Science & Nature Sites

This page is one small part of  Good Sites for Kids!

	Animals		Astronomy		Biomes, Ecology		Combined Sciences		Dinosaurs
	Earth Science		Earth Day		Health		Living Things		Technology
	Weather

Biomes and Ecology Sites

Biomes from Enchanted Learning. Their usual fine site for elementary kids.

Biomes of the World - What's It Like Where You Live? From Missouri Botanical Garden. A great and renowned biome intro for kids.

Biomes of the World - from Marietta College of Ohio.  This one has lots of data in the form of tables, graphs, and great photos.

Biomes Lessons with quizzes from Wahtonka High School.

 Bioweb "Canada's environmental destination for kids"  Organized into six sections: Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, The North, Waste, and Land Use; then these are cross indexed under Games and Activities and Homework Help.  Under Climate Change/Games and Activities, we've done Chain Reaction (food chains) in the computer lab, under Climate Change/Homework Help we've done Tree Ring Analysis in the lab. Both kept kids engaged and learning. Recommended!

Ecosystems from NatureWorks is a good coverage of the subject for kids and teachers alike. Covers it all in one page, too.

Endangered species: games and how you can help. "Learn how loss of habitat and ecosystems can lead to a decline in biodiversity, and how the Endangered Species Act helps conserve endangered and threatened species."

Endangered Species and Conservation Biology Part of Kids Do Ecology, from UCSB.  Great information and links to other sites. From here, you can learn about condors, bald eagles, endangered sea birds, the Santa Cruz Island Fox, and even pygmy mammoths!

Kids Do Ecology from UC Santa Barbara is a nice, kid-friendly intro to ecology. Well done site, be sure to explore it - and its links!

Ocean Collection for Kids This is a group of ocean sites for kids put together by faculty from Cal State LA. They cover ocean habitats, ocean mammals, and ocean fish. This is for elementary kids and has good simple explanations.

Red List of Threatened Species "Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken. There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List and 16,306 of them are threatened with extinction, up from 16,118 last year." Search the Red List for animals, birds, and plants here.

 Wolf Quest from the Minnesota Zoo and EduWeb comes this excellent download wolf simulation game. Players become a wolf and explore Yellowstone Park! Kids from elementary to high school love to play this game, it's hard to get them to stop! We printed out the pdf instructions for players to use..

 World Biomes  from Blue Planet Biomes is a concise but comprehensive site. Sparely written at an elementary level but does not talk down to kids. Colorful, too.

World Biomes from UC Berkeley is written at a more secondary level, but has good information and pictures.

End Biomes section                  

Earth Day Sites

Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program's Education Center  Scary title, but this site has good information about global warming.

Earth Day Network Teacher's Corner  "...over 300 standard-based lessons, school greening tips, grants for teachers, and more than 25,000 teachers to share ideas with."

Earth Day from Kaboose.com.  Earth Day crafts, coloring pages, and activities.

Earth Day from Pocantico Hills School site. First graders Earth Day Book and activities. Pocantico Hills never ceases to amaze.

Earth Day Activities from DLTK.  Songs, crafts, coloring pages, online games, more.

Earth Day from EcoKids. Printables and activities from this fine Canadian site, which is listed in our Science - Biomes & Ecology section.

Energy Kids featuring Energy Ant: learn all about where we get our energy and how we use it. Loaded with facts, games, and activities. The Glossary explains every energy term you ever heard of.

Energy Hogbusters: learn how to outsmart the hogs that waste energy.

EPA's Kids' Club: games and activities about environmental issues.  Very attractive home page. Oh, and a hundred or so links to other good, fact-filled environmental sites!

NIEHS' Kids' Pages Games, songs, riddles, stories, coloring, facts, plenty of links. A good place to go.

Nature Watch  US Forest Service site. Facts, resources, photo library, web cams, videos.

Roofus the Dog's Solar and Efficient Neighborhood: make your home energy smart. "My home is energy smart! Find out what makes it run!"   Fact-filled site, and we're always partial to dogs named Roofus wearing baseball caps.

S.K.Worm answers your questions about soil 'n' stuff! "It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it--S.K.Worm, the official annelid, or worm, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service answers students questions about soil. Even their teachers can’t wiggle their way out of this one! Slither your way through these soiled questions and earn a very special diploma. You might even get hooked on Soil!"  Well, it is EARTH Day!

End Earth Day section     

Living Things Sites

Animal Planet is a place that's loaded with animal information and games! Their Petsource section has guides to cats, dogs, and other pets, cat and dog breed info, dog horoscopes (Whaaa?), games, and more! The Wild Animals section has an A to Z listing of animals, bird guides, mammal guides, butterfly guides, an endangered species guide, and a lot more! The Games sections is stupendous fun for kids of all ages. All these things can be reached from the golden menu bar near the top of the screen. Thanks to Jessica the Opsmart lady for this one.

