General Science Sites
  1. Using Life Science Knowledge (K-12)
  2. Using Physical Science Knowledge (K-7)
  3. Using Physics Knowledge (HS)
  4. Using Chemistry Knowledge (HS)
  5. Using Earth and Space Science Knowledge (K-12)
  6. Assessments for Science
  7. Concept Maps for Science
  8. Misconceptions for Science

 

2. Use Scientific Knowledge from the Physical Sciences in Real-World Contexts

 

The General Science Sites found here are Internet sites that do not meet specific science benchmarks.  The links are organized in the following categories: (click on the selected category to view that section): (1) Teaching Units / Lesson Plans; (2) Student Activities / Projects / Interactive Sites; (3) Information / Facts / Data / Reports; (4) Videos / Movies / Animations/Applets;  (5) Photographs / Slides / Diagrams / Graphics; (6) Periodicals / Journals / Newspapers; (7) Searches / Explorations / Investigations

Teaching Units/Lesson Plans

  1. Applied Science - Our Technological World
    This site contains a wealth of lessons and activities for physical science from K-6. It is well organized and is very detailed in background information and procedure.
  2. Chem Com Teacher's Resource Center
    Outstanding! ChemCom® takes a different approach to the learning of chemistry. Each of the eight units revolves around a societal question. This question creates a need to know chemistry to find a solution. The context of each question is a community: local, workplace, national, or global. The chemistry presented to the students builds upon the same vocabulary, thinking skills, problem solving and lab techniques as most traditional introductory chemistry courses.
  3. Demonstration List by topic
    A great list of High School demonstrations for use in the physical science classroom. These could be set up as teacher demonstrations or students could do the demonstrations.
  4. Marvelous Machines
    An excellent unit on simple machines. Students experiment with simple machanical devices and explain how they work. This site provides experiments, material lists, worksheets designed for students and lesson plans for hands-on problem solving using manipulatives. This site is wonderful for teachers who love the scientific method.
  5. Plus 2 Physics
    This is a general physics site that has a lot of information on electricity and electric related topics. It also includes many general physics topics all the way down to basic measurement. Each topic is broken down into four categories: study materials, problem sets, online tests, and board questions. There is lots of quality information, but most likely would be best used as a teacher resource for tests and problems (not very interactive).
  6. Succeed in Physical Science
    Outstanding! Wonderful site to find all sorts of information on the Physcial Science Benchmarks. Have fun finding what you need on this site. It's easy, give it a try!
  7. Third Grade Science
    This lesson plan contains instructional objectives, outline of content, list of materials, instructions, active participation, independent practice and enrichment activities. (Covers energy, light, heat, sound, electricity, and magnetism)

