Clickable map of Superfund Sites
This Superfund website is presented by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and provides a wealth of information regarding Superfund sites in the United States and its territories. The site was very easy to navigate with its clickable map and you also had the option to click on worded links instead. I used both and each worked well.
The Minnesota sites were of interest to me because my brother is a hydrogeologist and I know he has worked on some of the sites in Minnesota, especially in the metro area. The information on the Minnesota sites, however, do not specify which companies are actually doing the assessments or evaluations so I was unable to track down any sites he may have worked on although the Olmstead County Landfill rings a bell and I believe he worked on that one.
To locate some of the sites talked about in class and in the videos
I clicked over on Utah and Colorado and found the Kennecott site by Magma,
UT and California Gulch site by Leadville, CO. The information for
both detailed the history of the sites and present work being done.
Of interesting note was at the North Kennecott site they rerouted water
from springs to lessen the contamination of nearby wetlands due to selenium
as a temporary measure until they can remove the toxins. The California
Gulch site has seen much improvement since 1995 with the water quality
of the Arkansas River but they are still working on the acid mine discharge
problem and the treatment plant there works continually day and night.
Great Lakes Information Network
The Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN) is a very good web site with lots of information regarding the Great lakes and the surrounding area. It is a partnership site that uses resources from both the United States and Canada and as a result provides the user with a good mixture and balance of information. The site is a very popular site judging by the number of hits it has received and this may be in part due to the fact that it is very easily navigated and is well laid out.
Of particular interest to me was the map section, the satellite images, and the education section. The maps (all downloadable and free!) are clean and easily read. I particularly liked the maps showing the glacial effects on the formation of the Great Lakes. The satellite images (fifty-two total) are presented in a thumbnail gallery. I liked the picture of northern Minnesota, taken during the winter, where you can see some of the frozen larger lakes in Minnesota (Upper and Lower Red Lakes, Lake Winnie) in addition to Lake Superior. The education section was well organized by topics such as geography, history and culture, and environment and the information was current and relevant.
This site has many applications for my subject area, social studies.
With the education section already in place, a teacher can use the additional
stuff, such as the maps, to expand on the information. The site also
provides opportunities to learn about possible careers associated with
the region as well as tourist information.
TerraServer
TerraServer is a very easy to use and useful site that can be useful in the classroom as well as just fun to play around with. I did not have as much success by clicking on the big world maps to narrow down where I wanted to go; it seemed to take a long time. I found it was easiest to work with by using the search engine to find a specific place and then look around the area.
With the search engine I was able to quickly find my home town and then by manipulating the size of the maps and the distance I easily found my parent’s house (although it was a little hard to distinguish any specific features at the lowest scale available). Using this same method I also checked out aerial photographs of New York and Boston (topical for this first part of the course) and then searched for a couple of landmarks that are of interest to me, Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. The site also provides downloads (mostly for PC computers) to enhance viewing some of the available images (Although I found a Mac download when I checked out the new maps of London). Also you can go to a variety of famous and interesting (Area 51) locations already set up for viewing.
The classroom applications of TerraServer are many for my field,
social studies. The topographical and aerial maps can provide ready
images of places talked about in history, politics, current events, and
of course geography. The site can also be used by students to add
depth to projects as the images are downloadable.