As many people are concerned about the long term health of the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding area, this website is quite timely. Created by the federal government, RestoretheGulf.gov serves to provide the public with information on the response to the Deepwater BP oil spill, along with news updates, and links to other governmental partners. The materials on the site are contained within four...

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been developing a series of informative videos for educators and members of the general public, and this online presentation about landslides in the San Francisco Bay Area is a nice addition to this body of work. This particular film looks at the various catastrophic landslides which have affected the region over the past twenty five years, along with...

What's next for large cities in coastal regions? It's a complicated question and one that has consumed the energies and passions of great minds over the past few years. The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has been intently interested in the subject and this report from May 2013 takes a close look at what might be next. The ULI began its work by convening a forum in January 2013, bringing together...

Many people might know about the life cycle of a rock, but it can be a process that is hard to understand without a handy visual aid. Just such a series of aids can be found right here, courtesy of Mark Francek of Central Michigan University. These rock cycle animations display some of the most common rock-forming processes, including the crystallization of magma to form igneous rock, rock erosion...

The Santa Fe National Forest is in north central New Mexico, covering 1.6 million acres and offering over 1,000 miles of trails. Their website contains useful information for future and current park visitors. On the homepage visitors can find the number for the Fire Information Hotline, which is "designed to share information with the public about Wildfires, Prescribed Fires, Fire Use Fires, and...

The Ocean Remote Sensing Group of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has made available a series of maps of some of the fifteen major wildfires that were burning Wednesday across 264,794 acres in six Western states--Oregon, California, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. The images are not intended as a working fire detection resource, but are offered as interesting...

Created and maintained by the fine folks at the University of California-San Francisco, the Science & Health Education Partnership (SEP) Lessons deserve to be well known by all science educators. The SEP was started in 1987, and represents a novel partnership between the university and the San Francisco Unified School District. The resources here are intended for use by K-12 students, but many of...

As their tagline notes, "Every day is Science Friday." With a deep archive of past programs and video clips, the website for NPR's Science Friday program is quite a find. The program is hosted by Ira Flatow, and each week he and his colleagues "focus on science topics that are in the news and try to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand." Recent segments...

While many have asked the question, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" fewer have asked, "How do you get to the South Pole?" One way might be to complete a doctorate in ecology, but for those with a computer and a connection to the Internet, this fine site from the Exploratorium in San Francisco will do quite nicely. Designed to celebrate the start of the International Polar Year, this site...

Crafted by the EIRO Forum, the Science in School website aims "to promote inspiring science teaching by encouraging communication between teachers, scientists, and everyone else." Along the top of the page, visitors can look over the various categories of information offered here which include chemistry, earth science, education, and physics. Each of these areas includes fact sheets, classroom...