ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
AskERIC also houses and maintains our Discovery Learning Community Project. This includes WWW and Gopher areas with complete listings for the Educator Guide, educational resources (CD-ROM etc.), and an extensive area devoted to The Promised Land.
DISCOVERY NETWORKS ESTABLISHES ONLINE "LEARNING COMMUNITY"
Discovery Networks has announced the February launch of the Discovery Learning Community on the Internet. The site features an electronic version of Discovery Networks' Educator Guide and a pilot project kicking off in conjunction with The Promised Land, a five-hour television series about the massive mid-20th century migration of African Americans from the deep South to the industrial North between 1942 and 1970.
"Discovery Networks' programs are not only richly informative in their own right but can and should be the springboard for further academic inquiry. The 'Discovery Learning Community' is designed to support such inquiry and provide additional resources to help young people explore academic themes in rewarding and engaging ways," says Discovery's Hunter Williams, senior manager, educational relations.
The Discovery Learning Community, which is accessible on Internet via gopher, world-wide web and ftp, provides teachers, learners, parents and mentors with activities and resources that extend the educational value of programming on The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel. Throughout the Spring of 1995 the site will have a special focus on the many curricular themes present in The Promised Land, including African-American experience, economics, artistic expression, urban studies, migrations, politics and civil rights.
The site provides teachers and students with activity guides, ideas for interdisciplinary study and connections to local mentors and other classes. The site includes special resources for incorporating the oral histories of migration veterans into existing curricular goals and a wealth of diverse resources from leading institutions and organizations that focus on African-American history and culture. To assist the contribution of teachers' and learners' views on The Promised Land, Discovery has set up an online discussion group, or listserv.
The Promised Land premieres on The Discovery Channel in prime-time February 12-15. Assignment Discovery, a service of Discovery Networks, presents commercial-free versions of The Promised Land series the week of February 27 - March 3, from 9-10am ET/PT. The entire series also airs the weeks of April 17-21 and June 5-9 at the same time. Media specialists, teachers and parents may tape Assignment Discovery programming and use it for up to one year from the date of taping.
The Internet site was designed by Discovery Networks and Duggan Associates, an online communities development firm in Baltimore, MD. The site was built and is maintained at the AskERIC project at the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology, Syracuse University, and the InfoMall program of the Northeast Parallel Architecture Center, also located at Syracuse University.
TNHC, a division of the Texas Memorial Museum of the Univ. of Texas at Austin, is bringing to the public their large database collection of natural history with emphaisis relating to Texas collections but also offering world-wide links to information and natural history data. The site includes...
WAIS-indexed databases from the ichthyology and herpetology collections are searchable, and data from other divisions (geology and invertebrate divisions) will soon be added.
The WWW pages of DESERT FISHES COUNCIL include its complete bilingual proceedings of meetings, photographs of fishes, distribution maps, and abstracts of biology, conservation status and management of selected fish species.
The Business Office of the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ICHTHYOLOGISTS AND HERPETOLOGISTS, now based at the TNHC, provides (WWW & Gopher) an updated membership directory, meeting announcements, and general information about the society.
Finally, the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS BIODIVERSITY RESOURCES AND COLLECTIONS (UT-BRAC) collaborative project (WWW & Gopher) provides links to other natural history and biodiversity resources at UT Austin. Currently the PLANT RESOURCES CENTER and VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY LAB join the TNHC with online databases and related files. Links to other University of Texas natural history and biodiversity-related collections, and to external regional biodiversity resources, will be added in the near future.
Earthwatch Now On the World Wide Web! Earthwatch, an international nonprofit organization funding scientific and environmental enterprise, has launched the first in a series of on-line services. The 1995 Earthwatch research and exploration portfolio is now available on the World Wide Web.
Founded in 1972, Earthwatch offers you the chance to participate on over 150 scientific and cultural research expeditions worldwide. No special skills are required - we'll train you in the field on projects ranging from saving endangered rhinos in Africa to monitoring wild dolphins off Monterey to excavating medieval castles in France.
As an EarthCorps member, you support the field research and cover your food and lodging expenses with tax-deductible contributions ranging from $500 to $2000. Airfare costs to and from the site are not included though these costs are also generally tax deductible. To date, over 40,000 EarthCorps members have contributed to important environmental and cultural research in 111 countries.