Biology, The Study of Life On Earth from KidsKnowIt is big with lots of explanations of terms.

Biology4Kids! is a fine welcome to biology for elementary and up. Good information and links. Worth checking out for lesson plans, as is its companion chemistry site below.

Biology for Kids from Kidepedia Covers cells, viruses, bacteria, fungi, plants, and animals. Also activities, science projects, teacher's guide.

Biology Games from KidsKnowIt OK, where else will you find Biology Hangman?

Biology of Plants from Missouri Botanical Garden is a good elementary introduction to the subject.

Biomedia (commercial site) Check out the menu bar. Explore the BioGalleries and Teacher Resources sections. The BioGalleries have wonderful pages about all sorts of microscopic life, including plankton! (even water bears!) Includes a What Phyla Am I ? quiz with rollover answers. WONDERFUL PHOTOS!

CELLS Alive!  Wonderful teaching site for introductory cell biology and microbiology.  Used by elementary and secondary schools alike. Engaging visuals and interactive activities keep kids interested.

Cyberchase This site deserves more attention. The Science section has activities plus an outstanding, ongoing series of Cyberchase Quest games.

DNA Interactive Amazing! Stupendous! Colossal! And other wow-type adjectives! This site for secondary and up students and teachers covers everything about DNA. Many videos, animations, and interactive games to play. There are 15 lesson plans ready for download, too. Really, this site could be used to help teach classes in genetics and human origins. Then there's the opportunity for educators to join the site community and create their own lessons and web pages for teaching the material.

Dendrochronology from the NPS. This interactive presentation of tree ring dating is quite good. Like Tree Ring Analysis, this is a fine lesson on tree ring dating. Part of a larger site.

EEK! Environmental Education for Kids. This electronic magazine is for kids in grades 4-8. Surf around and learn more about the great outdoors. Teacher Resource section with lesson plans, too. From Wisconsin DNR.

Encyclopedia of Life "Imagine an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth..." STUNNING new project from a group including the likes of Harvard University, the Field Museum, and the Smithsonian! Students and seekers of any age can type in the name of any living thing and (usually) see pictures and information! We had fun putting in names of plants, animals, and bacteria. Still a work in progress - had velociraptor pix and data, but nothing on Tyrannosaurus rex. Also has groups to join and ways you can help.

The Eyes Have It from the San Diego Natural History Museum. Facts about vision, eyes and eye anatomy, also covers animal vision.

Gardening - Classroom Projects from Kids Gardening. Here are 26 gardening projects for school kids, with lesson layouts and notes. Nice for cross-curriculum springtime activities.

Gardening - Thematic Explorations Library from Kids Gardening. Here are 26 thematic units, most with Lessons & Activities and Resources sections. There is a lot of good resources and planning material in here.

The Heart: An Online Exploration from The Franklin Institute. "Explore the heart. Discover the complexities of its development and structure. Follow the blood through the blood vessels. Wander through the weblike body systems. Learn how to have a healthy heart and how to monitor your heart's health. Look back at the history of heart science." Links to excellent explorations of all the above areas, with an exceptional section on blood. For upper elementary through high school.

History of life on Earth - The Online Exhibits  from UC Berkeley.  The portal, the jumping off point for outstanding sources of biology education. From here one can go to:  History of Life Through Time "This enormous collection catalogs life on Earth, focusing on the ancestor/descendant relationships which connect all organisms, past and present."  Tour of geologic time "Journey through geologic time to see how the Earth has changed since its debut 4.5 billion years ago."  Understanding Evolution "...includes discussion of evolutionary theory, evidence for evolution, the relevance of evolution to our daily lives, and the history of evolutionary thought."  Paleontology Portal "The Paleontology Portal focuses on the fossil record of North America, including state-by-state U.S. paleontology, fossil photo galleries, and resources." K-12 education resources  "Activities and lessons specifically for K-12 teachers and their students." Also features The World's Biomes, and more.

Human Biology section of KidsKnowIt. Good and simple explanations.

Neuroscience for Kids  "The smell of a flower - The memory of a walk in the park - The pain of stepping on a nail. These experiences are made possible by the 3 pounds of tissue in our heads...the BRAIN!! Neuroscience for Kids has been created for all students and teachers who would like to learn about the nervous system."  Looks like this site is for Middle School and up.

Ocean Collection for Kids This is a group of ocean sites for kids put together by faculty from Cal State LA. They cover ocean habitats, ocean mammals, and ocean fish. This is for elementary kids and has good simple explnations.

