Geography
African Voices
Learn about the people, history, and culture of Africa at this site from the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Follow the history of Africa from pre-history to present day with an interactive timeline and explore themes in African culture over time and hear Africans speak of their daily life.
Source: Smithsonian Museum of Natural History Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Map Collections 1500-2003
This site from the Library of Congress includes military and battle maps, conservation and landscape maps, city maps, early exploration maps, transportation maps, and cultural landscape maps.
Source: Library of Congress Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
GlobeXplorer
Type in an street address in the U.S. and get an aerial image! Note: This is a fee-based print service, so there will be a watermark on the image.
Source: Digital Globe Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
The Earth from Space
View images of the Earth taken during NASA missions. You can search for images by city, landscape feature, or weather. This site is part of a larger NASA collection of 400,000 photos, Astronaut Photography of Earth, that features photographs taken from 1961 to today.
Source: NASA Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Weather Watch
Learn more about weather at this site form Scholastic. You can learn the secrets of weather reporting, control the weather with the interactive Weather Maker activity, explore the power of hurricanes, learn about winter storms, or investigate tornados.
Source: Scholastic Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Elementary Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Degree Confluence Project
The goal of this project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. There are currently 20,000 photographs at the site with descriptions of the process it took to get the photos and of the locations.
Source: Degree Confluence Project Intended Audience: General Reading Level: High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Mountain Voices
Learn about the lives of 300 people who live in mountain and highland regions round the world. Oral interviews are conducted with people from Mexico, Peru, Poland, Kenya, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and China. The site places a focus on talking with individuals about conservation issues, cultural identity and community organization.
Source: Oral Testimony Programme Intended Audience: General Reading Level: High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Census 2000
What did the US Census learn about the 281,421,906 people it recorded in the 2000 Census? Find out here! You can look up demographic information for the country, states, counties, and cities. You can even enter a street address and get Census data for that area.
Source: US Census Bureau Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
CIA World Factbook
How many kilometers of paved road are there in Sweden? (162,707) What is the birth rate in Chile? (16.46 births/1,000) What is Madagascar's form of government? (republic) This site from the CIA provides a wealth of statistics about countries, territories, and principalities around the globe.
Source: The Central Intelligence Agency Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Scholastic Explorers
Explore cultures and ecosystems at this interactive site from Scholastic. You can learn about Native American culture, endangered ecosystems, and the ocean. Each virtual mission includes field report s from research teams, a teacher host, and activities for students.
Source: Scholastic Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Searchable: No
Ancient Mexico
Explore the art, culture, and history of ancient Mesoamerica
Source: theAncientWeb.com Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Searchable: No
Congo Expedition
In 1909 Herbert Lang and James Chapin set sail for the northeastern Belgian Congo. They spent over five years in this largely unexplored region recording their impressions and collecting zoological and anthropological specimens. This site features expedition diaries; stereographic images; primate photographs; historical maps; Chapin's watercolors of fish, reptiles, mammals, birds and village life; and musical instruments from the Congo.
Source: American Museum of Natural History Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Adventure TV
Take streaming-video trips to exotic places around the word. From desert, to jungle, to ocean depths you can explore the cultures and natural wonders of the world. The site features six video channels: Mountains, Jungle, Water, Desert, Snow, Safari's, and Educational.
Source: AdventureTv.com Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Expeditions in Conservation
Travel to coastal African nation of Mozambique and join conservationists as they battle illegal fishing and come face-to-face with a whale shark while searching for endangered dugongs. Journey to the rain forests of South America and search for rare and elusive species, from the jaguar to the giant river otter. Go to the Caribbean's Mesoamerican Reef, home to more than 500 species of fish. Trek to the heart of Borneo and explore its rain forests. Follow a team of international scientists as they plunge through the rainforests of the Central African Republic to monitor animals from ants to elephants.
Source: World Wildlife Fund Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Wild World
Scientists have mapped 867 terrestrial ecoregions in the world from New England-Acadian forests to Central Ranges xeric scrub. This site from National Geographic lets you explore those regions and the plant and animal life and geographic and ecological features that define them.You can search the site by zip code, ecoregion name, habitat type, place name or by clicking on a map. The site also features detailed looks at some of the world's most unique ecoregions and a map of the world's most endangered regions.
Source: National Geographic Intended Audience: Teachers/Students Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Searchable: Yes
TerraServer
Get a satellite-eye view of places around the U.S. at this site. You can search for satellite images by location or you can look for images of famous places like the Space Needle and Mount St. Helens. In addition to satellite images, you can also view topographic maps.
Source: Microsoft Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Virtual Guidebooks
Travel around the western United States and Canada at this incredible site featuring over 2600 virtual reality panoramas of everything form painted rock petroglyphs in Arizona to glaciers in Alaska. You can look in any direction, as well as up and down, and zoom in and out. You can also browse the site thematically or geographically.
Source: Don Bains Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Visible Earth
Meteor craters, the fall colors in New England, and glaciers. Get a birds-eye view of these and other features of the Earth at this site from NASA.
Source: NASA Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Radio Locator
Listen to radio broadcasts from around the world at this site that has links to over 10,000 radio station web pages and over 2500 audio streams from radio stations in the U.S. and around the world.
Source: Theodric Technologies LLC Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Portals to the World
This site from the Library of Congress provides links to information about the nations and regions of the world covering topics like education, culture, history, government, language, literature, media, religion, science, and geography.
Source: Library of Congress Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Varies Teacher Section: No Searchable: No The Economist Country Briefings
Get the latest news, country profiles, forecasts, and statistics for countries around the world.
Source: The Economist Intended Audience: General Reading Level: High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
EarthPulse
Keep tabs on the health and vitality of the planet at this site from National Geographic. Sections on the Ocean, Climate, Population, Land, Wild Species, Ecosystems, and Energy include online activities and articles that will help you explore topics like tornados, rivers,overpopulation, and conservation.
