Environmental Information Sources

Brings together material from public television stations throughout the US to serve as the centerpieces of lessons for middle and high school classes on a wide variety of topics on the “American Outdoors.” The link to “Teacher Resources” leads to lesson plans developed by high school teachers that include learning objectives, materials needed, and instructions for student activities and assessing student learning. Lessons are developed for topics such as animals, plants, ecosystems, earth and space, and public policy. Teaching guides describe specific national and state education standards addressed in each lesson for topics like biological evolution, reproduction and heredity, and diversity and adaptations of organisms.

scientific thinking with art, and issues include powerful photographs and paintings. Each week a feature story is presented on the web site, and many articles are accessible online, some in abridged form.

International Web Sites
Food Safety from the World Health Organization http://www.who.int/foodsafety/en/ The web site explains that "trends in global food production, processing, distribution, and preparation create an increasing demand for food safety research to enure a safer global food supply." The World Health Organzation (WHO) collaborates with the Food and Agriculture Orgniazation of the United Nations to explore food safety concerns with risk analysis methods. Public health practitioners and researchers will find this site useful for overviews of topics like foodborne disease, microbiological and chemical risks, biotechnology and food, and consumer education. Current news and announcements of conferences are posted, along with highlights of hot topics accessible in major languages of the world. GEO Data Portal: Global Environment Outlook United Nations Environment Programme http://geodata.grid.unep.ch/ This site provides data for topics such as freshwater, population, forests, emissions, climate, disasters, health, and GDP for 450 economic and ecological variables. Users may download data sets by region and render them in the form of a map, graph, or table. Data is gathered from world agencies such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, World Bank, and World Health Organization. For example, arable land, bird species, consumption of ozone-depleting methyl bromide, motor vehicles in use, or water use as percentage of renewable resources are types of data sets available for download.

U.S. Federal Government Agency Web Sites
Enviro-Health Links from the National Library of Medicine http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/enviro/envirohealthlinks.html Environmental Health and Toxicology is a section of the NLM's Specialized Information Services in which researchers and citizens can find thorough, online information on a range of topics. Reports on lead and arsenic were published in 2005 and are regularly updated. A sample of broader topics includes biological warfare, hurricanes, environmental justice, and indoor air pollution. Each topic has an overview that links to Web pages that present public health information and background. Other categories of information include details on regulation in the case of toxic chemicals, portals leading to trustworthy Web sites, searches in PubMed for current literature, and information in Spanish. A related site on Chemical Information (http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/chemical.html) hosts the ChemID databases, which provides information on chemical names, synonyms, structures, and regulatory information.
Fuel Economy -U.S. Department of Energy http://www.fueleconomy.gov This site provides a wealth of information for consumers, featuring a database called "Find and Compare Cars" that gives miles per gallon (MPG) figures and comparisons for many classes of automobiles (sedans, sport utility vehicles, trucks, vans, etc.) for model years from 1985 -2006. Gas prices from around the nation are provided, along with tips for improving gas mileage and both news items and background information on alternative fuels, hybrid vehicles, and oil and gas consumption.
Hurricane Response 2005 from the Environmental Protection Agency http://www.epa.gov/katrina/ Reports of the EPA's actions in response to the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, which struck the south central Gulf coast on August 28, 2005. Links are given to environmental assessments and to information on health concerns and hazards for residents returning to homes and businesses. A "newsroom" provides updates to stories in newspapers and agency press releases.
Southwest Biological Science Center of the United States Geological Survey http://sbsc.wr.usgs.gov/ The Southwest Biological Science Center (SBSC) is the newest of 17 science centers within the U.S. Geological Survey's Biological Resources Discipline. This mission statement on the web site says that the SBSC will "provide quality scientific information needed to conserve and manage natural and biological resources, with an emphasis on the species and ecosystems of the southwestern United States." SBSC research projects explore "effects of water use, livestock grazing, declining populations of native species, invasive species, environmental contaminants, and urban development on the Southwest region." With headquarters in Flagstaff, AZ, the SBSC manages four research stations: Canyonlands Research Station, Colorado Plateau Research Station, Grand Canyon Monitoring & Research Station, and Sonoran Desert Research Station. The web site presents contact information for staff members and a Products Database with links to digitized range maps for plants, articles, technical reports, and other publications (many available in PDF).
TOXMAP: Geographic Interpretation of the EPA Toxics Release Inventory http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov/toxmap/main/index.jsp TOXMAP is developed by the National Library of Medicine to enable users to approach data from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) from a geographic point of view. The TRI program maintains data on toxic chemicals released by industry, which are reported by facilities in keeping with federal law. TOXMAP enables users to analyze chemicals released on site into air, water, or ground using maps of area specified by zip code or on maps supplied by the system. Toxic release data from 1987 makes it possible to depict trends over time.

Weeds Gone Wild: Alien Plant Invaders of Natural Areas http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien
The site is a project of the Plant Conservation Alliance's (http://www.nps.gov/plants/index.htm) Alien Plant Working Group (PCA-APWG) and is designed to provide information about threats that non-native, invasive plant species pose to native flora, fauna, and natural ecosystems in the U.S. A list of invasive plants, fact sheets about those plants, and links to publications and articles are accessible on the web site. The project welcomes volunteers to contribute to the endeavor by helping to write fact sheets.

Commercial Web Sites
Plastic Loose Fill Council -PLFC http://www.loosefillpackaging.com/ The PLFC, headquartered in Oakland, CA, was founded in 1991 and promotes recycling of polystyrene loose fill, or plastic "peanuts," used as packing material. The web site provides a searchable directory of drop-off sites around the U.S. where consumers can return peanuts for reuse or recycling. The web site also has a section on environmental questions with facts about plastic loose fill and links to further reading on packing materials, loose fill manufacture, and solid waste in landfills.

Educational Institutions' Web Sites
Institute for the Study of Society and Environment http://www.isse.ucar.edu/vision.jsp The Institute for the Study of Society and Environment (ISSE) conducts research to improve understanding of interactions among "climate, environment, and society, and to maximize application of this knowledge in the transition toward sustainability. ISSE pursues multidisciplinary research, furthering goals of the National Center for Atmospheric Research to examine "atmospheric processes in the context of environmental and societal stresses and to make the resulting knowledge accessible to decision-makers at all levels of government and in all sectors of society." See the link to "Our Research" for easy access to reports of work in the five broad areas ISSE emphasizes: assessment methods, products, and tools; climate-ecosystemhuman interactions; use of scientific information in decision processes; vulnerability, adaptation, thresholds, and resilience; and integrated science and regional applications. Some Biogeographers, Evolutionists, and Ecologists: Chrono-Biographical Sketches http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/chronob/homelist.htm Science librarian Charles Smith of Western Kentucky University maintains this compilation of biographical sketches for more than one hundred historical figures in the fields of ecology, evolution, and biogeography, from the 17 th century to 1950. Brief biographical summaries are presented with a chronology for each person, and suggested sources for further information are listed with each entry.

Conferences
Connecting the World's Children with Nature Working Forum on Nature Education for Young Children Oct. 16 -19, 2006, Nebraska City, NE http://www.worldforumfoundation.org/wf/wf2006_nature/ Participants will learn from a team of educators and environmentalists from twenty-five nations about innovative nature education models and collaborations across professions. See the web site for more details on the event and registration.
North American Association for Environmental Education 2004 Conference Proceedings Available Online http://naaee.org/pages/conferences/2004confproceedings.html