BRAINPOP.COM
Pretty cool. Terrific interface. Instruction, content, production values all excellent.
Numerous awards and significant partnerships. Good model. Has a lesson for each item on the standards list.
Linked with McGraw Hill and other key organizations.
Good section on special needs kids like dyslexia and autism.

Sparktop.org http://www.sparktop.org/explore/brainpop.html Linked to Brainpop. Site for dyslexia and LD sponsored by the Schwablearning.org of Charles Schwab.

Academic Benchmarks. com. You should know if you don't already. Useful tools for matching your curriculum to national and state standards item by item. Clever business idea.

Useful listing of educational sites (that all happen to use Academic Benchmarks.com)
Acahttp://www.academicbenchmarks.com/partner/

NATIONAL SCIENCE EDUCATION STANDARDS (est. 1996)

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4962

CALIFORNIA STANDARDS
http://www.cde.ca.gov/BE/ST/SS/documents/sciencestnd.pdf

Google "science k4"

1. youth.net science experiment lesson plans posted by teachers. Site run by single person unclear if for google juice or not.

2. col-ed.org looks identical? to #1

3. cicob.typepad.cob........blog for cobb county (GA?) teachers

4. ncpublicschools.org

5. lifelab.org......30 yo non-profit with curricula posted

6. edzone.net..........Links to many science teaching resources from a 30 yo organization

7. http://www.burlesonisd.net/it/blog/?page_id=2.......Blog from Burleson Indep School Dist...with 3 teachers as (free) consultant.

science k 5 (with a space btwn K and 5)

1&2 same as above.

3. ofcn.org. seems identical? to 1&2

4. http://www.sfscience.com/.......owned by PEARSON EDUCATION, INC.

5. edzone again

6. ncpublic schools again

7. http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter112/ch112a.html.........texas state science stds

8. http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter112/ch112a.html...from Lawrence Hall of Science UC Berkeley Complete science curribulum supposedly interactive. by FOSSWEB CA Edition. Complies with all CA state stds.

9. http://www.mcps.k12.mt.us/portal/Staff/Libraries/K5ScienceResources/tabid/323/Default.aspx........Missoula Public Schools

10. cobb county again

At page bottom related searches are listed:

harcourt science grade 5	grade 5 science and technology	grade 5 science matter	grade 5 science projects
grade 5 science electricity	grade 5 science fair	grade 5 science weather	science quiz for grade 5

OVERALL, looks like there are 3 big K12 textbook publishers....HMH, Pearson & McGraw Hill.(Lots of others turn out to just be divisions of these three.)

WIKIPEDIA says As of January 2009, the four largest college textbook publishers in the United States were:

• Pearson Education (including such imprints as Addison-Wesley and Prentice Hall)
• Cengage Learning (formerly Thomson Learning) NO K12
  
• McGraw-Hill
• Houghton Mifflin (including Harcourt)

Other (NO K12)US textbook publishers include:

• John Wiley & Sons
  
• Jones and Bartlett Publishers
• F. A. Davis Company
• W. W. Norton & Company
• SAGE Publications

K-12 EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHERS

#1 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
includes Holt McDougal division
includes Saxon, provides K12 math & science textbooks and online/homeschool programs.
#2&3 are...
McGraw Hill
owns Glencoe, which has textbooks and an "e-solutions" business
Pearson
owns Prentice Hall & Addison Wesley

Thompson educational (bought by Apax Partners pvt equity for $7.7B in 2007)???Not sure what happened to them or if K12. Part of Cengage, the big non-K12 publisher?

