Resources Available on the Internet for the Classroom

Types of Internet Sites

• Collections of links to other sites. (example)
• Search engines. (example)
• Information about science and mathematics content. (example)
• Information about teaching science and mathematics. (example)
• Information about organizations and publications. (example)
• Technical tutorials. (example)
• Collections of data (tabular, graphical), (video clips)
• Real-time data. (example 1) (example 2)
• Software to download. (example 1) (example 2)
• Interactive environments.
  (example 1) (example 2) (example 3) (example 4)
• Student-created projects.
  (4th grade) (8th grade) (MCTP students)

Alternative or supplement to paper class materials

Syllabus, lecture notes, homework assigments, laboratory experiments, quizes, self-tests, old exams, problem sets, answer sheets, "slide" sets.

Examples of Courses and Course Materials on the Web

The World Lecture Hall contains links to pages created by faculty worldwide who are using the Web to deliver class materials. For example, you will find course syllabi, assignments, lecture notes, exams, class calendars, multimedia textbooks, etc.

Knut Irgun, Umea University. Very large annotated collection of links to chemistry courses and tutorials on the Web.

George Watson, University of Delaware. Innovative course concept. Examines "high-tech devices," such as the microwave oven and the compact disk to understand the scientific concepts underlying their operation. Syllabus, lecture notes, assignments, student work, and links to related materials.

Jim Holler, Dept. of Chemistry, Univ. of Kentucky. Nice example of a course page for a general science course, including a complete set of activities and student handouts.

Brian Tissue, et. al., Virginia Tech. Extensive set of on-line course and supplementary materials in chemistry (especially analytical chemistry). Includes several examples of Interactive Exercises developed in Javascript and Perl.

L. E. Peppard, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. A good example of course page with lots of student assignments with hints (in the form of downloadable word processor files).

Tom O'Haver, U. of Maryland. Real-time, theory-based interactive simulations of some simple electronic circuits for a course in elementary practical instrumentation electronics. Used after the students have constructed and studied the circuits in the laboratory, in an effort to deepen their conceptual understanding. Simulations help to bridge the gap between the static, two-dimensional symbolic representations of traditional schematic diagrams and the real, 3-dimensional circuits in the laboratory. Students work with representations that actually work and respond to changes just like the real circuits, yet look just like the schematic diagrams in their textbooks. An example of downloadable files for use with an external "player" application.

Bill Teesdale, Department of Physics, University of Guelph. A collection of illustrated tutorials and self-tests in basic physics, including Torque and Rotational Motion, DC Circuits Free-Body Diagrams; Exponential Growth and Decay; Simple Harmonic Motion; biophysics, plus some supporting material on math and graphing.

Oliver Seely, Dept. of Chemistry, Calfornia State University, Dominguez Hills. Simple drill and practice and data analysis on basic chemistry: converting dimensions, properties of atoms, ionic equilibria, heat relationships, colligative properties, gas laws, percent composition. Based on the use of Javascript to perform simple computations and provide interactivity. Also see this page intended for instructors: http://chemistry.csudh.edu/george/javascript/javascript.html.

David Dice, Carlton Comprehensive High School, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Nicely illustrated basic chemistry tutorial in slide show format.

Frank Wattenberg, Department of Mathematics, Carroll College. Imaginative and original module on the relationship between sound and trigonometric functions. In addition to the usual text and graphic slements, the document includes Quicktime movies, digital sound bytes, links to Maple and Mathematica notebook files, and graphing calculator programs to download.

Wolfgang Christian and Gregor Novak, Davidson College and IUPUI. Examples of the use of the WWW for teaching physics. Uses CGI scripts, some digital video and sound.

Brian Jones, Physics Dept., Colorado State Univ. Experiments you can do right now, right where you are... Innovative collection of simple scientific experiments that can be done right where you sit. Includes a facinating auditory experiment, based on the "circularity of pitch judgement" illusion, using the Shockwave plug-in to create a working on-screen "piano keyboard".

Mark Thompson. Breed your own plants through a recursive algorithm by controlling the traits of their growth and form. Example of interactive Shockwave-based document with sliders to adjust parameters.

This site will let both students and teachers interact with material on the web, rather than just reading text. In order to use this site you must have the Macromedia Shockwave Plug-in (used with Netscape 2.0+ or greater). Mechanics, electricity and magnetism, life science, waves, optics, astrophysics.

