Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

I was pretty careful about how I titled this latest “The Best…” list. These sites are good to “introduce” environmental issues in the classroom, but generally don’t provide information on systemic, political, and corporate issues related to environmental damage.

I wasn’t able to find one excellent site that would provide those types resources and be accessible to English Language Learners. However, sites like Breaking News English and the Voice Of America Special English or other links on my The Best News/Current Events Websites For English Language Learners — 2007 that have numerous accessible news stories about current events related to the environment. These stories can be used to raise questions about the roles of First World consumption, the profit motive, and the influence of campaign contributions on political decisions.

I haven’t ranked sites here in order of preference — I think they’re all engaging and accessible to English Language Learners. I have, though, grouped them into four primary categories:

* Ones that provide “calculators” that help users determine their personal “carbon footprints.”

* Ones that provide information on what people can personally do to reduce the damage they cause to the environment, but don’t necessarily ask a series of questions so users can determine their “carbon footprint.”

* Online games that primarily relate to people’s personal actions on how they can affect the environment.

* “Big picture” sites that offer some broader perspective on the environmental crises the world faces, though they don’t necessarily provide an in-depth analysis of “why?”.

Ordinarily, I give a little more of a description for each site than I have in this list. I’m a little pressed for time this summer, though, so, outside of grouping these sites by categories, I’ll leave it to you to discover more details about them on your own.

Here are my choices for The Best Sites To Introduce Environmental Issues Into the Classroom:

CARBON FOOTPRINT CALCULATORS:

Zero Footprint Kids Calculator and Ecologic Games are the most simple and accessible to Beginning and Early Intermediate English Language Learners. Consumer Consequences and Ecological Footprint Calculator are excellent and best for Intermediate and Advanced ELL’s.

PERSONALLY REDUCE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT:

Planet Green Game; Race For A Living Planet; ESL Environmental Education; Eeko World; and The Green Guide all give accessible information about how to personally change your actions to have a positive effect on the environment.

ENVIRONMENTAL GAMES:

Tox Mystery; Environmental Intelligence Unit; ElectroCity; the Carbon Lifestyle Game; and My Abodo are all good, engaging games on the environmental consequences of one’s actions.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL BIG PICTURE:

Climate Change from the BBC News Around; Planet In Peril from the Cable News Network; the Global Warming Map from National Geographic; Environmental Mysteries from North Carolina PBS; the Brainpop: Our Fragile Environment online movies; Can You Keep The Earth In Balance? from National Geographic; Six Degrees Can Change The World, also from National Geographic; and Breathing Earth begin to provide some broader framework for the environmental mess we find ourselves in.

As always, feedback is welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.

The Science Learning Network is a group of science museums from around the world that have developed a number of excellent online science resources — many of which are accessible to English Language Learners.  I’ve posted about some of the individual activities in the past, but thought it would be useful for people to check-out their main website.

I’ve also placed the link on my Teacher’s Page under Science Ideas.

The excellent Teacher List just shared some great images from the recent flight to the International Space Station.

I’ll put the link on my website under Planets and Space.

The British Science Museum has a series of energy-related games that I’ve placed on my Science page.

They include Building Bonanza and Energy Ninjas, both which have text and audio support.  All the games are accessible to Early Intermediate or Intermediate English Language Learners.

(Editor’s Note:  I just learned from the game’s sponsor that they have been overwhelmed by response to the game and have had to temporarily take it off-line)

Pest Private Eye is an online game where players assume the role of a “pest detective.” Their job is to rid a school of various pests.

The visuals are great, and there’s audio support for most of the text in the game. However, it does take quite a awhile for the game to load.

I’ve placed the link on my Science page.

Thanks to the Escape The Room blog for the info.

Safe Drinking Water is a site developed by the Academy of Sciences to highlight worldwide water issues.

It has several good videos that are closed-captions, along with an atlas showing which countries have less or more access to water resources. It’s definitely accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.

I’ve placed the link on my World History page under Toward The Twenty-First Century.

I learned about Universal Leonardo from TechLearning.  It has a bunch of great online interactive experiences students can have with Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and experiments.

