April 2016: Centers for Disease Control - BAM! for Kids ages 9-13

Greetings! The CDC has been in the news quite a bit in the last 12 months, first with the Ebola outbreak and now with Zika. But did you know that the CDC website has a subsection for kids? BAM! Body and Mind is designed for students 9-13, with resources on diseases, food and nutrition, physical activity, and more. As the CDC explains, "the site focuses on topics that kids told us are important to them— such as stress and physical fitness— using kid-friendly lingo, games, quizzes, and other interactive features". The activities are also linked to standards for science and health. Take a look! Rosanne

March 2016: APP-a-pedia

Greetings! This month's website of the month is APP-a-pedia, which was recently recommended by a member of the NH School Librarian list-serv I subscribe to. As described by my colleague, it is "a curated database of over 50,000 educational, productivity, assistive, and others apps for all kinds of devices, for learners of every age, across all subject levels, including info on apps for the full range of special needs students might have." There are different categories you can choose (App purpose, mobile device, academic area, education level, ed specialty) to limit your results. I tried it out myself and found I had better luck when I left some categories open. For instance, selecting a learning app on iPads for autism (3 limiters) worked better than adding limiters for academic area and education level as well. Give it a try and hopefully you will find some new learning tools to try! Rosanne

February 2016: NASA's Earth Observatory

This month’s website of the month is NASA’s Earth Observatory, where, as they state, “every day is Earth Day”. The website’s stated mission is “to share with the public the images, stories, and discoveries about the environment, Earth systems, and climate that emerge from NASA research, including its satellite missions, in-the-field research, and models”. There is a lot of information offered on the website, from Global Maps, which show month-to-month changes in Earth’s climate systems, to Features, which offer special projects that explore a topic in more depth. I think the most easily accessible offering for students is the Image of the Day. Each day, the home page of the website features a different image with an accompanying description. This month’s images have ranged from a satellite photo of a cyclone heading towards the South Pacific nation of Fiji to a photograph of London at night, taken from the International Space Station - really cool to look at and interesting to read about and discuss with students. Rosanne

January 2016: Engineergirl.org

Greetings! This year at HMS, we are looking for ways to focus on STEM in the classroom, but as many studies have shown, “at almost every step of the STEM education ladder, we see girls walk away. By seventh grade, many girls are ambivalent about these fields, and by the end of high school, fewer girls than boys plan to pursue STEM in college” (AAUW.org). Engineergirl.org is a website designed by the National Academy of Engineering to bring attention to and help girls envision a future career in engineering. It contains profiles of women in all different fields of engineering, short articles on “a day in the life” of women engineers, links to clubs, quizzes, etc. So have your girls check out engineergirl.org and spark their interest in a STEM career! Rosanne