This OLogy board game is a fun-filled way to help kids understand that once a species is extinct, it's gone forever. And that there are lots of things they can do to help preserve biodiversity. The activity begins by introducing kids to the difference between endangered and extinct animals, as well as to the U.S.'s Endangered Species Act. A colorful game board is included as a printable PDF file. You'll need a pair of dice and a marker of your choosing for each player. Simple directions for assembling the game board and playing the game are included on a single page.

This online directory of professional entomological societies covers the entire country. For each resource, contact information, including a link to its Web site, is provided. The list is divided into the following categories: general resources, national headquarters, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, South, Midwest, and California and Hawaii.

The Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP) produces peer-reviewed teaching resources summarizing topics on conservation biology. Each module contains a synthesis document outlining the main concepts of a subject, a modifiable visual presentation, classroom exercises and solutions, teaching notes, and interdisciplinary case studies. For more information please visit where all NCEP modules are available free of charge.

The Network of Conservation Educators and Practitioners (NCEP) produces peer-reviewed teaching resources summarizing topics on conservation biology. Each module contains a synthesis document outlining the main concepts of a subject, a modifiable visual presentation, classroom exercises and solutions, teaching notes, and interdisciplinary case studies. For more information please visit where all NCEP modules are available free of charge.

This online reference list provides links to nine local and national environmental organizations that have Web sites rich in valuable biodiversity information. Where possible, it includes the following information for each: details about the organization's mission, knowledge base, and activities; the type of support offered, including educational materials, resource libraries, and classes/workshops; and mailing address and contact information. In addition, links to four Web directories are provided, which in turn have links to dozens of other organizations.

This online article, from the museum's Musings newsletter for educators, provides an introduction to environmental stewardship. It discusses Earth's rarity as a planet that supports life and the mounting evidence that indicates human activity is, indeed, altering global climate.

This online article provides a firsthand report of Ernest Shackleton's epic 800-mile ocean crossing. In 1914, Shackleton planned to cross the continent of Antarctica from one sea to the other. One day's sail away from the continent, his specially constructed ship, the Endurance, was trapped in pack ice; 281 days later, crushed, the boat sank. The fifty-six-man crew survived as castaways on the ice for five months, after which Shackleton led them some 180 miles to the relative safety of Elephant Island. He and five men then embarked on an epic, 800-mile ocean crossing to South Georgia Island, the nearest inhabited area, in a twenty-two-foot lifeboat called the James Caird. This article is an account of that journey.

In this classroom activity, students work in groups to test a variety of fabrics to determine each one's effectiveness as an insulator. The printable five-page handout includes a series of inquiry-based questions to get students thinking about the conditions in Antarctica and the properties of specialty fabrics, illustrated activity directions and a worksheet that includes areas for recording their experiment data, and questions that prompt students to compare their results against their original hypotheses.

This Web article is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here they meet Deena Soris, who interviews the fossil of a Protoceratops. The more-than-20 questions answered by this dinosaur fossil include: You look fabulous. How old are you?How do scientists guess an extinct dinosaur's speed?Is it a thrill to have a frill?So what happened?One day you're happily munching away on thick, tough plants, the next you're history?How did you go from being a "Gobi sandwich" to becoming a fossil?Your bones were underground for 80 million years. How did the paleontologists find you?Once you got to the Museum, what happened? Are there any secrets you'd like to share with the folks at home?

This American Museum of Natural History press release, issued in April 2001, announces the discovery of a remarkably well-preserved, 130-million-year-old fossil dinosaur covered from head to tail with downy fluff and primitive feathers. The press release includes details about where the dinosaur was unearthed, and by whom, the significance of the finding, the geologic reasons why the area where this specimen was found has been a treasure trove of fossils and how dinosaurs are related to birds.

This reference includes individual titles of note along with the most popular field guide series. For each guide, the author, publisher, and publication date are given. The diverse list has 17 individual titles, which cover everything from wildflowers in the Colorado mountains and insects north of Mexico to the natural history of vacant lots. There are detailed descriptions of four of the most popular field guide series: Audubon Society Guides, Golden Guides, Peterson Guides, and Stokes Nature Guide Series.

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they learn about the Fighting Dinos fossil. The site opens with a vivid account of the dinosaurs' fight. "Explore the Fighting Dinos Through a Paleontologist's Eyes" gives students an up-close look at the fossil, with notes about the clues it's given scientists. "How Did They Die, Anyway?" presents details about the three theories that have been developed about how the fighting pair was buried alive. "Bone Up Your Fossils" challenges students to match up eight dinosaur fossil photos and descriptions.

Students learn how CCD cameras use color filters to create astronomical images in this Moveable Museum unit. The four-page PDF guide includes suggested general background readings for educators, activity notes, and step-by-step directions. Students look at black-and-white photos to understand gray scale and construct simple red and green cellophane filters and observe magazine images through them.

This OLogy activity serves as a kid-friendly how-to manual about searching for fossils. In Not Just Any Rock Will Do, kids learn that fossils "hide out" in sedimentary rock and see examples of shale and sandstone. Do's and Don'ts for Fossil Hunters gives kids practical tips and a list of fossil-hunting supplies. In Fossils You May Find, there are photos of common invertebrate, vertebrate, and plant fossils to guide kids. Paleontology Clubs and Web Sites lists resources to help kids determine where to hunt for fossils. In Keeping a Field Journal, kids are shown an sample journal entry that points out the types of information they should record.

About 4.6 billion years ago, a cloud of interstellar dust, ice crystals, and gas collapsed to form a rapidly rotating disk with a young sun at its center: our solar system. This comic strip, a supplement to the Hall of Meteorites Educator's Guide, explains the processes that led to the creation of the planets and the asteroid belt.

In this classroom activity, middle school students simulate a "dinosaur dig." The activity opens with background information for teachers about fossils. Working in groups, students excavate fossil sites created in advance by the teacher, or other group of students, and try to reconstruct a chicken skeleton. The activity closes with a two-page student worksheet that directs students to diagram the fossil site and includes probing questions to help them decode their findings.

The American Museum of Natural History is home to the world's largest collection of vertebrate fossils, totaling nearly one million specimens. This Web site offers visitors a virtual visit to the Museum's famed Fossil Halls. It features seven sections along with a brief introduction, a Teacher's Guide, and information about the Museum's Division of Paleontology.

This activity is a printable one-page PDF handout, which focuses on dinosaur features. It includes an album of animal fashions in which students compare three dinosaur's frills with similar features found on animals alive today in order to determine their function and a "design your own dinosaur" challenge in which students create a dinosaur that has the features they'd like to see.

This illustrated guide to a grasshopper's head is designed to help students recognize and learn the many parts found on an insect's head. The single Web page, which can be easily printed for use at field sites or in the lab, also includes a short description for the following labeled parts: ocellus compound eye antenna gena frons clypeus mandible labrum labium palps.

In this Digital Universe activity, students learn firsthand about estimation strategies and observational bias. They estimate how common several celestial objects are based on their location and make inferences about larger population patterns throughout the galaxy. The printable PDF activity includes illustrated step-by-step instructions for the following hands-on and computer-assisted activities: Introduction to Celestial Objects, Broad Distribution of Objects in the Galaxy and Making Galactic Estimates