Vertebrates

Humans

• Blind Spots: the Eye and the Brain - Each eye has a blind spot, but the brain makes up for it by deducing what should appear there. This web site includes explanatory information and clever visual experiments. From Serendip.

• Human Anatomy Online - A fantastic site that contains over one hundred illustrations of the human body with animations and thousands of descriptive links. When you click on those links (selected spots on the images), information about that part of the anatomy is displayed. Requires Java.

• Neuroscience for Kids - Activities and experiments to learn more about the brain and spinal cord. This is an unusually nice site with excellent suggestions for activities as well as lots of neuroscience information.

• Palaeoanthropology Exhibit (Images) - This is an exhibit of some of the major finds in palaeoanthropology. It includes many images of skulls, bones, and tools ranging in age from 35 million years old to the much more recent.

• Physiology Instructional Material - Lecture materials for undergraduate physiology courses at the University of Arizona. Topics include How the Body Works and Body Electricity.

• See Health & Medicine

Other Animals

• Access Excellence - An excellent resource for biology teachers and students that contains on-line mysteries and other interactive resources. It also contains a large number of quality lesson plans and general information related to biology. The site is maintained by Genetech so it has an emphasis on genetics and biotechnology. Overall a great site!

• The Albatross Project - Using sensitive satellites in space, miniature transmitters on birds, and rapid email communications to investigate the movements of ocean-going albatrosses in Hawaii. Get to know albatrosses and our project by checking out this Web Site.  Join the project yourself and use the satellites for your own scientific study;  tracking on January 22!

• Animal Information Database - Information about a variety of animals and related topics, from Sea World/Busch Gardens. See also their Animal Bytes Database, a collection of quick facts about various animals.

• Aquarium Fish Information Network - This is an archive of information about aquariums. It covers both freshwater and marine, tropical and temperate.

• Biologicial Timing - An experiment on biological timing led by university researchers at the University of Virginia. After completing an introduction to the experiment students can examine experimental data and present hypotheses based on this data. Many different experiments are planned and they will change as the year progresses.

• ChickScope - Chickscope is an on-line MRI project created for Champaign-Urbana, Illinois schools. The students learn about chicken embryology by operating an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) microscope containing an egg; operation of the MRI happens remotely over the Internet. Other educational material, including pictures, video and other links, is included in Chickscope as well.

• Cichlid Fishes of Lake Malawi Africa - This is a scientifically oriented, non-commercial site devoted to a fascinating trove of tropical biodiversity -- both the largest lake-fish fauna and the largest vertebrate species flock on earth -- the cichlids of southeastern Africa's Lake Malawi. (It is Lake Nyasa to the people of Tanzania and Mozambique, who share this giant rift lake with Malawi.) Great info and pictures!

• Cornell's Lab of Ornithology - A great site concerning birds! It contains nice pictures, many bird sounds and bird information. In February they are launching Birdsource which allows avid birdwatchers to accumulate their observations about finch migrations online and track the movement of this spectacular "winter finch" invasion.

• Frog Dissections - People seem to love putting frogs in the net, and sooner or later it had to happen: people decided to dissect those virtual frogs.
  

• The Interactive Frog Dissection - An online but realistic frog dissection. It reads much like a "real" lab would, listing goals, required materials, and so on. Quoting their introduction, "The purpose of this lab activity is to help you learn the anatomy of a frog and give you a better understanding of the anatomy of vertebrate animals in general, including humans." From the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

• The Whole Frog Project's Virtual Frog Dissection Kit - This relies extensively on Web forms to select which parts of the frog you want to view: skeleton, eyes, brain, stomach, etc. Uses computer-generated frog images rather than photographs. If you're interested in how they used high resolution MRI imaging to obtain the data to create these frog images, see The "Whole Frog" Project home page. From Lawrence Berkelely Laboratory.

• The Peguin Pages - Wow a whole website dedicated to Peguins. If you have any questions these are the guys to ask.

• See Environmental Sciences - Oceans

Invertebrates

• Beetles, Lice, Mosquitoes, & Ticks - This is a collection of images and movies, including a sequence of still images on the dissection of a tick (Ixodes scapularis) and a page of insect recipes. Yummy!

• Insect Information and Software - Web-based tutorials about fleas, termites, and other insects, and information about inexpensive PC-based software relating to these and other insects. From the University of Florida.

• Monarch Watch - The Monarch Watch is a collaborative network of students, teachers, volunteers and researchers investigating aspects of the monarch butterfly migration phenomenon. The project is directed by the University of Kansas.

• The Virtual FlyLab - You play the role of a research geneticist by mating female and male fruit flies carrying one or a few genetic mutations.

• 3-D Insects - 3-dimensional insects are presented using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) which is a standard language for describing interactive 3-D objects and worlds delivered across the Internet. VRML-images can be rotated and magnified interactively. You need the VRML plug-ins for this to work!

Plants & Fungi

• Dendocronolgy for Teachers- This site has a large amount of detailed information on dendocronology. I have focused on the information I felt was most useful for teachers, but feel free to explore the pile!

• Fun Facts About Fungi - Fungi (plural of fungus) cure and cause disease, determine what plants grow in backyards and forests, and keep us from being buried in waste. Some fungi taste great, while others can kill you. This site contains lots of information and photographs of fungi.

• Fungi Internet Resources - The WWW virtual library for information about fungi. I have linked us to the "Teaching about Fungi" page which contains basic and advanced information in addition to class projects.

• Greenhouse Tour - Botany Department at the University of Georgia maintains 6 ranges of greenhouses with a floor area of approximately 22,000 sq. ft., together with a large headhouse containing preparation areas, growth chambers and laboratory space.

