·http://www.scienceintheclassroom.org

Science in the Classroom is an excellent resource for high school teachers and university professors who want to integrate the latest breaking research into their lesson plans. The project consists of a team of editors from the world-renowned journal Science, who work with an advisory board of scientists and science teachers to produce content designed for the classroom. On the site, readers may click on either High School or University to choose their target audience. Topics may be divided into Physical or Biological sciences (or choose "Any" to peruse all articles). Click on an article to read the editor's introduction and annotations. Discussion questions are listed throughout. In addition, each article is accompanied by Activities and Teaching Resources, which can be downloaded as PDF files. [CNH]

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·http://www.tweentribune.com/

This excellent news website from the Smithsonian Institute covers science, history, the environment, and other topics. Kids will love it for its quirky news stories. Parents and teachers will love it because they know they can trust the content coming from one of America's greatest institutions of knowledge. Stories are sorted into age appropriate levels (Grades K-4, Grades 5-8, and Grades 9-12) and are also available in Spanish. Recent articles have explained the significance of two new planets discovered by astronomers, rejoiced at the birth of a baby orca, reviewed the history of Martin Luther King, Jr., and traced a classic Atari game from its place in a trash bag in New Mexico to its new home at the video game history collection at the Smithsonian. The website is free, though readers must create a simple account to comment on articles. [CNH]

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·http://www.poetryoutloud.org/teaching-resources/

Poetry Out Loud, which is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, is a contest in which students memorize and recite poems. They start first in the classroom, then recite school-wide, then regionally, then by state and, finally, at the National Finals. The Teaching Resources section of the site features tips for teaching Poetry Out Loud, lesson plans and a suggested class schedule, ideas about how teachers can make their Poetry Out Loud program accessible, and information about Poetry Out Loud and Common Core Standards. In addition, readers may download the excellent 40-page Teacher's Guide, which provides a program overview, rules, publicity tips, and other resources. Information about revered American poets and past student winners of Poetry Out Loud contests can also be found here. [CNH]

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·http://www.mynextmove.org/

My Next Move is an excellent resource for those looking to start or change careers. The site features 900 career options, searchable by key words or by industry. For instance, when "psychologist" is typed into the key word search almost two dozen options appear, from Clinical Psychologist to Mental Health Counselor. Clicking on Clinical Psychologist links to a page that describes what clinical psychologists do, what their knowledge, skills, and abilities are, what personality styles work best in the field, what technologies they use, what education is required, their average salary, and what the opportunities will most likely be in the future. Job-seekers can also find out what their interests are and how they relate to career paths by taking the O*NET Interest Profiler. The 60-word assessment provides scores on six personality categories: realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, and conventional. The user then enters how much education they would like to receive and the assessment links to possible careers. [CNH]

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·http://www.fuelcelleducation.org/renewable-energy/grades-9-12

The Great Lakes Fuel Cell Education Partnership has raised over $15 million to educate students and workers in fuel cell technologies in Ohio, New York, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. This page features lesson plans and activities to spice up fuel cell curriculum for secondary school students. For instance, students can take the Forms of Energy Crossword or the Energy Awareness Quiz. There are also lesson plans that span multiple classes and give detailed instructions for teachers. While some of the resources on the site are a little out of date, there is still plenty here for teachers to make use of in educating students about fuel cell technology. [CNH]

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·http://www.letstalkscience.ca

According to a Carnegie Foundation commission of researchers, the growth of contemporary economies is reliant on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) workers. However, the U.S. has consistently fallen behind in math and science education. This site from Canadian nonprofit Let's Talk Science provides an overview of some fresh ideas about how to get kids interested in STEM. Readers may want to start with the Programs & Resources section, where they will find gems such as Curiocity, IdeaPark, and other web-based programs for educators who are looking for fresh ways to spark interest in STEM subjects with their students. The Research & Publications tab links to empirical data on students' attitudes toward science and the effect of Let's Talk Science on those attitudes. There are also activities and media resources available on the site. [CNH]

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·http://www.montanawomenshistory.org

Montana women won the right to vote in 1914, six years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. This website from the Montana Historical Society has been created to honor that centennial, featuring over 130 articles from The Magazine of Western History, over 100 blog entries, and a plethora of bibliographies, oral histories, educator resources, and photographs. The material available here spans centuries as well as topics and blog posts describe fascinating individuals such as American Indian journalist, Minnie Two Shoes. The Exhibits & Multimedia section is well worth a look as it highlights five related online exhibits at the University of Montana, Missoula, such as "A History of the UM Home Economics Department." Visitors will also be happy to note that the Montana Historical Society Press plans to publish a book based on the content here sometime in the fall of 2015. [CNH]

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·http://www.brooklynwaterfronthistory.org

Today Brooklyn Bridge Park exists as an 85-acre oasis along Brooklyn's East River Shoreline. But it wasn't always so. In fact, over the past two hundred years, this same scrap of land has been "a site of bustling commerce, a transportation terminal, a refuge for immigrants, an artist and activist center, and much more." This informative website, curated by Brooklyn Bridge Park and Brooklyn Historical Society, offers a wealth of information about this particular spot in New York City, with wider implications for American history. Click the photographs on the homepage to get started, then select "read on" for articles about Brooklyn's "ferry empire," the multiple fires that swept through the waterfront area between 1822 and 1952, or stories of immigration. Navigating through the interactive map via eight Tours (including Colonial Brooklyn, Ecology, and Labor and Activism) is another great way to explore this engaging and informative site. [CNH]

