Tuesday, December 06, 2005

HOW TO FIND ARTICLES WITH EBSCOHost

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1) Use good Keywords.
-Do background research by looking at general science texts, encyclopedias, and your text book. Ask your teacher for suggestions. Brainstorm.

2) EXPAND your search.
-Search for related words. Automatically AND seach terms.
-If you still aren't getting enough results, search within the full text of articles.

3) LIMIT your search.
-Choose only "Magazines" from your result page so as to get only those articles written for a general audience.

4) SORT your results by relevancy

5) Look at SUBJECT HEADINGS.
-Run another search using one or more subject headings by using the flag "DE". Combine subject headings with keywords for more precise searches.

A FEW GOOD SCIENCE PERIODICALS

Science News (available in the library and full text through EBSCOHost)

Chemmatters (available through the library and through the Science Dept on CD-ROM)

Discover (available in the library and full text through EBSCOHost)

Scientific American (available in the library and full text through EBSCOHost)

Popular Science (available in the library and full text through EBSCOHost)

New York Times’ Science Times (Available in the library)

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Science Fair Websites & Eresources

Some descriptions below taken from lii.org.

Frank Potter's Science Gems
"Great links to Great Science Resources. More than 14,000 Science Resources sorted by Category, Subcategory, and Grade Level."
http://sciencegems.com/

MadSci Network
This Web site unites "hundreds of scientists in a forum where people can ask questions and learn more about the world around them." Questions submitted must be science related and are usually answered within seven days. Questions and answers are archived and can be searched by subject, keyword, and grade level. An excellent source for science project ideas, classroom activities, and trivia.
http://www.madsci.org/

National Science Digital Library (NSDL)
"NSDL provides educational resources for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education." The site features links to hundreds of digital resources for teaching and learning about science. Material is searchable or browsable by topic. Also includes news and highlights from the collection. Searchable. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
http://nsdl.org/

SciCentral
A directory of links to "today's breaking science news." Browsable by topic, including biosciences, health sciences, physics, chemistry, earth and space, and engineering. Also includes links to related journals, databases, job opportunities, and conferences.
http://scicentral.com/

How Stuff Works
A commercial site that describes the mechanics of how things work. Subdivisions include explanations of automechanics, computers, electronics, and the human body.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

GENERAL NEWS SITES

[Some below descriptions adapted from www.lii.org – the Librarians’ Index to the Internet.]

The New York Times
Nicknamed "The Gray Lady" and often called the newspaper of record, The Economist called this paper the most "prestigious newspaper in the world." For a brief account of its history, organization, and alleged biases, click here.
http://www.nytimes.com

CNN.com
One of the most frequently updated news sites. Has news digest and feature stories and images, covering weather, sports, science and technology, travel, style, entertainment, health, environment, and United States, world, and local news. Past articles can be searched.
http://www.cnn.com/

HeadlineSpot.com
A searchable free "guide to thousands of the best U.S. and international news sources on the Web." Easily access more than 2600 headlines and thousands of news links by subject, location, industry, or media type. Compiled by journalists, educators, librarians, engineers, and business people. A good place to access international English-language new sources.
http://headlinespot.com/

Google News Search
News from a variety of major publications and newspapers, updated as events unfold. Searchable; browsable by major categories such as sports, business, technology, regional, and Headline News.
http://news.google.com/

Other News Search Engines
SearchEngineWatch.com has an annotated list of search engines dedicated to news. “If you are still looking for news using 'normal' search engines, stop doing it! You'll find the services below to be a much better way to search for the latest news stories from hundreds of sources on the web. These services provide exceptionally good results for current event searching, because they crawl only news sites and revisit these sites several times per day. Thus, the results are usually focused and timely.”
http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156261

Newspapers from around the world
Compiled by Refdesk.com, “a free and family-friendly site that indexes and reviews quality, credible, and current reference resources.” Includes a list of the top 10 US papers as well as a list of which US papers have searchable archives. Note: many broken links.
http://www.refdesk.com/paper.html

The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies
A trade organization for the weekly newspaper business. These local "alternative" weeklies often provide a different and local perspective in comparison to their mainstream counterparts. The below link will take you to a directory of the organization's member papers.
http://aan.org/gyrobase/Aan/NewsweeklyDirectory

Conservative New Sources
A list of conservative newspaper opinion pages and news sources, as determined by About.com. Sources include The Conservative Index, and the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal.
http://usconservatives.about.com/od/conservativeopinionpages/

Progressive News Sources
A list of left-leaning magazines and their websites. Compiled by the Yahoo! directory. Souces included are The Nation and Mother Jones magazine.
http://dir.yahoo.com/Government/U_S__Government/Politics/Political_Opinion/Progressive/Magazines

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Citation Machine

From the site:
"Citation Machine is an interactive Web tool designed to assist teachers in modeling the proper use of information property. Students are welcome to use this as well. You merely...
1) Click the type of resource you wish to cite,
2) Complete the Web form that appears with information from your resource, and
3) Click Make Citations to generate standard MLA & APA citations.
The primary goal of this tool is to make the proper crediting of information property so easy that it becomes a habit, not a laborious task that we stop doing outside of school."
Available at: http://citationmachine.net/

Monday, September 12, 2005

HURRICANE KATRINA WEB RESOURCES

Librarians’ Index to the Internet.
Links to various resources on Katrina, divided into topic headings. Includes resources on Environmental Factors, Gas Prices, Flood Control, News Coverage, and more. http://lii.org/search/file/hurricanekatrina

MAJOR NEWS SOURCES

The New York Times: Hurricane Katrina
Collection of news stories on Hurricane Katrina. Includes photos, graphics, satellite images, video, and a list of relief organizations. Includes stories on flood risk and levee failure, Gulf Coast oil operations and gas prices, economic impacts, and related topics. Very good interactive timeline.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/nationalspecial/index.html


In Depth: Hurricane Katrina
Collection of news stories and analysis about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath from a British perspective. Includes a timeline, animations of the path of the storm and how hurricanes happen, map of evacuee destinations, amounts of foreign aid offered to the United States, information about draining New Orleans, eyewitness accounts, photos, and more. From the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/americas/2005/hurricane_katrina/default.stm

CNN.com: Hurricane Katrina
News coverage of the disaster includes satellite images, personal accounts, a list of people reported safe at CNN's hurricane victims desk, photographs submitted by the public, stories about economic issues (such as gas price gouging and federal disaster relief), and stories about health issues (such as potential disease outbreaks and status of medical facilities). Also includes video clips. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/

LOCAL NEWS SOURCES

WWLTV
Live local news in New Orleans, including articles, a blog, and continuous Internet television coverage, from WWLTV, a television station. Find a broad range of news and information related to Hurricane Katrina, including road closures, school status, health tips, emergency information, missing people locators, and more.
http://www.wwltv.com/

SunHerald.com: Hurricane Katrina
Collection of news stories on Hurricane Katrina from the online version of the Sun-Herald newspaper, which covers Biloxi, Gulfport, and surrounding areas in south Mississippi. Includes town-by-town damage reports, photos, videos, blogs, and other features.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/special_packages/hurricane_katrina/





Article from October 2001 Scientific American:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000
or run a search with “scientific american drowning new Orleans”