Ology from the American Museum of Natural History. We love this site! It covers "Ologies" such as Archaeology, Astronomy, Biodiversity, Earth, Einstein, Genetics, Marine Biology, Paleontology, and Water. The bottom half of the page has links to around 20 activities, experiments, and interviews. Then there's the Highlights section, Ask a Scientist, an Advanced section, and At the Museum. Click on the blue buttons in the At the Museum box. Only part of this great site is shown at a time. Be sure to use the Search box and enter a term like "horse" to find a ton of other information.

Origin of MRSA. Simply explained by this UC Berkeley site. How did S. aureus morph from a minor skin infection to a terror?

Plants for Kids Yet another amazing long list of links from Kathi Mitchell. Just about anything kids need to know about plants is in here. We're probably going to break this list down later.

Plants: From Seed To Flower This upper elementary and up site covers seed parts, monocots & dicots, plant reproduction, pollinations and pollinators, and growth cycles, and does it very well. It accesses other sites such as ThinkQuest and wraps it all into an organized package. Thanks to Elaine of khsteachers for the email suggesting this site.

Sci4Kids: stories about bugs. "Stories! Stories! Stories!" Tons of fun facts about "bugs!"

Sci4Kids: stories about plants.  "Stories! Stories! Stories!"  Tons of fun facts about plants!

Shedd Educational Adventures (SEA) from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Lesson Plans, Interactives, and the Explorer's Guide! Interactives are the online learning games, indexed by grade level. We tried Build a Fish and it was fun!

Tree Ring Analysis  Part of Bioweb, excellent Canadian site listed in the Biomes section.  Like Dendrochronology, this is a fine lesson on tree ring dating.

Understanding Evolution "Your One-Stop Source for information on evolution." Evolution simply explained. This big group of web pages is subdivided into these areas: What is evolution and how does it work? How does evolution impact my life? What is the evidence for evolution? What is the history of evolutionary theory? From UC Berkeley.

The Virtual Microscope from University of Illinois. Oh you've got to get this for kids! Amazing closeups! Plug in a digital projector and show these on the wall! "The Virtual Microscope is a NASA-funded project that provides simulated scientific instrumentation for students and researchers worldwide as part of NASA's Virtual Laboratory initiative. This site serves as home base for the Imaging Technology Group's contributions to that project—namely virtual microscopes and the multi-dimensional, high-resolution image datasets they view. Currently we provide 90 samples totaling over 62 gigapixels of image data. The Virtual Microscope, which is available for free download supports functionality from electron, light, and scanning probe microscopes, datasets for these instruments, training materials to learn more about microscopy, and other related tools. The project is open source and the code is available on Sourceforge." Note: This program requires Java. More info at the site.

Virtual Electron Microscope from the Discovery Channel is a sort of matching game. Given 10 slides, look at the images and description to sort them into the correct Name heading. Prety cool to use, good for grade school microbiology class.

 WolfQuest Episode 2 is out! Download it! From the Minnesota Zoo and EduWeb comes this excellent download wolf simulation game. Players become a wolf and explore Yellowstone Park! Kids from elementary to high school love to play this game, it's hard to get them to stop! We printed out the enclosed instructions for players to use. Needs a newer computer with good graphics. The download includes both episode 1 and 2.

A Matter of Degrees "Create your own temperature scale, then see how it compares to those of Fahrenheit and Celsius."

A Sense of Scale lets you use a sliding scale to move between the coldest and hottest temperatures in the universe. Present temperature is shown in Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin units. Interesting things about each stop are also displayed.

Earthquakes from the US Geological Survey. Track the latest earthquakes here, plus information about quakes and links to other sites.

Energy Kids featuring Energy Ant: learn all about where we get our energy and how we use it. Loaded with facts, games, and activities. The Glossary explains every energy term you ever heard of.

Engineering Interact is Interactive science & engineering for 9-11 year olds. Play the games to learn about the physics of light, sound, forces, electricity, and the Solar System. Good loud and flashy games that make kids think. From the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, UK, serving your educational needs since 1209 AD. (Sorry, boffins din't say which College...)

Gravity Wells This large, well done PNG image explains the idea of gravity wells in easy to understand cartoon form. It's from xkcd, a well know ubergeek site with cartoons of interest to, well, MIT/Caltech undergrads, shall we say. This one is appropriate for kids old enough to grasp the concepts it explains, but we cannot recommend you let your kids go to xkcd.

How Low Can You Go? Use the "cascade" method to compress gasses to absolute zero! Keep trying.

Lightning Who else but WGBH would have a great nine minute video about lightning, with links and teacher help, too?

