K-12 educational resources

Today's miniguide is a selection of educational resources for K-12 instruction, including lesson plans, curriculum development, standards-based instruction, and more. This is a very small sample of the resources that can be found in INFOMINE. When searching, either browse the Teaching and Study Resources resource type, or try limiting the search to "subject" in the advanced search form and using terms study and teaching together with a Library of Congress heading like science, mathematics, or history. Alternatively, use study and teaching with an educational level: elementary, secondary, or higher. No special formatting is required to run a subject search, you can enter words just as if you were performing a keyword search. Check out the Library of Congress Authorities or the Wikipedia article on Library of Congress Classification to learn more about the LCSH.

The Science House
Materials for K-12 science teachers: suggested lab activities, professional development directories, online science news and teaching resources.

National Science Resources Center
The NSRC collects and disseminates information about exemplary teaching resources, develops and disseminates curriculum materials, and sponsors outreach activities, specifically in the areas of leadership development and technical assistance, to help school districts develop and sustain hands-on science programs.

GEM : Gateway to 21st Century Skills
"The Gateway to Educational Materials is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit and commercial Internet sites."

learningscience.org
Science learning tools and interactive multimedia for K-12 students and their teachers, based on the National Science Education Standards. Includes the scientific method, life sciences, physical sciences, space, Earth, and technology.

Lesson Plans Library
Hundreds of lesson plans written by teachers in life science, physical science, social studies, mathematics, history, literature, and economics. As part of a commercial site, some plans are based on specific Discovery Channel products, however each plan offers links to free electronic resources that can be integrated into lessons.

Teachers' Domain
Lesson plans and multimedia resources (documents, images, video, audio, and interactive presentations) for K-12 teachers. Free registration required.

Educator's Reference Desk
Guide to more than 3,000 educational web resources, 2,000 lesson plans, and archived AskERIC questions and answers from 1992-2003.

USGS Learning Web
The U.S. Geological Service Learning Web explains topics in earth sciences, geology, hydrology, geography, biology, and maps for K-12 students, K-12 teachers, and lifelong learners. Basic explanations of earth sciences topics (such as volcanoes, plate tectonics, earthquakes, water use), teachers guides and lesson plans for science units at the elementary and secondary levels, science project ideas for school students, and links to science education websites are offered.

NASA Education
NASA Education programs presents web resources for educators, for students, and for the informal education community. There are links to web pages, curriculum materials, lesson plans, classroom activities in these areas: aerospace technology; human exploration and development of space; earth science; and space science. In addition there are links to the education and outreach pages of individual NASA laboratories and centers.

Advanced Placement Digital Library
The APDL offers resources for teachers and students in Advanced Placement English, Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. Resources are reviewed (on content, graphics, format, ease of use) and annotated by a panel of AP teachers and College Board consultants.

Mining for travel info

INFOMINE offers annotated links to many travel-related electronic resources. You can find them in the government information, business, biological sciences and medicine, diversity, and humanities categories. Often they relate to National Parks and public lands, business travel etiquette, study abroad, World Heritage Sites, languages, and leisure.

Dozens of travel guides for historic sites in the US are available -- here's a custom INFOMINE search for National Register of Historic Places travel itineraries.

Here's a quick link that will let you browse nearly 200 high quality travel resources in INFOMINE.

Or, take advantage of the browse options we offer on the Advanced Search and Browse for all subject categories. Individual categories' search and browse options can be reached from the main page of INFOMINE. Simply choose one of the nine subject categories and take a look at the browse options located near the bottom of the search box.

Government information, maps, datasets

INFOMINE's Government Information subject category offers resources selected by librarians of the UCR Libraries Government Publications Department and INFOMINE editors. Physical formats intended for UCR library patrons (media on CD and DVD) and corresponding electronic resources are cataloged in INFOMINE; they are cataloged separately.

Here is a selection of government info resources from the INFOMINE What's New page.

Guide to House and Senate Members
Guide to members of the United States Congress, providing information from several publications including the Congressional Pictorial Directory and the Congressional Biographical Directory in a searchable interface.

War at Any Price : The Total Economic Costs of the War Beyond the Federal Budget
November 2007 report, from the majority staff (Democrat) of the U.S. Congress' Joint Economic Committee, on the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [660KB PDF]

National Partnership for Environmental Priorities
The EPA's National Partnership for Environmental Priorities Program (NPEP) "encourages public and private organizations to form voluntary partnerships with EPA that reduce the use or release of any of 31 Priority Chemicals (PCs)." Includes information about NPEP and priority chemicals and metals, lists of NPEP partners, success stories, enrollment form, and EPA technical assistance tools.