Student Activities/Projects/Interactive Sites

  1. Amusement Park Physics
    The physics behind coasters, carousels, bumper cars, and other amusement park rides is explained here. You can even design your own roller coaster.
  2. Applied Science - Our Technological World
    This site contains a wealth of lessons and activities for physical science from K-6. It is well organized and is very detailed in background information and procedure.
  3. Bridges to Classroom
    This site is an interactive bridge building activity.  Students can read about people involved in the construction of a bridge.  Then they build a bridge, add safety features and test it with quakes from different faults and various magnitudes.  It provides background information on earthquakes.
  4. Chem Com Teacher's Resource Center
    Outstanding! ChemCom® takes a different approach to the learning of chemistry. Each of the eight units revolves around a societal question. This question creates a need to know chemistry to find a solution. The context of each question is a community: local, workplace, national,or global. The chemistry presented to the students builds upon the same vocabulary, thinking skills, problem solving and lab techniques as most traditional introductory chemistry courses.
  5. Creative Chemistry
    Outstanding! This site is very student friendly. It offers many games and activities for the students. In addition, there is a tremendous amount of resource material available for the teacher.
  6. Demonstration List by topic
    A great list of High School demonstrations for use in the physical science classroom. These could be set up as teacher demonstrations or students could do the demonstrations.
  7. Frank Potter's Science Gems: Physical Science
    Provides a long list of web sites that can be used for physical science instruction. Subcatagories within this listing include mechanics, energy, momentum, and waves, as well as a large number of chemistry applications. Appropriate grade level is indicated for each site.
  8. Interactive Physics and Math with Java
    Outstanding - This site has a wealth of interactive physics demonstrations for middle and high school students. Students can see a single slit diffraction, circuits, pendulums, and more. It's a great site.
  9. Marvelous Machines
    An excellent unit on simple machines. Students experiment with simple machanical devices and explain how they work. This site provides experiments, material lists, worksheets designed for students and lesson plans for hands-on problem solving using manipulatives. This site is wonderful for teachers who love the scientific method.
  10. Miami Museum of Science - The PH Factor
    This site has a wealth of worthwhile student activities to learn about PH. Excite, explain, explore, expand, extend, exchange and examine are the button categories. Each category links to different activities for the classroom. There are dozens of additonal science activities at this web site.
  11. Mr. Fizzix Physics
    Site has LOTS of physics information, projects, and interactive simulations covering all areas of integrated science - physics. Very well done, requires flash, and fun to use.
  12. Music and the Human Ear
    Music and the Human Ear has good information, with links to other sites. Compare characteristics of human hearing, plus information on the softest sounds we can hear, the range of frequencies we can hear, subjective vs. objective loudness, how we located the source of a sound, and sound distortion.
  13. Physics 2000
    This site has interactive applets and demonstrations for just about any physics topic.
  14. Physical Science Activity Manual
    This site contains many labs and activities useful in a physical science classroom. Standards and benchmarks in measuring, conservation of mass, energy conversions, force and motion, light and sound and more are included. Easy to follow student and teacher instructions, diagrams to show set-up of materials, and charts already set up. Could be used as demonstrations, but probably more effective as a group/partner lab.
  15. Physics Applets
    Very good student interactive simulations on a broad list of physics topics provided. Allows students to change variables to witness the outcome of the scenario.
  16. Physics Central
    Presents tutorials on timely physics topics, biographies of physicists, explanations of scientific images, physics news, and a web guide that categorizes, annotates, and evaluates physics web sites. Appropriate levels are indicated for each site.
  17. Science Sounds: Hands on Activities
    This site has information and activities for students to use sound and waves.
  18. Science/Element/Math/Word Games
    This site includes 14 easily played games to help learn about the periodic table, elements, general science and math. Appropriate for Middle School or High School.
  19. Strange Matter
    This site focuses on "Materials Science". It has some great interactive activities:
    (1) Experience the structure of materials in Zoom. (atomic structure), (2) Encounter the properties of various materials in Materials Smackdown, (3) Enjoy processing materials to create something new in The Transformer. (physical & chemical change) and, (4) Explore the performance of various materials in The Change the World Challenge.
  20. The Physics Department
    Outstanding - Interactive activities and discussion of materials related to Mechanics and Waves and Light. Some of the interactive activities may need plup-ins that can be accessed from the site's download. For high school students.
  21. Thinkquest Electricity Crossword New
    This site is an interactive electricity crossword puzzle. Students click on a square of the puzzle to get the clue, type in the answer and if you need a hint it offers a hint button that will give you a letter in the word. You can use the hint button as many times as you need, however, your score decreases everytime you use the hint button. When puzzle is completed students hit the check button to get their score. Good review of vocabulary for electricity.
  22. Virtual Physics Laboratory
    Includes excerpts from the book Physlet Physics. Lists numerous applets and multimedia resourses for use in physics instruction. Explorations include interactive applications of force and motion, mirrors and lenses and electricity.
  23. Water Science for Schools (USGS)
    Outstanding: This site has many links to information and activities for students and teachers. There is a index to chose actiivities with quizzes and information sheets.
  24. WonderNet-Chemistry and Color
    This site has several activities for students to learn how color works. Colors on the Moove, Candy Chroma Topography, and It's a Natural are three activities available for student. Each activity has list of items that are needed and step by step instructions with illustrations to make it easy to follow. There are dozens of additonal science activities at this web site.

Information/Facts/Data/Reports

  1. Applied Science - Our Technological World
    This site contains a wealth of lessons and activities for physical science from K-6. It is well organized and is very detailed in background information and procedure.
  2. Chemical Elements.com
    A unique example of how something old can become new again online. This periodic table of elements provides an ease of access and depth of data textbooks cannot match.
  3. Chemistry Links
    Many good chemistry site links. Very good ones include history and graphics and visualization.
  4. Electricity and Magnetism Thinkquest New
    This is a site that offers background information on electricity and magnetism. Students would read through information and have an option to complete the interactive crossword puzzle, word scramble, and take an overall quiz about the information read from the site.
  5. Mr. Fizzix Physics
    Site has LOTS of physics information, projects, and interactive simulations covering all areas of integrated science - physics. Very well done, requires flash, and fun to use.
  6. Physics Web
    This is a site where you can learn about all the newest stuff in physics.
  7. Saving Energy (Energy Conservation)
    This chapter talks about how energy can be saved. Methods used tells why we should conserve energy. This site is elementary in nature.
  8. Structure of the Atom
    This site explains the particles found in the atom, their charges and mass. There is also an explanation of what makes each element unique. The explanations are short and to the point. Atomic theories and orbitals are also discussed.
  9. Water Science for Schools (USGS)
    Outstanding    : This site has many links to information and activities for students and teachers. There is a index to chose actiivities with quizzes and information sheets.

