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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Science Up Close

I was reading about Science Up Close on Paul Hamilton's blog and thought I'd share it here on my blog. Science Up Close is produced by the textbook company Harcourt but you don't need to have the textbook to use the site. In fact, you don't need to login or create any kind of account either. The site provides interactive science content for grades 1st-6th. The content is tied to the chapters of a specific science textbook but that doesn't really matter since the topics are very common and would be covered in most any elementary science textbook.

I decided to check out the module on the Water Cycle for third grade since this is something my daughter's class is going to be covering soon. I liked that I could have the text read to me if necessary but also turn it off if I wanted to. There was also an option to display the keyboard shortcuts for different parts of the screen for students who might have trouble using a mouse. In many ways this is a talking textbook with interactive images and illustrations. Some of the modules have video segments for the students to watch and I must admit I haven't been able to review every single resource on this site to know what else might be available within individual modules, but it is a nice collection of resources that are closely tied to the various science topics taught in elementary school.

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