Karl Harrison, Dept. of Chemistry, Oxford University Collection of chemistry-related demonstration pages containing Quicktime movies and Shockwave animations, and VRML.

Dave Miller, School of Education, Stanford University. Examples and templates of Web-based courseware. Most of these examples rely on new features in Netscape Navigator 2.0 or 3.0, including VRML, 3D graphics, Shockwave, QuickTime, Java, and JavaScript.

Yue-Ling Wong, Dept. of Chemistry, Wake Forest University New WWW Technology Applied in Chemical Education. Collection of chemistry-related tutorial and demonstration pages containing Shockwave animations, Java, Javascript, and VRML.

Jeff Milton, Brent Thomas and David Yaron, Carnegie Mellon University Sophisticated simulations developed in Java, including: Spectroscopic Simulator, Statistical Mechanics Simulator, The Periodic Table, Data Fitting, Particle in a Box .

MDL Information systems, Inc. Well-done tutorial for developers that show how to incorporate RasMol scripts in an HTML page in order to facilitate simple manipulations of a chemical structure on display using the Netscape plug-in Chime.

Thomas Poon, Colby College. Interactive exercises for organic chemistry students; comparison and classification of molecules. Based on the Netscape plug-in Chime.

William McClure, Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University. A set of tutorials and quizzes that are based on RasMol images of the molecules and macromolecules found in biochemistry. As such they are intended to complement standard biochemistry texts where more explanation is provided, but where 3D images of the molecules are not available. Two of the best portions are the tutorials on amino acids and on protein structure.

Kenton S. Miller, Univ. of Tulsa. Well-done tutorials on peptide and polypeptide structure. Nice use of RasMol scripts and Chime to manipulate of the structures on display.

Bob Desharnais and Gary Novak, California State University. Simulation of fly breeding, in which students determine the rules of genetic inheritance based on "experimental" results.

A discussion of varioous ways to perform animations on Web pages, with examples from biology. Simple in-line animations of mitosis, meiosis, drosophila embryogenesis, developing lamina, lamina cartridge, and L3 & L5 neurons. These animations run right on your graphical Web browser (e.g. Netscape) without additional software.

The Experimental Study Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An electronic textbook with a searchable indes, self-quizes, and practice problems. Chapters titles are: Chemistry Review; Large Molecules Cell Biology; Enzyme Biochemistry; Glycolysis and the Krebs Cycle; Photosynthesis; Central Dogma; Mendelian Genetics; Prokaryotic Genetics and Gene Expression; Recombinant DNA; Immunology.

Arizona State University. Patterns in Nature (PiN) is a project-oriented laboratory science course intended for pre-service and in-service teachers and open to all students. There are Web-based modules on Light & Optics and electricity and magnetism.

Abby L. Parrill and Jacquelyn Gervay, University of Arizona. QuickTime Movies Organized by Lecture Topic: Molecular Recognition, Protein Structure, Effect of Oxygen Binding on Heme, Conformation, Infra-Red Spectroscopy, SN2 Reaction Mechanism.

Columbia University. A collection of well-done Quicktime movies and Director modules aimed at teaching chemistry concepts.

Wilson group, U. of California at San Diego. Extensive set of still and computer animated images from a multimedia course in Physical Chemistry of Life and the Environment. Quantum Mechanics; Air Pollution; X-Ray Diffraction; Molecular Dynamics; Statistical Mechanics; Spectroscopy

Tom O'Haver, University of Maryland. A set of interactive simulations of analytical chemistry measurements and instruments, designed for use in several chemistry courses and implemented in an object-oriented spreadsheet scripting language. An example of downloadable files for use with third-party software.

Abby Parrill, Michigan State University. Tutorials, animations, games, and lecture notes to support a course on organic chemistry. Includes a chapter-by-chapter index to related Internet material.

Educational System Group, The University of Texas at Austin. A Periodic Table in which each elememt is linked to a digital video clip (in MPEG format) illustration reaction of each element.

Brent Iverson, The University of Texas at Austin. A set of digital video clip (in MPEG format) of molecular modeling animations of common organic reactions.

Setting Up A Web Site For Your School: An On-line Presentation
Web Construction For Novices
How to Make a Web Page
An Introductory HTML Tutorial
HTML Conversion Tools