The Earthwatch Home Page details the mission of the organization. Readers can then explore a graphically rich catalogue of 150 expeditions, browsing by location (worldwide), time of year, fields of study (such as archaeology, marine mammalogy, paleontology and public health), and issues of concern (endangered species, sustainable development and more). Ground Truth reports of significant expedition findings and applications are also available. Readers can request additional information, sign up as Earthwatch member, or make a reservation for the EarthCorps via e-mail.
Future on-line services will provide direct links between scientists at their research sites and classrooms, as well as interactive chat rooms and bulletin board services.
Once again the University of Oregon Outdoor Program is exploring the wilderness, except in this case, it's the virtual wilderness. You can now find the latest information about OP trips, events, resources, outdoor conditions, and much more at http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~opwww.
One of the major objectives of our pages is to provide environmental information. We have and are collecting information on environmental concerns, events, politics, local environmental resources and general environmental information. The environmental page is at http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~opwww/enviro.
We would appreciate any information you may have about local environmental events and groups, ways that we could improve, and general input on our pages.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has announced that their monthly newsletter is available to the public online via the WWW at the ATSDR Homepage. ATSDR's mission is to prevent exposure and the adverse human health effects and diminished quality of life associated with exposure to hazardous substances from waste sites, unplanned toxic releases, and other sources of environmental pollution. If you're unfamiliar with the ATSDR Homepage altogether, it contains links to ATSDR's toxicological profiles of hazardous substances, public health statements about exposure effects, and the HazDat database, which contains information about the release of hazardous substances from Superfund sites or emergency events and their effect on health.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has two new servers on the Internet. These efforts are in support of our The servers are - Fire Management - and - Region 1 (Pacific Region)
Contains info and links to all sorts of "frog" information. There is an assortment of clip-art and pictures of frogs. How to make an origami frog and information on frog species from around the world. Undaunted by previous reports I could not seem to find recipes =). A frog lover's dream!
A great linked list of fun and educational places to surf to. Includes a lot of science related and Earth environment links.
A self-contained community that is an ongoing experimental project. The community is located on a 4,000 acre preserve and it has an ecologically sound, energy efficient and environmentally friendly mission. The community is self-sustaining and does not depend on outside resources for its food, shelter or water supply. This is supposed to be a model for future cultures and communities to emulate. This site gives you a window into their world.
A new site devoted to environmental information and environmental causes. Has info on various ongoing environmentally related projects and contains pointers to associated information. This site keeps growing in scope and depth of information. Considered by some to be an "activist" site for many environmental concerns and issues. Both web and gopher contain essentially the same information although the web interface is a bit more pleasing. Keep in mind that the gopher site will be faster for most modem users.
Some call this "Forever Wild" conservatory organization a questionable venture as it is NOT a non-profit organization but who is to say that an organization cannot take its profits and do good to the environment with them. This conservancy purchases forested land and also pays landowners money settlements to not cut down trees on their acreage. I have put this site in BIGSURF for it seems that this organization is genuinely trying to save our forested lands from development and being cut down or bought up by commercial paper pulp and logging interests. For a $40 - $60 fee you can adopt a tree or become a guardian protector of a tree or even purchase a gift certificate sponsorship for someone. Until further info arrives I do remain skeptical but hopeful in this organization's mission. Worth a check to see what's going on here. Yes - they are here to make money but the results are environmentally friendly and rather non-invasive. If anyone has further information on this organization or has experiences to share in regards to "Forever Wild" then please email me (author of BIGSURF). Thanks.
This US Dept of Agriculture site has great pictures and links to various information on Soils, Air, Water, Plants, Humans, Animals, Data, USDA related info and more. It would seem that this would be a good place to start exploring conservation issues and environmental concerns or even a place to see what the USDA policies are on these issues. Well... this site is not easy to glean information from unless you already know what it is you are looking for. There are a few databases and/or collections of files and information that are evident enough but others have cryptic file names and are quite confusing for the casual visitor. Hey - I'm sure there is a lot here - the site and archive holdings are large enough - but I did not have the time to download all the unknown files and read through each one. What the government needs to do is to get some decent web page writers...