Source: National Geographic Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
National Geographic Kids
Do you know that polar bears have black skin that helps them stay warm? That girls in ancient Egypt had pet geese? That the golden poison-dart frog has enough toxin to kill 8 people? Learn these and other cool facts at this site that features articles, games, activities, experiments, and news just for kids! Visit the cartoon factory and create your own captions, print out coloring sheets, or test your geography skills. No matter what your mood, you are sure to find something fun to learn and do at this site.
Source: National Geographic Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: Elementary Teacher Section: Yes Searchable: Yes
One World Journeys
Discover the natural wonders of the world at this site that features online expeditions that focus on wildlife, natural resources, and cultures. Take an expedition to Florida's springs and learn about the manatee, travel to Tanzania and learn about Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees, learn about the cougar and the threats it faces, dive down into the Palmyra Atoll and explore life in a coral reef, travel upstream with the Pacific salmon, or take a trip to the Sonoran Desert and discover the secrets of one of the worlds most biologically diverse ecosystems.
Source: One World Journeys Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Searchable: No
National Register of Historic Places
Find places listed in the National Register in a searchable database, visit historic sites around the country with Travel Itineraries that highlight different geographic regions or important themes in American history. You can visit places where women made history, follow the Underground Railroad, visit key sites in the Civil Rights Movement, take a walk on the Shaker Historical Trail and more. Younger students can go on The Great American Landmarks Adventure, where they can visit 42 American landmarks and print out coloring sheets.The site also includes over 100 lesson plans exploring history, art, geography, and civics.
Source: National Park Service Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Searchable: Yes
Growth of a Nation
This ten minute movie depicts the geographic history of the United States from the beginning of the nation to fifty states. Geographic elements are interactive. Click on a state for a pop-up screen with more information about the state, place your cursor over a river to learn its name. Click on the timeline and a new page will open with key event for the period you selected.The faster your Internet speed the better!
Source: AnimatedAtlas.com Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: NoGeoQuiz
Can you locate Serbia on a map? How about Mauritania? Test your skills with this online quiz.
Intended Audience: Students Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Playing with Time
This site features time-lapse movies of everything from the blink of an eye (5/10th of a second) to the creation of today's continents from the single land mass Pangaea (240 million years). When you've finished viewing the movies go to the activities center to sequence events in time! If you want to learn how to create your own time-lapse images, visit the toolkit section.
Source: Red Hill Studios Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Worldometers
What's the current population of the world, how many people were born today, how many bicycles were produced this year, how many book titles were published? Find out at this site that keeps a running tally of statistics on the world's population, food supply, education, energy, health, government, and the environment.
Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
AmeriStat
Get the latest demographic information about the U.S. population. Whether your looking for information about marriage or education, this site from the Population Reference Bureau provides articles and graphs to keep you up-to-date with the latest statistical data.
Source: Population Reference Bureau Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Desert USA
Bask in the desert sun at this site as you learn about desert animal and plant life, peoples, culture, geography, and geology.
Source: DesertUSA Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary/High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: Yes
Global Tribe
Travel meets idealism at this companion site to the PBS series. This site examines world cultures, global issues, and people who are making a difference. Explore Mexico, South Africa, and the Philippines and meet an Aztec youth, look at the art of Apartheid, listen to Cape Town rap, or listen to a hudhud chant.
Source: AOL Time Warner Foundation Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle/High School Teacher Section: Yes Searchable: Yes Language Museum
Fon-Gbe, Kekchí, and Bauzi are just some of the 2000 languages profiled here. You will find a sample text for each of the languages profiled with an English translation, a breakdown of where the language is spoken, and how many people speak it.
Source: Language Museum Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Dive and Discover
Take a deep breath and dive into this site from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Follow the progress and discoveries of research cruises to the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, and access to the latest oceanographic and deep submergence research as it happens!
Source: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: Yes Searchable: No
Virtual Cave
Be a virtual spelunker and learn about lava tube caves, solution caves, sea caves, and erosional caves.This site features lots of images of cave formations and explanations how they came to be.
Intended Audience: General Reading Level: High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Cultures on the Edge
Explore culture around the world at this quarterly online magazine. You'll find photographic essays by some of the world's best photographers, video interviews, news and commentary all designed to expose you to new cultures. Visit India, Afghanistan, Kenya, the Andes, South Africa, and South and South East Asia.
Intended Audience: General Reading Level: High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Distances Between Cities
Need to know the distance between Abu Dhabi and Zurich? This site calculates distances between cities or longitude and latitude settings.
Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Population Clocks
6,289,360,009 - That was the world population when the link was created. Find out the current population for both the World and the U.S. at this site from the Census Bureau. Note: In the time it took to create this link 720 people were born!
Intended Audience: General Reading Level: N/A Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Aneki World Rankings
What country has the highest divorce rate? What is the hottest country in the world? Who has won the most World Cups? Find the answer to these and lots of other questions at this site that ranks countries according to a wide-variety of criteria.
Source: Aneki.com Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Elementary Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Origins of Writing
This collection of articles traces the history of written language from hieroglyphs and Chinese calligraphy to the Gutenberg press and the Cherokee alphabet.
Intended Audience: General Reading Level: High School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
Cultures
Animations, images, and essays illustrate cultures around the world from the Hopi and their Anasazi ancestors to the the Greek shrine of Dodona. Other stories include the Amistad slave ship rebellion; the Muwekma Ohlone and their Pacific Islander cousins; Angkor Wat in Cambodia; and Timbuktu, Great Zimbabwe and Afropop.
Source: Fleet Gazelle Intended Audience: General Reading Level: Middle School Teacher Section: No Searchable: No
|