Pebblego.com
[Capstone Press (888) 517-8977]

Young children will enjoy Pebblego.com, a delightful online database of animals created just for children in grades K-2. The program is designed specifically for emergent readers, and is correlated to life science standards. It provides essential facts about hundreds of animals, and large, colorful buttons (animal pictures) appear on the opening screen, showing Amphibians, Birds, Dinosaurs, Fish, Insects and Spiders, Invertebrates, Mammals, Pets, Reptiles and more. Clicking a button brings up subsets of species from which to choose.

Whole language learning occurs when the child reads along as the story is being read aloud. Tabs at the bottom lead to exploration of features such as Body, Habitat, Food, Life Cycle, and Fun Facts. A wonderful dimension is added to the learning experience by the video button which invokes a movie of the animal in action.

Educators are provided with useful lesson plans and reproducibles. This newest innovation from Capstone Press is a valuable K-2 resource. A free demo is available at their website.

A.D.A.M. Interactive Anatomy
[A.D.A.M., Inc. (404) 604-2757]

A.D.A.M. has long been known for outstanding, high-end science education software, and now the company has migrated its work, in Interactive Anatomy, to the web.  Far more complete, and more polished than the original software title(s), A.D.A.M. Interactive Anatomy has been selected as winner of the Post-Secondary Science Website award.

Undoubtedly most useful in a Post-Secondary Biology or Anatomy Pre-Med (even first year intern and beyond) course, there are a number of modules that would be terrific for high school biology classes.  Those modules include: Dissectible Anatomy, Atlas Anatomy, 3D Anatomy, Clinical Illustrations, Clinical Animations, Encyclopedia, and Curriculum Builder.  Instructors and students alike may save resources, pictures and animations within the program, write and save curriculum, export images, and print from within the program.  The images, animations, 3-D models, and dissection modules, taken together, would almost, but not quite completely, replace an actual human dissection.  And a student or instructor can search for specific body parts, diseases, and procedures.

While Interactive Anatomy is among the very best science applications we have seen, it could be improved even more with the addition of links on various pages to similar topics, e.g., a page detailing a healthy heart could link to pages depicting heart disease; then to the 3-D animation of the heart; then to clinical treatments, and so on.

A stunning and truly impressive tour-de-force, we recommend
A.D.A.M. Interactive Anatomy for a first-look by every science teacher.

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