Rehabilitate a Natural Habitat
The Live Monarch Foundation is offering free milkweed seeds to classes, groups and individuals in the migration path of the Monarch butterfly to help rehabilitate the natural habitat of the Monarch in North America. In recent years, over 75 percent of the wintering Monarchs butterflies from North America have frozen to death in Mexico as a result of rain and subfreezing conditions, and a nationwide shortage of milkweed, which Monarchs need to procreate, has further decimated their population.
Deadline: Ongoing
Click Here for More Information

Plus: Adopt an online Monarch butterfly for free and get great pictures and information about all aspects of the life cycle of a Monarch.
Click Here to Adopt Online Monarch

Partner with Your Community
Adopt-A-Classroom invites the community into the classroom in support of teachers and their students. By adopting a classroom, donors form partnerships with specific classrooms, providing financial and moral support. The result is a meaningful contribution to education in which donors experience the impact of their efforts and celebrate in a classroom’s success.
Deadline: Ongoing
Click Here for More Information

Join the growing list of teachers enjoying the eBookDestination Rewards Program. On the first day of each month, a digital coupon (representing 5 percent of your total purchases in the previous month) will be added to your shopping cart. You’ll then be notified via email of the presence (and amount) of this coupon.

There’s no application to complete, no points to collect, no cards to carry, no codes to enter and (most important) no fees to pay. Quite simply, you are repaid for your loyalty with a 5 percent credit toward future purchases. It’s as easy as that!

Browse the eBookstore now! You’ll receive an automatic discount on thousands of ebook titles, many of which are bundled with downloadable audio MP3 files, from major educational publishers. Plus, there’s always a selection of the most popular titles on sale!

Find Solutions for Helping English Language Learners
Sign up at The Big Deal Book Web site for hELLo!, a free monthly ELL e-newsletter that includes information about new grants, upcoming contests, the latest educational research and a wealth of information on interactive print and online resources for students, teachers, librarians, principals and others involved in the education of English language learners.
Click Here to Sign Up for Free Newsletter

Motivate Students to Read During the Summer
The Scholastic Summer Challenge is encouraging youth aged 8 and up to read for fun and for a good cause over the next four months. When they register for the Challenge, students are presented with the opportunity to log their time spent reading age-appropriate books on the Scholastic Summer Challenge site. Once they accept the Challenge, students take a fun quiz that sorts them into one of four color teams, joining other kids from across the country and the world to record their minutes spent reading, earn points for their team, play games and chat about books. At the end of the summer, Scholastic will make a financial contribution to the Save the Children foundation on behalf of all the participating readers. The winning team will get to vote on which cause gets an extra donation.
Click Here for More Information

Plus: Enter the Summer Challenge sweepstakes for a chance to win books from Scholastic and real- and virtual-world prizes through rewards from SmartyCard and KidZui.

Build Girls’ Leadership Skills
Sponsored by the Women’s Sports Foundation and The Gatorade Company, the GoGirlGo! Ambassador Team Awards offers an opportunity for educators to recruit more girls for their teams’ rosters, build leadership skills and make a difference in a girl’s life. Eligible applicants include school, amateur, community or nonprofit-affiliated teams whose members are female and enrolled in grades 9–12. Winning teams receive a Gatorade Hydration package and one of twenty $2,500 grants for uniforms, travel, equipment and more. All teams will receive an official certificate of completion.
Deadline: July 17, 2009
Click Here for More Information

Help Veterans’ Children Attend College
Freedom Alliance Scholarships provide financial assistance to high school seniors, high school graduates or registered undergraduate students at an accredited college or post–high school vocational/technical institution, who are dependent sons or daughters of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Guardsmen who have been killed or permanently disabled (100% VA disability rating) in the line of duty or who are currently classified as a Prisoner of War or Missing in Action.
Deadline: July 31, 2009
Click Here for More Information

Get free unlimited online access to all the print content in The Big Deal Book of Technology for K–12 Educators. Explore the many opportunities to fund your special programs, access timely reports and articles, locate free and inexpensive resources and identify engaging interactive Web sites.

Register online to download the Spring 2009 Big Deal eBook for Educators of English Language Learners. Inside this free eBook, you’ll find links to resources, strategies, best practices and interactive Web sites to engage your English language learners. You’ll also find a rich variety of funding sources to bring sustenance to your programs.