• Gymnosperm Database - In its infancy and a bit detailed but a nice site if you are interested in those gymnosperms. Consists of a taxonomic tree of the gymnosperms, i.e., conifers, cycads, and their allies with ranges descriptions and some pictures.

• List of Bacterial Names with standing in nomenclature - A complete alphabetical and chronological list of bacteria. It is extensively annotated to clarify the rules that govern the scientific nomenclature.

• National Plants Database - A large site maintained by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. While user friendly, the site contains la great deal of technical information that may be to complicated for high schoolers. You can search for Threatened and Endangered species located in your state which is kind of neat!

• Native Plants - The home site of the Washington Society of Native Plants. It has some links to other Native Plant societies throughout the United States. This site has a moderate number of resources.

• Poisonous and Hazardous Plants - An online guide from the University of Singapore. (Text only)

• Scott's Botanical Links - This site compiles useful botany education resources for the advanced high school (AP-biology) and college level. Sites are rated on a 4-star scale emphasizing educational value, completeness and scientific correctness. Resources are added daily. This is large site with many interesting resources!

• The Tropical Rainforest in Suriname - A multi-media guided tour around Suriname, from a botanist's perspective. Includes the interior and the rainforest, with information about the plants, people, and animals. Also check out the additional botany education links.

Ecology

• Cape Cod Electronic Atlas - A collection of maps, imagery and photos that illustrate some important characteristics of the Cape Cod environment. Includes descriptions of some of the problems of this unique piece of land and focuses on two areas of immediate concern: Current Land Use and Land Cover of Cape Cod and Critical Habitats of Cape Cod.

• Environmental Education - Teacher resources on topics such as Great Basin ecosystems, gold mining, fire ecology, and lots more. From the Bureau of Land Management.

• Teaching about Evolution - This is a online book written by the National Academy of Sciences that explores evolution and the nature of scientific inquiry. It includes relevant information and a number of activities related to evolution that teachers can try in their classroom.

• Journey North - This interactive site tracks the effects of spring on the migration of animals and responses of plants. Students are encouraged to participate by recording, sharing and compiling field observations over the internet. You can join for free or you can pay a small fee for more in depth participation. Nice site!

• North American Breeding Bird Survey - The BBS Home Page is a source of information about distributions and population changes of North American birds. It is also a tool for learning about birds, with with connections to the ID tips with pictures of common North American birds and quizzes on bird distribution and identification.The BBS was designed to provide a continent-wide perspective of population change. Lots of bird info and ecology info here!

• Northern Prairie Research Center - This is the site if you are interested in northern great plains ecology. There is a great deal of very scientific information here, but some of the material is accessible to high school students and definitely science teachers!

• Live from the RainForest! - Follow in Darwin's footsteps, courtesy of Passport to Knowledge, to the heart of the planet's largest rainforest, guided by some of the world's leading biologists. Explore"the greatest expression of life" so far discovered in all the Universe, via a projectthat uses video, real-time interactions, the Internet and hands-on science activities-Live From The Rainforest.

DNA, Molecular Biology & Modeling

• DNA from the Beginning - An animated, interactive primer on DNA and heredity. This site cover the entire range of genetics, from basic inheritance to up-to-the- minute methods of DNA analysis.

• Molecular Modeling - Mathematics and Molecular Modeling, from NYU. Their Quick Tour is particularly nice for high school studen

• Primer on Molecular Genetics - This primer from the Department of Energy is a help in understanding the Human Genome Project.

• RasMol: Molecular Modeling Software - Free software for Windows, Macs, Unix and VMS which shows 3D images of molecules, especially biological macromolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. A gallery of images is also available at this site.

Collections & Other Stuff

• Awesome Web Sites for K-12 Biology Teachers - Awesome Web Sites for K-12 Biology Teachers is an interactive Hyperstudio program that provides K-12 science teachers with easy access to curriculum resources on the World Wide Web. This program provides descriptive annotations of 111 biological science resources on the World Wide Web and provides a "point-and-click" interface to link the user to these resources.

• BioChemNet - Educational resources in various fields including cell biology, genetics, microbiology, immunology, biotechnology, organic chemistry, and biochemistry.

• CELLS alive! - Microscopy of living cells and organisms. Includes information and images of viruses, anitibodies, parasites and bacteria, plus a whole section on the anatomy of a splinter.

• Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers (CIBT) - CIBT was developed as a community outreach program for high school biology teachers in upstate New York. The goals of CIBT include updating high school teachers on recent advances in biology, providing participants with take-home laboratory exercises designed to meet the time and budgetary constraints of a typical high school, and developing a continuing relationship between Cornell University and participating high school teachers.

• FT Exploring - A fun award winning site that explores energy and basic science principles in nature and human technology. The articles are carefully researched, accurate, easy to understand, and in addition to providing good basic explanations, the creative thought provoking approach helps to generate an interest in science and technology.

• Biology Software - A collection of links to freeware, shareware and demo versions of biology programs available on the Internet.

• Developmental Biology Cinema - The aim of this project is to get video sequences of developing embryos (organisms), and experimental techniques, from the developmental biologist's lab to the eyeballs of interested individuals in a user-friendly and inexpensive form.

• The Unofficial Biology Teachers' Home - This page is designed to help biology teachers find resources that they can use in teaching various aspects of biology. It is also designed to help teachers use the internet in their curriculum and make teaching of biology more fun for the teacher and the students. An excellent collection of links.

• Infrared Zoo - What do animals look like in the infrared? Actually "see" the differences between warm and cold-blooded animals, and learn how animals use fur, blubber and feathers to insulate themselves.

• The Microbiology Information Portal- This website is an internet web portal designed to bring useful and interesting microbiology informational resources to all interested. Microbes.info is a firm starting point for finding information concerning Microbiology.
  

Bad Science Sites

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