Water on the Web and more!

I don't know about anyone else, but I get overwhelmed sometimes with the cool stuff that comes up on a search for these different resources in the classroom!  Every time I try to focus on one thing I get distracted by others that are just as awesome...but enough about my difficulties concentrating.  I checked out a site that I had used in my undergraduate ecology lab course called Water on the Web (WOW).  I have been tossing around the idea of doing a stream ecology project for my PBL plan.  This website collects stream data for 5 streams (rivers) in Minnesota.  This data includes temperature, flow, turbidity, and more.  I in the course that I took, we used this real time data and the data we collected to determine the health of the stream.  I could see using this or a site like this to enable students to use real-time data to predict and make conclusions about what is happening in a particular stream.  The only limitation to this site is that it only monitors a select few lakes and streams in Minnesota.  I went to school in Duluth and many of the streams they monitor are there, but you could still use this data as part of a unit even if you aren't in the area.

In response to the comments from my last post, I agree that the NCBI site would be a little difficult for a regular 10th grade biology class, but could definitely be used in an AP course.  It would take a lot of work on the teacher's end though to make sure that they fully understand how to use the different applications and what each of the results are showing...but super cool none-the-less!