List of K12 TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERS
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Publishers/Education/Textbooks/K_12/


THE REST BELOW JUST MISCELLANEOUS TIDBITS

Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group formed 2006 when Irish company Riverdeep (Dublin) combined with Houghton Mifflin (Boston) in $3.4B deal. In 2007, it bought Harcourt educational business for $4B from Elsevier. Now largest

Holt McDougal, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Two of the most trusted names in grades 6-12 educational publishing - Holt, Rinehart and Winston and McDougal Littell - have joined to become Holt McDougal, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

http://holtmcdougal.hmhco.com/hm/home.htm;jsessionid=E5CA7393293B3CCAD359F9154A815659.cz-app-wk1

Pearson

Pearson is the world's leading PreK–20 educational publishing company, dedicated to working with educators to change the way America thinks.

Prentice Hall, Inc. | A Pearson Education Company | Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

Glencoe, a McGraw Hill Company glencoe.com has e-solutions business.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/business/media/23publish.html article on textbook company acquisitions in 2006-07

2004 That's just the latest in a string of ambitious notions that have helped O'Reilly turn his company, O'Reilly Media, into the nation's second-largest tech book publisher. This fall more than 100 computer science professors nationwide will do the heretofore impossible: Through a new service called SafariU--a partnership between O'Reilly and Pearson Technology Group, a division of the $7.1 billion Pearson publishing juggernaut--they'll assign all-in-one textbooks, customized online to their exact specs. From a database of more than 5,000 O'Reilly and Pearson titles and articles, profs can click and drag anything from a few paragraphs to multiple chapters into their course syllabus. Then they can upload whatever outside material they need--articles, exercises, links, exams--and add it to the mix. Once it's digitally assembled, the text is instantly online; a print shop in Somerville, Mass., then cranks out hard copies to be shipped to the college bookstore.

Wiley: Our portfolio of global brands includes For Dummies, Frommer's, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, CliffsNotes, Webster's New World, J.K. Lasser, Jossey-Bass, Pfeiffer, and Sybex.

Wolters Kluwer educational (bought by Bridgeport Capital for $1B in 2007) K12 none

A curriculum plan

I had a chat which crystallized in my mind a likely plan. Other routes are possible.

a. Go find an orphaned K-5 science textbook curriculum. There are many due to the industry consolidation over recent years. There might be others developed on public moneys which never got fully published. But get a deal done which gets me access to a full curriculum. Ideally, full non-exclusive rights on an ongoing basis for free. Spend from nothing to $50K. Or more. Maybe royalties on a lease-to-buy basis to manage cash flow. To find a curriculum, perhaps work with a text book published exec who lost his job in one of the recent mergers.

b. Put it up in some format as fast as possible. Use the usual techniques to make it engaging:

• Chop it into short sections
• Much use of multiple choice to keep engagement delivering additional information as followup to question
• Have all text narrated with good imagery, chalk talk, videos

c. Launch using Jason for middle school, own materials for elementary.

d. Have both a family homeschool and school plan.

e Market market market.

Next steps.
- find lists of leading textbook vendors
- review mergers in last few years
- start speaking to execs who got ousted, looking for one who knows textbooks
- consider how to look at university or research-based curriculum, developed but unfunded.

Budget: $500K for initial development, $200K annually ongoing
Marketing expenses: $1M annually shared with other materials
Revenues:
Year 1: $50K
2: $150K
3: $300K
4: $600K

Science kits

Here's a company - http://www.thinksciencekits.com - making green science kids. They have
Chemistry - kitchen - 9-12 (outside of scope)
Biology for middle school - I like the "make a fish that can compete" project.
Forensics - for 6-12th
Plus other: examine owl dung, dental bacteria, insects in the cold etc

Nature Pavilion opened in the fall of 2001 and it has been "a dream come true" for me! I started this store with 12 products and we now carry over 1900 items and now have 2 employees helping to get your orders to you quickly.

Nature Pavilion's mission is to find unique high quality nature and science gifts and toys and offer them at a reasonable price to our customers

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/gpe/gpe.html - the graphics are cute, the education is fact-based dressed up as discovery, and it's barely interactive. Yet it might be successful. Am I shooting too high?

http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/ - cute little flash games: states and such. Worth buying? cute but not so well designed.