World Coal Quality Inventory : South America
Reports and datasets.

Geologic Map of Nevada
"The purpose of the Geologic Map of Nevada is to provide an integrated set of digital geologic information that can be used for regional geologic and rigorous spatial analysis." [Description from USGS website]

Natural-Color Image Mosaics of Afghanistan : Digital Databases and Maps

Iowa Publications Online
Repository of Iowa state government documents. Browse by department, agency, year, or subject.

United States Air Force Posture Statement
U.S. Air Force annual posture statement articulates the major elements needed to fulfill the Air Force mission. Offers posture statements from 2004 to date.

IncidentNews
News, images, and reports on oil spills and other incidents, provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Response and Restoration. Includes database of more than 1,400 incidents. Also offers maps pinpointing incidents by year, information on 10 famous spills, Spill Response 101, glossary, and links to related sites.

Citing Government Publications and Websites : UCR Libraries
Connect to guides to citing print and electronic government publications and to legal citation.

After the Storm
Video of 1/2 hour Weather Channel and EPA television program about watersheds.

Resources on developing countries

In November, several resources on the developing world were added to INFOMINE. There is a wealth of this content searchable in the INFOMINE database, authored by NGOs, international governing bodies, the US government, research centers, and humanitarian aid organizations.

SciDevNet
News, features, reports, and resource guides on science, agriculture, medicine, technology, and related issues in developing countries.

Human Development Reports
Reports on developing countries on factors affecting human development. These factors includes such areas as human rights, health, income, security and education.

Information Technology Landscape in Nations Around the World
Country reports on information technology infrastructure, IT workforce, government policy, e-business, telecommunications regulation, and related topics. Over 80 reports on developing and developed countries. Also known as Landscape of IT in Nations.

Latin American Development Archive
Archive of conference papers and working papers on Latin American social and economic development.

Statistics in Africa : World Bank
Economic, social, and development statistics on Africa and African countries. Includes most recent edition of Little Book on Africa.

Law blogs and law schools

Recently added to INFOMINE were several resources on law schools, the LSAT, law school admissions, and legal blogs. The next administration dates for the LSAT are on December 1, 2007 and February 2, 2008. More information about the LSAT.

The Princeton Review : Law Schools and Careers
A starting point for for preparing for a career in law; offers law school rankings, school search by location, cost, specialization, and selectivity, career advice, information on the LSAT, and the law school application process.

Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools
Directory of American Bar Association approved law schools, searchable by location, tuition cost, bar passage rate, curriculum, financial aid, and more. Also presents guides to legal education: prelaw, the LSAT, applying to law school, fields of law, the bar exam, being a lawyer, and post-JD programs.

Law School Admission Council
Administrator of the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), the Law School Admission Council offers information on the law school application process; test dates, locations, registration (with fee) for the LSAT; sample tests and forms; financial aid information; and links to law schools and legal education resources.

Blawg Directory : ABA Journal
Directory of law blogs (blawgs), organized by subject, author, location, and law school. Each section contains an annotated list of the most popular blogs and an alphabetical list.

Law Weblogs - Blawgs : A Pathfinder
A guide to finding law blogs (blawgs) online, with select lists of legal blogs and links to blog search engines and directories.

Recently added resources

Continuing the diverse selection of items newly-added to the INFOMINE database:

PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Open access journal from the Public Library of Science on the pathology, epidemiology, prevention, and treatment of neglected tropical diseases.

LibriVox
Digital library of public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers. The site has been around since 2005, but recently announced in October 2007, the addition of their 1,000th audiobook.

Native American Heritage Month : Library of Congress
Digital collections and subject guides on Native American history.

Mark Twain Project
Initiative to create a complete scholarly edition of Mark Twain's works online; currently more than 2,300 letters with page images and transcription are available. See also The Mark Twain Papers and Project.

Jazz on the Screen : A Jazz and Blues Filmography by David Meeker
Filmography of jazz and blues musicians' involvement in cinema and television programs, in a database of more than 14,000 productions. Also features a short history of jazz in motion pictures.

France in America
Organized by theme and collection, the site offers manuscripts, books, images, maps, and more on the history of the French in America.

NASA images and multimedia

Websites from NASA are consistently well-designed and offer interesting information for people interested in astronomy, space exploration, and science. Here are some examples of NASA image and multimedia collections, taken from the INFOMINE database. NASA is well-represented in INFOMINE, with more than 200 records tagged with NASA in the author field.

NASA Multimedia Search
Guide to NASA image, video, and multimedia collections.

Planetary Photojournal
Images from various NASA solar system exploration programs with images of planets, small bodies, the sun, and the universe.