Build Understanding of Personal Finance
To celebrate the publication of Building Your Future, The Actuarial Foundation is giving away single sets of the printed curriculum to the first 1,000 teachers who request them. The curriculum helps students easily grasp the essentials of personal finance, gives them multiple opportunities to practice core skills and showcases the real-world impact of the financial decisions they make. Book 1: Banking covers savings accounts, checking accounts, credit cards and taxes. Book 2: Financing includes loans and interest, home loans, auto loans and insurance. Book 3: Investing addresses bonds, stocks, mutual funds, risk & diversification and inflation. The accompanying Teacher’s Guides provide handouts and answer keys, instruction and assessment suggestions, definitions and additional resources—all of which align to national mathematics and personal financial education standards.
Click Here to Download Free Curriculum

Mix Photos and Add Effects
From imaging software developer Vertus, Inc., Play With Pictures lets users cut out an unlimited number of people and props from digital images using a straightforward technique that resembles paint-by-numbers. The cut-outs are then layered onto a background of choice and embellished with a set of controls that are simple and fun to use, including blending tools and retouching tools for object colors, tints and transparency. Users can also add titles, captions or speech bubbles to their layered pictures.
Click Here to Download Free Trial Version

Take Advantage of This Stimulus Plan
Accurate Learning Systems Corporation has announced its “Math Stimulus Plan” providing unlimited access to MathScore.com, an online adaptive math practice system, to any summer school program for free. Teachers will have complete access to the full functionality of the MathScore system, including assessment and reporting features. Summer school classes participating in the “Math Stimulus Plan” program can provide access on campus, plus allow students to access the system from home or anywhere with an Internet connection. Schools interested in participating in the “Math Stimulus Plan” program must sign up by July 1, 2009. Free summer accounts will be valid until August 31, 2009.
Click Here to Sign Up for Free Summer Access

Interact with American History
Conspiracy Code is the first in an innovative series of online game-based courses from the Florida Virtual School (FLVS) and 360Ed, Inc. In the first course, released in June 2009, students must build their knowledge and understanding of American history in order to stop a vast conspiracy that is threatening to erase and change the course of history. The course includes a number of unique features, including the Data Map—a 3-D visual mind-map complete with tags and keywords for each piece of historical information collected—that students populate with associations and complex relationships. Students strengthen their understanding of history by using a unique tagging system and by writing about information collected in the course note system. They also apply knowledge during interactive information modes, agent interrogations and character interactions. Based on their understanding of the content and the use of clues—standards-based, historical data—students self-select their path and pace through the course. As they follow a sequential learning path, they master complex ideas before moving on to the next level or mission. This complete high school–level course fulfills a full credit of history.
Click Here to Access Free Demo

Share Pedagogical Experiences Through Video
The Case Creator is a free, video-based creation tool that allows you to import up to five videos and their corresponding transcripts, synchronize the videos with the transcripts, search the transcripts and cue the videos to the desired search result. You can add bookmarks and annotations to the videos and share them with your students. The tool allows you to create an interactive matrix of pedagogical issues of particular importance to your students. Although designed for educators, the Case Creator can be used by anyone. The product is a collaborative development effort between San Diego State University’s Center for Research on Math and Science Education and the Syracuse University School of Teacher Education.
Click Here to Access Free Tool

Go on a WebQuest
Sponsored by San Diego State University, this WebQuest page is the original home of the WebQuest concept, with examples of good quests, articles on the theory and practice of the form, how-to articles and more.
Click Here to Access Free Resources

Plus: The WebQuest about WebQuests exercise is useful for introducing the concept to educators. Working in teams, teachers examine five WebQuests from four different points of view. There are several versions for different grade levels: Elementary, 6–8, 6–12, HS English, HS Math/Science, HS Humanities.

How Well Does Technology Support Your Educational Needs?
The Big Deal Book of Technology is excited to partner with the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) in its Vision K–20 initiative. As the voice of the educational technology industry, SIIA wants to ensure that all students have access to a teaching and learning environment capable of preparing them to compete globally and lead the world in innovation. We invite you to take a short, online benchmarking survey to check your organization’s progress toward the SIIA Vision K–20. As educators or administrative leaders at a K–12 classroom, school or district, you can use the Vision Survey to see where technology supports (or doesn’t support) your educational needs. The survey takes less than 10 minutes to complete, and the responder receives immediate benchmark results. At the end of the survey period, SIIA will summarize all survey data in a report that will be available to those who participated in the survey and to our readers through this newsletter and The Big Deal Book of Technology Web site. The survey will be conducted each spring, so you will be able to see your annual progress toward achieving the Vision.
Deadline: June 20, 2009
Click Here to Take Vision Survey
Click Here to Learn More about Vision K-20

