Other Sites Reviewed

NASA Human Spaceflight- spaceflight.nasa.gov

Although this site has good information, it contains too many specifics and not enough background for K-8 students. The reading sections, which consist mostly of news articles, are long and advanced with only a few pictures to captivate students' attention. The site is also extremely difficult to navigate resulting from the excessive amounts of information it provides.

NASA Information Services- http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html

This website discusses Goddard Space Flight Center, what it does, and how to get involved in their various programs. In terms of the K-8 curriculum, it provides no background information or activities in space or astronomy.

Hubble Space Telescope- www.stsci.edu/public.html

Although this site has many excellent images directly from the Hubble Telescope, it is difficult to navigate and even harder to find the specific planetary body you want. Its collection of images is not as expansive as the Planetary Photojournal that I reviewed on the Activities page. The site provides links to other good Astronomy resources but I have also already reviewed them on the other pages.

Galileo Space Probe- www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/

Geared to a high school audience, this site gives some excellent diagrams of Galileo. However, its pages are not as clear or well organized as Online from Jupiter (already reviewed) which gives the same information. The Educational resources it provides cannot be fully viewed and can only be printed from a post-script printer.

NASA Space Experiments Division- microgravity.grc.nasa.gov

Neither general information nor activities can be found on this site. Its reading and explanations are too advanced for K-8 students, discussing things such as acceleration and fluid physics. The site also goes into extreme depth about the facilities and goals of the Experiments Division.

Space Views/ Pathfinder Arrives at Mars- www.seds.org/spacedviews/pathfinder/

This site consists of space-related news articles very few of which have pictures or images. It is difficult to navigate and has not been updated with new mission information since 1997. However, until that time, it followed the Pathfinder news in great detail, archiving tons of the best articles written about it.

Mullard Space Science Laboratory- www.mssl.ucl.ac.uk

The advanced topics that this site addresses make it clear that its authors intended it for high schoolers and university students. I do not recall seeing Astro Physics, Solar Physics, Plasma Physics, Climate Physics, or Detector Physics anywhere in the K-8 Curriculum!

Quest: NASA K-12 Internet Initiative- quest.arc.nasa.gov

The site is very difficult to navigate which makes it nearly impossible to locate the specific information you need. It gives links to some of NASA's websites and also outlines NASA's goals and programs dealing with education. I have picked a few of its best aspects and reviewed them on the other pages.

Solar System Live- www.fourmilab.to/solar

On this site, students select a day, time, scale, observation site, and angle at which they would like to view the positions of the planets. They are then shown a computer graphic of the alignments of the planets without any other information and no useful background to help them understand what they are seeing. There is a similar simulation with tracking comets and asteroids.

The Galileo Project- es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo

This site provides excellent background about Galileo's actual work and the observations he made. Although it describes in detail the instruments he used for his research, the main focus of the site is the people (both religious and scientific) who were invloved.

Earthshots- edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/earthshots/slow/tableofcontents

This site is a collection of images of the whole globe taken by satellites. In most cases, the images are unclear and blurry or lack any significant detail. The captions explain the topography and other features of the land including farming/grazing areas and ice formations.

NASA's Education Program- education.nasa.gov/home/index.html

This site is a list of NASA's online resources and workshops for teachers. It does not provide any background or activities but does give links to some of NASA's other sites. There are searchable databases to look for NASA materials that might be helpful to the curriculum.

NASA's Learning Technology Project- learn.arc.nasa.gov/

This site is another list of NASA links with a brief description of their contents that can be used in the classroom. The links are well organized by topic and the site itself is very easy to navigate. I have already outlined the best sites on the other pages.

NASA Classroom of the Future- www.cotf.edu

Like the previous 2 sites, this site lists products and technology that NASA feels will be essential to the future of education. There is also an extensive explanation of the goals, purposes, and programs avaliable to teachers.

NASA Space Life Science Outreach- weboflife.nasa.gov/

Like many of the other NASA sites, this one is merely a resource for finding other websites, not for finding specific Astronomy information. If you want to search NASA's websites for good classroom activities, this site will give you some good ones to look at. However, I have already outlined the best links on the previous 3 pages.

Mission to Geospace www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach

Although this site provides excellent background and reading material, it is geared mainly to an older audience. Sections discuss topics including the Earth's Magnetosphere and Solar Winds in great detail with several explanatory illustrations. There is also a discussion of present research in the area of geospace and an archive of images and movies.

International Solar-Terrestrial Physics- www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov

This page has two major parts; one that discusses the missions and programs that ISTP uses to study the Sun-Earth Connection, and another that links you back to "Mission to Geospace". News about ISTP and pictures illustrating their research can also be found on the site.

Ulysses/NASA Mission to the Sun- ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov

This site is geared to older students who have already learned about basic physical concepts such as magnetic fields and solar winds. Although each page has excellent clear diagrams, they also have long reading sections containing specific information about the Sun's polar regions and its other high latitude features. The data it offers for analysis comes from experiments too complicated for K-8 students.

MAP - Microwave Anisotropy Probe- map.gsfc.nasa.gov

This site consists of long, advanced reading sections with diagrams that mean little to those of us not involved in the microwave research. Its descriptions tell of galaxy formation, microwave fluctuation in the geometry of the universe, and the development of cosmic structures.

NASA's Origins Program- origins.jpl.nasa.gov

This site tells all about the Origins program, what it has done, is doing, and is going to do. There is also a list of resources and materials that educators can purchase for use in the classroom. Although the Origins program is studying the progression of life through time, there is little background in this area.

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