National Hurricane Center from NOAA. Track hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones worldwide with links from this page. Directly shows Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes.

National Weather Service Enhanced Radar Image Loop National Mosaic Watch thunderstorms, blizzards, and other weather move across America in nearly real time! Click on any area that interests you to see a closer look at local weather.

Ology from the American Museum of Natural History. We love this site! It covers "Ologies" such as Archaeology, Astronomy, Biodiversity, Earth, Einstein, Genetics, Marine Biology, Paleontology, and Water. The bottom half of the page has links to around 20 activities, experiments, and interviews. Then there's the Highlights section, Ask a Scientist, an Advanced section, and At the Museum. Click on the blue buttons in the At the Museum box. Only part of this great site is shown at a time. Be sure to use the Search box and enter a term like "horse" to find a ton of other information.

Palmetto Power Program from the Central Electric Power Cooperative, Columbia, South Carolina. "...vivid exploration of energy, power grids and the mystery and magic of electricity." Best site we have seen for explaining electricity generation and distribution, it includes (great, noisy, action) games that kids will love, a glossary, and science fair projects for kids. The Learn About Energy section explains stored and kinetic energy, how energy is generated for human use, electrical generation and distribution, green energy, conservation and efficiency, and safety around electricity (important). Resources for Teachers includes good Lesson Plans for grades K - 7, two local resource sections for South Carolina educators, and some grant resources! Very well laid out site and we loved the controls! Thanks to Mr. Danny Purvis of the Central Electric Power Cooperative in Columbia, SC, for emailing us about their fine site!

Periodic Table Sites - Here are three unique interactive sites.

Science for Kids from Kidepedia Covers Physics, Chemistry, and Geology. The site does a decent job of explaining.

Science: It's A Girl Thing | Facebook "Welcome to the official Facebook Page of Science: It's A Girl Thing. Get exclusive content and interact with Science: It's A Girl Thing right from Facebook....We currently have 10 downloadable pdfs of activities, templates for keeping a science notebook, and a downloadable sheet of tips for parents for doing short science activities around the house. We also have an active community of nearly 3,000 users."

Fact Monster's Solstice for Kids Explains the solstice concept, the changing angle of the earth, and solstice history and traditions.

Climate Science from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program. "...the goal of the Education and Outreach Program is to develop basic science awareness and increase critical thinking skills focusing on environmental science and climate change for K-12 students." All kinds of science-based kid activities are here.

Girls Inc. Weather Station Current local weather conditions in north Rapid City, South Dakota, from the Operation Smart weather station, located inside YFS Girls Incorporated. Excellent example of what an education center can do. Temperature's in Fahrenheit and wind speed's in mph, so you'll have to work out the metrics if you're outside the USA. It'd be a good maths exercise.

Lightning Who else but WGBH in Boston would have a great nine minute video about lightning, with links and teacher help, too?

Lightning Information & Safety for Kids from Garden Buildings Direct in the UK. (Kudos) Everything you will ever want to know about lightning and its child, thunder, can be found here. It's a good compilation of information from different sites. We want to give credit to Sarah Wahlberg, who emailed about this site.

NOAA Tracks storms, hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes - a huge site with many links. Track hurricanes by clicking on the NOAA Storm Tracker on the left of the page. The Storm Tracker has a popup with various maps and data.

National Hurricane Center from NOAA. Track hurricanes, typhoons, and tropical cyclones worldwide with links from this page. Directly shows Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes.

National Weather Service Enhanced Radar Image Loop National Mosaic Watch thunderstorms, blizzards, and other weather move across America in nearly real time! Click on any area that interests you to see a closer look at local weather.

Web Weather for Kids  Old and respected kids weather site covers clouds, blizzards, hurricanes, tornados, thunderstorms with games, activities, lots of good information and many links to more "stuff."

Weather Wiz Kids  A site from a working television meteorologist. "I designed this website especially for kids to allow them to learn more about the fascinating world of weather. It’s also a wonderful educational website for teachers and parents that gives them the right tools they need to explain the different types of weather to children. " Huge menu on the left side of the home page has tons of weather and geology-related links.

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Combined Sciences

Sites with both Earth & Life Science sections

All Science Fair Projects Here's a site that has searched for and categorized all kinds of science fair project links, and offers it to you free! 10 different topic sections, subcategories, lots of projects under each heading. Look for ideas here!

Sheppard's Science Resources Science resources by subject, web quests, science links, calculator and converter, more.

Surfing Scientist Classroom or homeschool science ideas. From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Waterford Games & Activities "Download hundreds of free games, activities, and quizzes from our website! Subject areas include animals, plants, weather, astronomy, geology, and miscellany... Simply copy materials to your desktop and print out as needed. It's that easy!"