BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The internet site found contained on this disk is the result of work completed by teachers who attended the Generation II: MASER project and the Mathematics and Science Internet Workshops held during the summers of 1997, 1998, 1999,  2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.   Workshop participants researched science Internet sites using a set of developed evaluation criteria.  A set of internet learning activities for teachers and students were developed which correlated directly with the Michigan Science Curriculum Framework. The result is that teachers and students will be able to use the resources as a learning tool which is fully integrated with their science curriculum.

This workshop is supported in part by the Mathematics and Science Center grant awarded by the Michigan Department of Education (State School Aid Act) and by SVSU Partnership Grant for Improving Teacher Quality awarded by the U.S. Department of Education (Title II funds)

Each site page contains hypertext links related to the major science topic contained on that page.  A short paragraph describes the type of information that can be found at each linked site.  Information on each page is organized by elementary (E), grades K-4; middle school (MS), grades 5-7; and high school (HS), grades 8-12.  Also listed are the Michigan Science Core Curriculum guideline codes which provide access to an information source that is content specific to the listed State Standards and Benchmarks.  By clicking on the hypertext link, it will launch your internet connection to the source(s) to achieve the outcome.  Internet sites "New" to the disk are marked and sites found by participants to be "Outstanding" are also identified.

The General Science Sites are Internet sites that do not meet specific science benchmarks. Listed are numerous outstanding sites which contain resources that might be useful to teachers.   In addition to the general categories listed, each major category is further sub-divided into three sub categories: (1) Teaching Units/Lesson Plans;  (2) StudentActivities/Projects/Interactive Sites; (3) Information/Facts/Data/Reports; (4) Videos/Movies/Animations; (5) Photographs/Slides/ Diagrams/Graphics; (6) Periodicals/Journals/Newspapers; (7) Searches/Explorations/ Projects/Investigations.. The "general sites" table also contains links to science media resources, encyclopedias, multiple subject indexes, women and minorities issues, careers in science, information about using Internet media resources, teacher resources and other general information.

INSTRUCTIONS

This disk contains an Internet web page site that can be run using any common Internet browser software (Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Explorer, etc.).

The user of this disk can launch the web site by clicking on the "Click Here to Start" alias Icon found on the disk.  The home page has a table which contains hypertext links to all the individual web pages making up the site.  At the top and bottom of each page in the site is a hypertext link back to the Maser home page.

To install this site on your computer, drag the disk Icon to your hard drive.  This will create a folder on your hard drive called "Maser" which will contain the site.  The site can be launched by opening this folder and clicking on the 'Click Here to Start" alias.