Videos/Movies/Animations/Applets

Videos/Movies/Audio Clips

  1. Albert Einstein: Image and Impact
    Don't quite understand E=mc2? Let Einstein explain it to you via an audio clip. And check out his photo albums while you're at it.
  2. Resource: The Mechanical Universe and Beyond
    This is a site containing 52 videos (30 minutes long) about physics.
  3. The Physics Classroom
    A very encompassing site of most basic physics concepts from Newton's laws to waves, sound, and light. It is well organized and easy to navigate. The concepts are broken up into categories and there is constant interactive evaluation. Included are: a multimedia section, quicktime movies, and a help tutorial.

Animations/Applets/Simulations

  1. Chemistry Animations And PowerPoints
    A high school teacher has developed a list of Powerpoints on a variety of topics in chemistry. Some of the presentations are excellent that he has collected for classroom use as tutorials or lecture.
  2. Chemistry-Based
    This site has numerous animations in chemistry.
  3. Essential Chemistry, 2/e
    This site has Flash animations from McGraw-Hill by Raymond Chang © 2000. The site has the following topic by chapters: Rutherford's Experiment, Limiting Reagent, Molecular View, Properties of Gases, Line Spectra, Atomic Radii, Hybridization, 1 - Vapor Pressure, 2 - Sphere Packing - Simple Cubic Packing, 3 - Sphere Packing - Body Centered Cubic Packing, 4 - Sphere Packing - Cubic Close Packing, 1 - Activation Energy, 2 - Orientation of Collison, Le Chatelier's Principle, Acid Ionization, Buffers, Galvanic Cell, Radioactive Decay.
  4. Explore Science
    How do waves form? What's up with gravity? Animated demos explain the scientific concepts behind our world (shockwave plug-in required)
  5. Interact With an On-line Atom!
    See how an atom's electrons are affected by energy in this cool interactive animation!
  6. Interactive Animations On Sound and Light
    This site has animations demonstrating how light waves travel through different materials and animations demonstrating how sound waves travel through different materials and how sound is measured.
  7. Java Applets for Physics Education
    This site has a number of applets made for physics and physical science education, generally appropriate for middle school and above.
  8. MathMol Home Page
    This site has many links to the field of molecular modeling such as: A Library of 3-D Molecular Structures, Water Module, Using water to investigate density, mass and volume, and Hypertext textbooks. Plug-in may be required to view some of the graphics, such as 3-D (VRML). Software is also available on this site.
  9. Mike's Animated Molecules
    This is a good site for understanding the molecular geometry of molecules.  Each molecule has a description that includes bond angles, general formula, shape name, steric number, number of lone pairs, hybridization, polar/nonpolar, and an animation of the molecule.
  10. Multimedia Physics Studios
    Outstanding: The Multimedia Physics Studios consists of a collection of GIF animations and accompanying explanations of major physics concepts. The animations cover common physics principles discussed in a first-year high school physics course. The animation and discussion have been written specifically for high school physics students.
  11. NYNU Virtual Physics
    This site contains a wide variety of simulations and related theory/vocabulary in nearly all areas of physical science : mechanics, waves, thermodynamics, etc.  Some of the topics are at advanced levels.
  12. PhET Simulations
    Outstanding: This site includes the following simulations that have been researched and tested: Motion, Work, Energy & Power, Sound & Waves, Heat & Thermo, Electricity, Magnets & Circuits, Light & Radiation, Quantum Phenomena, Chemistry, Math Tools, plus many more that are added every year
  13. Physical Chemistry Animation Index
    Most of these animations are either Javascripts or Shockwave animations. This is an index of links to physical chemistry.
  14. Physics Animations / Simulations
    The following are topics at this site:Applets Java applets in math and physics; Molecular Model for an Ideal Gas: Watch the molecules of an ideal gas hold up a piston by collisions. You can set the pressure, number of molecules and velocity of the molecules; Multimedia Physics Studio: Huge set of animations using animated gifs and shockwave, by Tom Henderson of Glenbrook South High School; Newtonian Mountain: A fun Java applet which lets you choose the speed at which a cannon ball is fired from the top of a mountain. With a high enough speed you can see it go into orbit; NTNU Virtual Physics Laboratory: Java applets covering many areas of physics (mechanics, dynamics, waves, thermodynamics...); Physics 3220 Quantum Animations: These animations are *.ma files which run under either Mathematica or Mathread. The latter is freeware, and links are given to download it; Wave Optics: Play with wavelength, slit spacing, and distance to the screen in a double slit interference Java applet.
  15. Physics 2000
    This site has interactive applets and demonstrations for just about any physics topic.
  16. Ripple Tank Simulation
    This has a ripple tank applet so you can set up your computer with an overhead and not worry about the messy ripple tank. It has both 2-d and 3-d simulations with a variety of wave sources and frequencies so you can explore all the different patterns and interference patterns.
  17. The Interactive Library
    Outstanding    : This site has applets for all the science disciplines and they are all excellent. Mathematics is also part of the database.
  18. The Physics Classroom
    A very encompassing site of most basic physics concepts from Newton's laws to waves, sound, and light. It is well organized and easy to navigate. The concepts are broken up into categories and there is constant interactive evaluation. Included are: a multimedia section, quicktime movies, and a help tutorial.
  19. Virtual Physics Laboratory
    Includes excerpts from the book Physlet Physics. Lists numerous applets and multimedia resourses for use in physics instruction. Explorations include interactive applications of force and motion, mirrors and lenses and electricity.
  20. Virtual Trips to Black Holes and Neutron Stars
    No one's selling travel packages to black holes just yet, but you can almost book in advance with these scientifically accurate computer animations.