Print-based religious and a GREAT Vision

I was just looking at the writeup of areasonfor.com's science program for elementary school:
... areasonfor.com/HomeSchool/Products/Science/GeneralInfo.aspx

They're on the same track I would be except for the religious part. Here's from their site, much quoted from the National Science Education Standards.

...a different paradigm from the traditional textbook approach. Why? In an effort to address standards and accountability, many of today's science textbooks seem to get learning backwards. They focus primarily on building a knowledge base, assuming students will later attach meaning to memorized facts. The problem is that few elementary students master information presented this way because they simply never become engaged with the material... ". . . active science learning means shifting emphasis away from teachers presenting information and covering science topics. The perceived need to include all the topics and information . . . is in direct conflict with the central goal of having students learn scientific knowledge with understanding."

(I should look at e-tutor with strategic studies and lessonpro too)

Good idea. Curriculum designed for homeschool should be easier for us to adopt than one designed for classroom. And maybe work better. Finding a curriculum provider driven more by idealism (mission) than money like this one and Jason could be good. Cheaper and more flexible and less likely to be disturbed by corporate strategy changes. Or other sudden corporate changes of direction or staff.

Gravitas publications

This business was founded in 2001 Dr. Rebecca W. Keller. Her background in biophysics, molecular biology and neuroscience, coupled with her love of the dramatic led her to prepare interesting “labs” for her children and neighbors. “Science is fun,” she says. A home-school mom, she developed Real Science-4-Kids after searching for a science curriculum that taught solid science concepts in a manner understandable for youngsters.

The site, btw, looks like it's entirely built in WordPress using templates.

The product line has a teacher handbook, student textbook, and student workbook. There's:

Chemistry: Pre Level 1 (does this mean middleschool?), Level 1, Level 2
Biology: Pre Level 1 (does this mean middleschool?), Level 1,
Physics: Level 1
Some interesting CD products
Kogs-4-Kids supports Real Science-4-Kids by connecting Level I Chemistry to language, history, philosophy, technology, critical thinking, and the arts. Real Science-4-Kids plus Kogs-4-Kids create a complete framework for understanding science.

I'll make inquiries as to more details about what they are and how we might work with them.

Homeschool.com's top 100 websites

Every January, Homeschool.com lists the top 100 homeschooling websites.

A few points of note. Time4Learning, which includes an online interactive science curriculum, got listed as one of the top three sites most mentioned. This is independent of the fact that they sponsored the newsletter.

We should look at and understand each of the sites that the list for science.

Science

BrainPOP -This subscription site targeted at 3rd grade and up (is it too juvenile for middle school? high school? there's a junior site for k-3) seems to be founded and run by a physician (unless it's been sold, who is FWD Media the owner?). They charge $195 per year to access their resources (for a single classroom or family, they also have school ($995 with access for students limited to day time), district, and virtual school licensing) in seven subject areas: English, math, science, technology, health, arts & music, and social studies. Technology covers six areas: communication, computers & internet, energy technology, science & industry, simple machines, and transportation. Science covers 8 areas:xxx which includes roughly 220 activities.. All sections have animated flash movies and printable activities such as vocabulary list and true/false questions. Further todos. Look at activities and membership. Check for partnering opportunities. Their show conference attendence list is first rate. They have a cj affiliate program which we should consider. They seem to support both the smartboard (ready) and a deeper involvement with the promothean board where they've integrated with a student response system.

Chem4Kids
http://www.chem4kids.com

Exploratorium
http://www.exploratorium.edu

InnerBody
http://www.InnerBody.com

Science for High School
http://www.scienceforhighschool.com/

Cosmeo
http://cosmeo.com

NASA for Students
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/index.html

Astronomy for Kids
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=ss&id=127

Nine Planets
http://www.nineplanets.org

StarChild
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov

The Electronic Zoo
http://netvet.wustl.edu/e-zoo.htm

Smith Life Science
http://www.smithlifescience.com/

The MAD Scientist Network
http://www.madsci.org

Try Science
http://www.tryscience.org

Science & Technology Education
http://www.ftexploring.com/

steve spagler science

I just learned about Steve Spangler Science from Andrea's homeschool blog. I'm trying to build an inventory working with the starting point of the Science Technology Engineering and Math for the rest of us blog.