Visible Earth
100,000 animations and images of Earth organized by collection, geographic region, and topic.

Johnson Space Center Digital Image Collection
Press release photos from manned spaceflight missions.

Astronomy Picture of the Day
Daily astronomy image with description and an archive of past images.

NASA Education
Links to NASA web resources for kids, students, and educators.

Blog feed

We're now publishing the blog feed using Feedburner. Get it here or click the standard orange feed icon under the search box in the sidebar. Feedburner offers handy buttons to let you subscribe to the feed with any number of popular feed readers. Thanks for visiting the INFOMINE blog!

What's New

Highlighting INFOMINE's newly-added resources will now be a regular feature. Hundreds of resources are added to Infomine each month, and you can view the most recent additions in the sidebar of this page. For the complete What's New list, visit the What's New page for all subject categories or see this post about our RSS feeds. Websites chosen for inclusion here in these posts will be those the editors find most interesting or useful, so with that subjectivity caveat, here we go.

A Traveler's Guide to the History of Biology and Medicine
A unique travel guide describing places related to the history of biology and medicine. Focus is Europe from the 16th through 20th centuries, but there are also chapters on the United States and Canada.

CRS Annotated Constitution
Cornell's Legal Information Institute's edition of the Congressional Research Service's Annotated Constitution : Analysis and Interpretation. Contains links to documents cited.

Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu
Database of all references to historical Southeast Asia in the Ming Shi-lu, the annals of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). In addition to the database (searchable by year, reign, place and personal names), site offers a publication on using the Ming Shi-lu as a source for research.

liibulletin
Electronic journal of the Cornell Law School. Contains previews of cases for upcoming Supreme Court terms, commentaries and summaries on various legal topics and New York Court of Appeals documents.

uboat.net : The U-boat War 1939-1945
Database of German U-boats and submarine warfare, with over 1,150 profiles of individual U-boats, their commanders and crews, shipwrecks, discoveries, images, and additional information on the more than 11,000 Allied warships and naval commanders of WWII.

USGS CoreCast
Official podcast site the U.S. Geological Survey with monthly episodes on science topics such as climate change, natural hazards, wildlife, and water quality.

Fact Sheet : America's Wars
Lists of numbers of servicemembers, deaths in service, nonmortal woundings, and living veterans for each United States war.

Immigration : U.S. Government Accountability Office
A selection of recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (formerly General Accounting Office) reports and testimonies that are related to immigration. Categories include: demographics; immigration enforcement; labor markets; and Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Current awareness

Examples of science current awareness services, Web 2.0-style information sharing sites, and other resources from INFOMINE.

in-cites
Essays about and interviews of researchers in a wide range of science fields. Selection is based on citation rankings and hot topics in Essential Science Indicators.

ResourceShelf
Notification and description of quality websites and tools: mobile apps, internet news, scholarly publishing, Web 2.0, search tools, and much more. Daily updates; always an interesting read.

Scirus Topic Pages
Beta version of a service offering overviews, research links, citations, and links to fulltext research papers in several scientific topics.

DocuTicker
DocuTicker posts daily listings of new full text reports and publications from government agencies, think tanks, and other public interest groups.

LiveScience
Frequently updated science, health, and technology news. Can be ad-heavy.

CiteULike
A social bookmarking site and search engine for academic peer-reviewed papers.

Scintilla
Science news aggregator from Nature Publishing Company.

InSite
Annotated law resources from the Cornell University Law Library, offered in regularly published issues and searchable in a database.

U.S. Government RSS Library
RSS feeds available from United States government departments and agencies.

As always, this is only a very small sample of the resources in INFOMINE, and by using our Advanced Search you can find many more resources, from very broad topics to the most specialized. Try using keywords current awareness, news, RSS, and acquisitions to find websites that focus on current information.

Bugs!!

UC Riverside was in the news recently with tales of the cockroach petting zoo, part of an outreach event for prospective scientists and science teachers. See an image here at the UCR website. The UCR Entomology Department also has information on their programs, seminars, and links to entomology resources.

INFOMINE offers many entries on bugs, insects, spiders, pests, and creepy-crawlies. Here are a few.

BugGuide: Guide to insects and spiders of North America, with images, identification guide, taxonomy, annotated web links and bibliography for each order of insects.

OdonataCentral: Field guide, distribution maps, and images of damselflies and dragonflies of North America.

Iowa State University Entomology Image Gallery: Images of beetles, butterflies, mosquitoes, grasshoppers, and ticks.

A Field Guide to Common Texas Insects: Find out here if everything really is bigger in Texas.