educational point. To find out more about the subject, usersjust click the link below the message. This action will open up apopup with tips and advice. Resources linked in the educators’ andparents’ sections of the site point to curriculum and adviceprovided by the site’s partners.
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Go on Location
Novelson Location usesGoogle Mapsto help you find fiction works according to their geographicalsettings. When you visit Novels on Location, you can find novels byclicking on the placemarks that you see or by using the locationsearch bar in the upper right corner of the site. If you want tocontribute to Novels on Location, simply enter a location and thenenter the title and author of your favorite book set in thatlocation. Your students can contribute to Novels on Location, or youcan create your own classroom version of Novels on Location bycreating a shared Google Map to which your students make theircontributions.
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Discover What Makes a Great Speech
PresidentRonald Reagan was known as the Great Communicator. But what goes onbehind the scenes in making a great speech? In the GreatCommunicator Files,students can explore the primarysources from thespeech filesfrom three of President Reagan’s most famous speeches: Pointedu Hoc and Remarksat Omaha Beach,both World War II commemorative speeches, and his address to thenation after the Space ShuttleChallenger explosion.Free,downloadable TeacherResources andDocumentsfocus on the speech-making and speech-writing process. Hard copies ofthe speeches, along with a DVD of President Reagan giving thespeeches, are available on request.
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Experience Life in Colonial Times
BetwixtFolly and Fate isan immersive 3-Drole-playing gamethat places players in 1774 Williamsburg as one of four characters:Chloe, an enslaved house servant; Henry, a free black carpenter;Mary, a midwife’s assistant; and George, a young gentleman. In eachrole, players face the challenges of daily life in early Americawhile learning about the social classes and customs of the time. Asplayers pursue their characters’ goals, they explore a largeportion of eighteenth-century Williamsburg, Virginia, roaming thestreets and meeting people in shops, taverns, the courthouse andprivate homes. The town is populated with dozens of characters,including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.Players may also bargain for goods with shopkeepers and try theirskill at several colonial games.
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