These kid-friendly sites can provide stimulating and topical hands-on web exploration opportunities for students.

Geo-Mysteries with Rex the Dino Detective
        Fun, friendly, and informative, this site from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis has cool geologic mysteries that kids can solve online, as well as a geologic timeline, kids' FAQs, and tips about rock- and fossil- hunting field work.

Rock Hounds
        A teacher's homepage with some good info for kids and teachers about how rocks are formed, rock collection safety and tips, and more. It's a very tidy and friendly resource.

Want to Go Prospecting?
        The Mine Safety and Health Administration's site for kids offers this page that lets kids click on the map of the US and see all of the minerals and rocks that each state produces.

Mineral Investigations
        This site offers exercises for students that lead them in using the field tests used for mineral identification by geologists. Students can find out about testing hardness, color, streak, fracture, and more. The activities can be rather intricate, and most would require teacher involvement, although students could explore in some of the Virtual Testing Labs themselves.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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