I wish I had known about this site when we went on a field trip to the da Vinci exhibition earlier this school year.

I’ve placed the link both on my Science and World History pages.

NASA has developed a Buzz Lightyear site to help teach math and science.

I wouldn’t say it’s a great site for English Language Learners (though one of the “missions” is an “I Spy” game that would be helpful for vocabulary development), but it has some good acitivities for math and science.

I’m putting it on my Math page, which is used extensively by English Language Learners and special Education students at our school.

This is a simple and effective Food Chain Game that teaches…how the food chain works.  Students choose to put the appropriate number of rabbits and foxes, along with a quantity of grass, into the game to how many points they can score by achieving a balance.

I’ve placed the link on my Science page.

This game is just one of many Science related activities created by Caret, an organization in the United Kingdom.  I’ve placed a link to their other puzzles on the same page, but I think most of the others are probably accessible only to advanced English Language Learners.

However, they do have several other Social Studies related games that are probably more accessible.  I’ll be posting about those a little later.

Wild Sanctuary is a neat web application that shows you the world with different “spots” in most continents. Clicking on each one will show you some basic information on that wildlife area along with audio of the sounds found there.

I learned about this site from an excellent blog that I’ve mentioned in a previous post and is on my blogroll. It’s called Free Technology For Teachers, and is written by Richard Byrne, a teacher in rural Maine (USA).

I’ve placed the Wild Sanctuary link on my Geography page.

Alice Mercer has written another great post for the Instructify blog. She writes about a website that’s new to me called Invent Now.

I’d encourage you to read her post describing this interactive site. The only negative is that students have to register first, but that takes less then a minute.

I’ll be placing the link on my website on my regular Science page under Inventions.

I learned about Planet Impact from TechLearning.  It’s a series of engaging online activities where students can learn about comets and their affect on planets.

It’s presented in relatively simple English that’s accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.  There are several games students can plan, including ones where they calculate angles to determine if their comet will hit or miss planets.

I’ve placed the link both on my Science page and my English Themes For Beginners page under Planets and Space.

Sara’s Quest is a very visual online game in simple English about drugs and drug abuse.  Most of it should be accessible to Intermediate English Language Learners.

I’ve placed the link on my English For Beginners page under Health.

The British Science Museum has several online games, some of which are good English language development activities.

I especially like Building Bonanza,  where the player has to build an energy efficient house.  This activity provides text and audio support.

I’ve place the main link to all their games on my Science page.

Sunsite is an interactive explanation of how solar power works.  The language is pretty simple, and should be accessible to Early Intermediate and above English Language Learners.

I’ve placed the link on my Science page.

I recently posted about Dipity, a new online timeline-maker.

Dipity has added a neat new service called Time Tube. You enter a topic — for example, World War II, and it will immediately create a timeline of videos about it. It could be a useful tool in social studies and science (maybe looking at the history of specific science discoveries?) classes.

That is, it could be a useful tool if you’re in a District that doesn’t block YouTube. All the videos appear to come from there, and I know they won’t get through our District’s filter.

I’m placing the link on my website under Student Timelines.

Edukate has quite a few simple and interactive online Science activities.  They don’t have audio, but they still would be very accessible to Early Intermediate and above English Language Learners.

I’ve placed the link on my Science page.

Virtual Body offers a narrated tour of the brain and heart.  Text is provided with the audio.

The vocabulary used is probably most appropriate for Intermediate English Language Learners, but I’ve placed the link on my English Themes for Beginners under Body.  That just seemed like the best fit.

Solar System Jigsaw is another game from the BBC where the player has to put the planets in the correct order.

It’s a good reinforcement activity if students have already learned the planets in class.  If that’s the case, then this game is certainly accessible to all levels of English Language Learners.

I’ve placed in on both on my Science and English Themes pages under Planets and Space.

The BBC has a new Space Doctor Game that requires the player to give the correct medical advice to astronauts going to Mars.

The language isn’t too difficult, but I would still say this would be most appropriate for advanced English Language Learners.

I’ve placed the link on my Science page just above “Planets and Space.”