Contact: Maridith Geuder
A Smithsonian Institution Internet information site designed by Mississippi State University is earning national accolades.
The O. Orkin Insect Zoo site, NaturalPartners.Org/InsectZoo/OrkinZoo/, is receiving a 1999 "Best of the Bugs" award, one of the first four presented by the University of Florida.
The award honors "exceptional sites"--those judged by a committee of professional entomologists to be in the top 5 percent of all insect-related sites.
Directed toward students in grades 4-8 and their teachers, the site was developed by MSU's Center for Educational and Training Technology, in cooperation with the Smithsonian's Natural Partners Program. Resources at the MSU Entomological Museum were used in developing information and photographs.
The Orkin Zoo site also is receiving recognition as one of the top eight academic Internet research sites in Homework Central's listing of leading research resources.
Each week, more than 200,000 teachers, students and librarians in the United States and 41 other countries receive the recommendations compiled by the editors of Homework Central, which said the Orkin site "takes you through an expanding honeycomb of insect topics, illustrations and learning activities."
Creating a butterfly garden, using insect song lyrics to start Internet research and using insect facts to develop math-related problems are among educational activities suggested by the project's "Students Resources" page. More than 20 educational modules are featured.
The site also provides a "virtual" tour of the real Orkin Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Site visitors have a chance to see insects in three-dimensional presentations and rotate them 360 degrees on their computer screens.
Development of the Orkin Insect site was supported by a grant from the BellSouth Foundation.