Steve Spangler has Great Products for Amazing Science Fair Projects.

Basically, he has cool videos explaining science experiments and sells materials for them. They're heavy on fun. Check out for instance the self-carving pumpkin.

He’s been described as the guy who shoots potatoes, makes toilet paper fly, and mixes up a perfect batch of slime. But he may be best known for teaching millions of people how to turn an ordinary bottle of soda into an erupting geyser of fun. His now famous Mentos Geyser Experiment became an Internet sensation in September of 2005 and spawned more than a thousand related exploding soda experiments on videos sites like YouTube.com

On the education side, Steve Spangler is nationally known as a teacher's teacher who shares his passion for learning in the classroom, on the platform, and through the airwaves. Over the last 15 years, Steve has made over 500 television appearances as an authority on hands-on science and inquiry-based learning. His cool science demonstrations and creative insights earned him an Emmy as the host of NBC television’s News for Kids.

Spangler joined the Denver NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV 9News, in 2001 as their Science Education Specialist. His weekly experiments and science segments are designed to teach viewers creative ways to make learning fun and never fail to surprise his co-hosts who seem to enjoy an occasional blast from a fire extinguisher or are eager to help trigger a few exploding pumpkins... all in the name of science.

Since 1991, Spangler has served as the Executive Director of the National Hands-on Science Institute, which includes hands-on trainings workshops for teachers and administrators. The Institute’s successful model of combining hands-on training for teachers with on-site practice and evaluation with children has attracted the attention of educators throughout the country.

With twelve years experience in the classroom in the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado, Steve continues to share his creative learning strategies and inquiry research as a consultant for the Littleton Public Schools in Colorado. The focus of his work centers around hands-on learning and student motivation.

Steve Spangler's online videos showing his favorite science demonstrations and latest creations continue to catch the attention of parents, teachers, television producers and even a talk show host here and there. Steve had the privilege of being a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres Show in September of 2007 with a return visit in November. Ellen learned how to change her voice using a special gas, use liquid nitrogen to flash freeze fruit, perform the classic tablecloth trick and use giant rings of smoke to blow cups off the heads of people in the audience. Recently, Steve has also made appearances on the Food Network and the History Channel.

Science resources of note

The focus here should be online resources that have significant potential impact on curriculum. I'm not going to try to list every interesting science video at the national geographic, zoo, or a museum.

Jason.org - A national geographic owned amazing educational resource. It's been discussed that I could remarket it. Odd concept since it's free. Also, it requires a very educated involved teacher to run students thru it. So we would provide the virtual online classroom setting and charge money. We've never confirmed that jason would be supportive of this. They only have two middle school modules.

Gizmos - These little online ...gizmos...are cool. What's their business model?

Time4Learning Homeschool Science Curriculum Online - Very good, not so comprehensive. Could be updated.

http://www.homeschool.com/ - They have the premier homeschool directory by subject. The owner director lady, Rebecca, is on the T4L advisory board.

http://www.homeschoolscience.com/ - number one on google.

Apologia is the leading Christian homeschool science vendor.

Many homeschoolers use spiraling multidisciplinary unit studies to study science. Simply, every four years, you study the same unit. So imagine a family with a 2nd, 3rd, and 7th grader. They might all start with a unit on the digestive track. The 2nd and 3rd graders use the same materials, the 7th grader is covering the same unit but at a more sophisticated level. So the curriculum spirals. The unit part is that it might integrate with other subjects so bees might have a social studies, economics, historical, literary, or mathematical component.

www.pandiapress.com - looked great at a trade show. I bought the Earth & Space unit for grades 1-4. Looks great.