There are shots of the moon expeditions, and then there are shots of the moon expeditions. The photos of the Apollo launches at Panorma are, well, panoramic. You can turn a full 360 degrees to view the entire seen from the point of view of the astronaut who took the shot/s. It’s a really nifty effect.

Ever wanted a really big picture on the wall as part of a display, or maybe as the background for a display? As weird as it may seem, there’s now a way to get really large pictures. Block Posters will take your small digital photo and make it wall sized.

Okay, you won’t actually get one large photo. No printer that a school has could ever actually deal with that. What it actually does is break down your picture into sections and then turn it into a PDF file. You can then print off the pieces and re-assemble them (jigsaw style) to create one giant photo.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, working with primary sources is one way to make the past come alive for students. Manitoba.ca offers some cool early Manitoba newspapers to work with.

The Alberta Heritage Digitalization Project also offers online papers, coming from (naturally) Alberta’s past. You can look up a year and pick particular issues of the newspapers available from that year.

There’s no search function, and the collection is incomplete since each individual page of the paper is scanned as a jpeg and then posted. While it’s not perfect, it’s a whole easier than taking your class to the archives, the downtown library, or the university and it exposes them to one more cool resource.

And, by the way, thanks to one of my two faithful readers for pointing out this neat resource.

Okay, now we all know we should be concerned that some species are in danger of extinction. We need to take care of all parts of the created world, but how do you get people paying attention to that and excited about that? Well, how about telling them about the Endangered Ugly Things that dot this planet?

This rather unusual blog features some very cool animals that would be excellent candidates for a TV makeover show. They are truly weird looking. Yet all of these animals seem to have a necessary function in their own ecosystems and are worthy of note. Destroying them will throw off the balance in their environmental systems.

This blog seems to introduce a new animal about once a week, so you won’t get overwhelmed reading this, but every new animal is given a reasonably extensive introduction making the blog a worthwhile read.

Physics Education Today has a nifty little site that could be useful for highschool physics classes or younger elementary classes, too, depending on just what scientific principles you wanted to illustrate.

The site uses a number of flash animations to show how electrons move around when a balloon rubs a wall, simulated wave motion, and a half a dozen other cool things. It’s a neat way to bring a physics lab to your students without having a physics lab close at hand. Very handy stuff.