Photographs/Slides/Diagrams/Graphics

  1. Chemistry Links
    Many good chemistry site links. Very good ones include history and graphics and visualization.
  2. Tryscience
    This site offers a variety of experiments and advice to teachers and parents in the area of physical science, with outlines and graphics.

Periodicals/Journals/Newspapers

  1. AIP Physics News
    Once a week the American Institute of Physics sums up the latest advances in Physics, from cosmology to nanotubes.
  2. Exploratorium: ExploraNet
    This is a great site for investigations. There are detailed instructions for activities and plenty of background information on a variety of science topics. Begin by clicking on "Explore" at the top.
  3. National Laboratories
    This site reports on serious science work at the Department of Energy Labs. Research results from Argonne, Brookhaven, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia is found posted here. Information includes radiation and robotics at Sandia to superconductors and skeletal scans at Oak Ridge.
  4. Physics Central
    Here is another good search engine that has a plethora of resources and interactive sites. It also contains a history section and a "best of the best" category.
  5. Physics Today
    Your daily physics news source and research source.
  6. Physics Web
    Selected articles from Physics World are published in full on physicsweb.org every month, along with summaries of other articles.
  7. Physical Sciences Resource Center
    This is an excellent search engine for selected physical science topics and websites. It allows you to narrow your search to subject, grade level (through college), and resource type.
  8. The Catalyst: Chemistry Resources for the Secondary Education Teacher
    The Catalyst covers a wide variety of chemistry concepts and includes several interactive links such as elements and the periodic table,balancing equations and review materials. Also includes AP information as well as links to other supplemental sites.

Searches/Explorations/Investigations

  1. Chem Com Teacher's Resource Center
    Outstanding! ChemCom® takes a different approach to the learning of chemistry. Each of the eight units revolves around a societal question. This question creates a need to know chemistry to find a solution. The context of each question is a community: local, workplace, national,or global. The chemistry presented to the students builds upon the same vocabulary, thinking skills, problem solving and lab techniques as most traditional introductory chemistry courses.
  2. Frank Potter's Science Gems: Physical Science
    Provides a long list of web sites that can be used for physical science instruction. Subcatagories within this listing include mechanics, energy, momentum, and waves, as well as a large number of chemistry applications. Appropriate grade level is indicated for each site.
  3. Marvelous Machines
    An excellent unit on simple machines. Students experiment with simple machanical devices and explain how they work. This site provides experiments, material lists, worksheets designed for students and lesson plans for hands-on problem solving using manipulatives. This site is wonderful for teachers who love the scientific method.
  4. Mr. Fizzix Physics
    Site has LOTS of physics information, projects, and interactive simulations covering all areas of integrated science - physics. Very well done, requires flash, and fun to use.
  5. Physical Science Hotlist
    Categorizes physical science sites that explore chemistry and physics topics, information on scientists, and applications of physical concepts.
  6. Physics Central
    Presents tutorials on timely physics topics, biographies of physicists, explanations of scientific images, physics news, and a web guide that categorizes, annotates, and evaluates physics web sites. Appropriate levels are indicated for each site.
  7. PSI Gate - Physical Science Information Gateway
    This is a very comprehensive search engine of the physical sciences broken up into search subjects. This site has a lot of information about all physical sciences. It is geared for someone who is a professional scientist, no lightweights!
  8. Tryscience
    This site offers a variety of experiments and advice to teachers and parents in the area of physical science, with outlines and graphics.

 

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