Cultivate Children’s Understanding of Engineering
Written by staff at the BOSTON Museum of Science, and reviewed by engineering, cultural and literacy specialists, the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) series of Engineering Stories for Children helps cultivate children’s understandings of engineering, technology and the role these disciplines play in society, in a fun and interesting way. Each EiE story features a child character from a different country or racial or ethnic background. Throughout each book, the lead character is faced with a challenge in his or her own world or daily life that can be solved through engineering. Adult relatives or neighbors involved in engineering offer perspectives from their own work—but it is always the young engineer who uses the Engineering Design Process to create his or her own solution to the challenge. A “Try It!” activity at the end of each book (a boiled-down version of the design challenge presented in the teacher’s guide associated with each storybook) invites young readers to engineer their own solutions to the same design challenge.
Click Here for More Information

Plus: The Engineering is Elementary project has produced 13 curricular units. The chat on this site describes each unit’s focal science and engineering fields, the storybook title and the country in which the unit is set. Seven additional units are planned for the future.
Click Here for More Information on Curriculum Units

Explore the Science Behind Real-World Problems
The CASES Online Web site features a collection of investigative lessons, or “cases,” designed to engage students in exploring the science behind real-world problems. The cases use the principles of problem-based learning and other student-centered strategies. They cover a wide range of science and mathematics topics for kindergarten through undergraduate students. For example, in “The Case of the Room 116 Blob,” a scenario designed for middle school life science classes, two students encounter a strange substance as they enter their classroom. Students need to determine whether the substance is harmful—or even alive. All cases contain learning objectives and state and national standards, as well as student handouts and teacher guides with assessment plans and case notes. The cases, which can be searched by subject and grade level, were designed and tested by teachers, students and faculty associated with curriculum development programs sponsored by the Emory College Center for Science Education.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Connect with Colleagues
Join The Big Deal Book of Technology’s “Amazing Resources for Educators” community on the edWeb. The edWeb gives you the networking tools to connect you with colleagues, groups you’re associated with and the entire education community. You can collaborate with colleagues outside the boundaries of classroom walls and school buildings to share lesson plans and compare notes on resources and products. You can also discuss topics of mutual interest, write a blog, share files, images and videos—and much more—all for free. Now you can join The Big Deal Book of Technology’s community to get more frequent updates on grant deadlines, free resources and hot new sites for 21st century learning. And, of course, you can share any great new resources that you’ve unearthed!
Click Here to Join the Amazing Resources for Educators Community
Click Here to Take a Tour of the edWeb

Get SmART About ART
Admission is free at the Smart Museum, where your students will be welcomed by the smARTkids, four students of upper-elementary and middle-school age. When students click on the girl on the left, she takes them to meet an artist, visit a studio and see some great art. The boy next to her shows students different ways to look at art and how to tell a story using art. The art includes photography, sculpture, painting and other genres. The smARTkids site was developed by the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, to help children—particularly those aged 7–12—discover ways to look at, think about and respond to art. Although some smARTkids activities are structured, most promote open-ended exploration of art. Visit the site with your students to learn the language of art, understand that artworks invite multiple interpretations and see how art is created for a wide variety of personal and social purposes.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Excite Children About Learning
Open Wide, Look Inside is a blog about teaching elementary math, science and social studies, with heavy emphasis on the integration of children’s literature across the curriculum. The blog is about throwing open the pages of books and using them to motivate and excite children about learning. The blog’s creator, Dr. Patricia Stohr-Hunt, is a professor of education at the University of Richmond. She is making this blog trip with her students, who are preparing to become elementary school teachers. From time to time, she also writes about useful Web sites and technology resources for enhancing instruction.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Explore How Things Are Made
If you’ve ever wondered how things are made (candy, cars, airplanes or bottles) or you’re interested in manufacturing processes (forging, casting or injection molding), then check out How Everyday Things Are Made. This introductory Web site for children and adults shows how 40 different products are made and includes almost four hours of video. Think of it as your own private online factory tour. The site was developed by the Alliance for Innovative Manufacturing (AIM), a cooperative venture among Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, School of Engineering and member industrial firms.
Click Here to Visit Web Site

Check out the new look of The Big Deal Book Web site. And be sure to explore the Web Wednesday feature, which offers resources and activities for integrating technology into your classroom. Here you’ll find new interactive experiences and resources that incorporate 21st century themes and skills into the study of core subjects.

Also explore the EarTHursday feature, which offers intelligent approaches to “going green” in your classroom. You’ll find interactive ideas that will help you encourage your students to weigh in and take action on some of the biggest environmental issues in our world today.

Appropriately named, these features change mid-week, every week!