Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Although this site was created to help students in Britain prepare for "Back To School," many of the tips and activities are useful to students from all over the world. This site provides interactive quizzes, informative guides, and numerous features. The guide section provides a lot of details about very useful subjects including bullies, school uniforms, exam stress, dyslexia, creativity and other subjects. The Press Packs section is written by a student for students' use and includes topics such as being the new kid in school and organic lunches.

tag(s): back to school (55)

This site addresses the important issue of bullying. It includes videos, reports, information guides, quizzes, polls, and more. This site also talks about the less frequently discussed forms of bullying - such as girls bullying girls, cellular phone bullying and other less "traditional" forms of bullying (which unfortunately are becoming more common).

tag(s): bullying (48), cyberbullying (40)

Help students develop personal financial literacy as a real-world connection to your curriculum. At this site, teens take a quiz to find out their background, financial needs, and monthly expenditures. The next page shows users how much money they need to earn to fulfill just their basic needs. The calculator breaks the amount needed to earnings per hour times how many hours per week they'd need to work. It also displays a breakdown of what types of employment would yield the desired amount. Of course, the site also shows that the more educated one is, the better the wages.

tag(s): money (113)

Home page for the state's department of education.

Home page for the state's department of education.

Engineering Resources is a K-12 website that contains a multitude of information including lessons correlating to national and state standards. Search for activities and ideas by grade level and curriculum topic using the Search and Advanced Search buttons. Narrow choices provided in the curriculum section by filtering options to include lessons, activities, complete units, and more. Maker Challenges offer a variety of experiences for hands-on learning with topics including titles like A Doghouse Design Project and Create and Control a Popsicle Stick Finger Robot. Other site options allow you to search by educational standards and provide information and resources for teaching engineering to students in grades K-12.

tag(s): amazon (11), architecture (75), bridges (11), cells (82), density (17), engineering (129), environment (252), forces (37), friction (9), heart (27), human body (93), latitude (10), light (56), longitude (9), map skills (63), marine biology (31), mars (26), medicine (57), motion (47), pollution (52), robotics (24), rockets (11), simple machines (19), space (222), STEM (297)

This website provides a wealth of information for children, teenagers and educators. Specifics include cosmetics, germs, food safety, hand washing, careers in food science, online games, interactive coloring pages and more! While most of the content appears elementary, there is information on food science careers and some higher level informaiton under Kids, Teens, and Educators.

tag(s): careers (156), safety (68)

Oral health topics are presented in an attention getting format that includes stencils, hands on activities, and printable student worksheets. The a la carte lesson format makes it easy to use lessons individually or as a complete oral health unit. Animations and games/puzzle section are geared for the younger grades. The appropriate age levels for each of the sections are clearly labeled. There are also sections on dental careers.

tag(s): careers (156), dental health (14), hygiene (9)

This page has simple tips on ways dads (or surrogate dads) can get involved to support learning support or ADHD kids both in and out of school. The brief article is available in printed form and include support from resaerch on the impact dads can have.

tag(s): adhd (28)

A thorough site on planning for a career. Includes timelines, options, many links to different career paths and college planning resources, even a cover letter generator. the site does have some advertising, but it is tolerable (turn on your pop-up blocker). Special Education teachers working with students on transition planning will also find this site helpful in providing a structured approach.

tag(s): careers (156), college (45), financial aid (13)

Designed for National Hurricane Preparedness Week, this site offers extensive resources to help students and their parents plan ahead in case they find themselves in the path of a hurricane. There are also extensive descriptions of storm surge, inland flooding, wind damage, and other phenomena associated with these storms.

tag(s): hurricanes (32), safety (68)

ScienceBuddies offers a large variety of science resources including science fair projects and free STEM lessons. From the top menu bar, select Science Fair Project to find a Topic Selection Wizard. This tool uses a short questionnaire to guide students to recommended projects based on length of time needed to work on the project, grade level, and topic for research. Be sure to also visit the teachers' portion of the site to find STEM lesson plans for all grade levels, science fair tools, engineering design information, and much more.

tag(s): calories (6), earthquakes (46), electricity (61), energy (133), gravity (43), internet safety (114), recycling (45), robotics (24), science fairs (20), sound (72), STEM (297)

Why do adolescents behave the way they do? It is a puzzling mystery that continues to frustrate parents, teachers AND teens! This site delves into the recesses of the teenage brain to provide scientific explanations for many exasperating behaviors. Interactive maps of the brain are supplemented with clear and informative explanations. Advice and online activities can help adults interact more successfully with this very unique population! Refer parents to this site, use in class to help teens better understand themselves, or explore it yourself for some enlightening ideas on improving teen communication in the classroom! Shockwave required for some features of the site. Developed by Frontline (PBS)

tag(s): adolescence (12), brain (56)

The aging American population increases the probability that a student will have a family member or acquaintance suffering from Alzheimer's. Because it affects the personality, this disease can be frightening or confusing to young people. These pages help teens and children better understand what this disease is and why its victims behave in the way they do. Preview before using.

The National Institutes of Health offers this site containing lots of resources to encourage folks to eat vegetables in appropriate quantities. While the subject may not be popular with young people, health and nutrition teachers will find a number of resources that can be used to help students make more intelligent choices about the foods they eat.

tag(s): nutrition (140)

National Runaway Safeline's tagline is "Keeping America's runaway, homeless, and at-risk youth safe and off the streets." Find important information for students, parents, counselors, and anyone else who works with young people who have run away (or might be thinking about doing so) and their families. In addition to location and confidential contact services, the site offers a wealth of resources for both families and young people. For teachers and counselors, there is an evidenced-based, interactive, 14-module curriculum "intended to educate young people about alternatives to running away as well as to build life skills... "Runaways are a quiet problem whose dimensions are far more significant than many realize. The site includes resources for homelessness, as well.

tag(s): behavior (45), character education (79), safety (68)

The National Institute for Drug Abuse offers this page about drugs and drug abuse for teens. There's a lot of factual information, some quizzes, and a wealth of statistics on the decline in drug use among teens. The coverage also includes ecstasy and the "date rape" drugs. Counselors and nurses may find this one particularly useful.

tag(s): drugs and alcohol (28), red ribbon week (9)

While no college ranking can be fully objective or authoritative, everyone likes to digest them. The listings from US News offer rankings along a number of different criteria. These can be a useful comparator when weighed along with other information. ***Only partial information is available without a subscription.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): careers (156), college (45)

This online presentation and catalog from trade schools reads much like a college web site. While there are reams of facts and figures, students should be aware that this site aims to attract strong students in the same way as the web sites from the four-year colleges do. Caveat user, but technical schools can provide great career opportunities for particular students.

tag(s): careers (156)