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·http://science360.gov/series/nsf-science-now/89a1b896-e8a7-4176-816e-08b4415308f8

Hosted by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Dena Headlee, NSF Science Now is a weekly newscast that covers some of the latest innovations from NSF-funded projects around the country and the world. For instance, a recent episode focused on increased plant productivity, the activity of the brain during reading, manufacturing a more reliable prosthesis, and better predicting earthquakes and tsunamis. At three to five minutes long, each video is fast-paced and entertaining. NSF Science Now is a great way to track what the NSF is sponsoring and how those projects are breaking new ground in everything from astrophysics to zoology. [CNH]

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·http://www.openculture.com/

Perhaps the best way to describe Open Culture is to list what's available: 1,100 free online courses, 700 free movies, 550 free audio books, 700 free eBooks, 1,000 free MOOCs, free educational material for 46 languages, and 200 free educational resources for kids. Founded in 2006 by Stanford University's Dan Coleman, the site also contains great lectures by Toni Morrison and Bertrand Russell (among others) and great readings by notables such as T.S. Eliot and Anne Sexton. If readers are looking for art and images, the Met, the Getty, the British Library, and other museums and galleries are featured here. In essence, Open Culture gathers together all of the wonderful, disparate content from around the web, curates it, and presents it in an easily navigable and enchanting format. [CNH]

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·http://www.gdao.org/

Founded in 1965 in Palo Alto, California, The Grateful Dead's music was at the epicenter of the American hippie movement for over 30 years. The Grateful Dead Archive Online, primarily constructed from the University of California Santa Cruz's Grateful Dead Archive, comprises over 45,000 digitized items, from audience-recorded bootlegs to fanzines to photographs, posters, tickets, and T-shirts. There are a number of ways to search the website. For instance, selecting Shows provides a map of venues. Click the map, and then the venue for a list of images, recordings, and other items. The Milestones tab presents an interactive timeline with arrows that move the years forward and backward over important events in the history of the band. The Artists tab links to thousands of photographs and posters, organized by artist. Perhaps best of all for Deadheads, the Media tab opens to selected audio and video recordings. [CNH]

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·http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/exhibits-programs/collections

The Boston Children's Museum is the second oldest children's museum in the world. As the website notes, "For over one hundred years it has been engaging children in joyful discovery experiences that instill an appreciation of our world, develop foundational skills, and spark a lifelong love of learning." Several of the collections can be viewed online. After reading the general introduction to the approximately 50,000 objects at the museum, readers might like to explore each of the online collections. The Dolls & Doll Houses Collection features a fascinating overview of the 800 play dolls in the collection, some dating back to the 18th century, along with a number of photographs. Snuff Bottles and Boxes is another intriguing collection, providing a fascinating history of snuff along with photographs of select artifacts. Other collections include Japan, Americana, and Natural History, among others. [CNH]

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·http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/

Know More, from the Washington Post, is a fanciful and fascinating look at a whole range of topics. Each entry is a simple picture, line graph, bar graph, collage, map, or other visual representation of some complex phenomenon. Readers who are not interested in this particular iteration of information can click "no more" to make it disappear. When readers find themselves intrigued, they may click "know more" to navigate to a longer, and often even more intriguing unpacking of the phenomenon at play. For example, the entry, "All the world's wealth in pizza (1.26 million sq km)" links to an article by Tim Urban in which the author breaks the world's wealth down into $100 bills, then into gold bars, and finally into pizza. The site's concept in intriguing and it's well worth exploring. [CNH]

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·http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13

According to the National Climatic Data Center, which is a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2014 was the warmest year globally since record keeping began in 1880. This website presents the report in an easily digestible format, with tables, maps, and bullet pointed lists. Highlights include the global land and ocean temperatures, which were both the highest on record, as well as precipitation counts, which varied by region but were about average overall. Readers may also want to peruse the Top 10 Warmest Years, a table near the beginning of the report that presents interesting, and disturbing, evidence for climate change. [CNH]

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·http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/death/

Death and the Civil War, which the New York Times called "revelatory" when it premiered in September 2012, focuses not on the great generals or the political tides of this epic American conflict, but on the sheer fact of so many lost in so short a time span - and how that devastation affected the American people. As the film notes, about 750,000 young men died in the Civil War. Taken as a percentage of population, the equivalent today would be seven million dead. The entire 1 hour and 50 minute film can be watched on the PBS web site. In addition, the site features two bonus videos, a Then & Now section about caring for soldiers wounded in battle, and an excellent teacher's guide. [CNH]

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·http://www.archives.gov/veterans/

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has created this handy start page to serve the needs of veterans, their families, and researchers who are looking for military records. Especially for vets, there's an information box with instructions on how to request military service records online, by mail, or by fax. For researchers, there's a page listing specific records that are available online, organized by wars and conflicts from the Revolutionary War Era through Vietnam. Rather than taking a searcher directly to content, clicking two of the World War I searches (The Operation of the So-Called "Lost Battalion," October 2 to 8, 1918; American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs, 1917 - 1918) will lead to the general search box for NARA Online Public Access, which is a bit daunting. In contrast, the photographs are presented for easy browsing, and there are a lot of them, including over 6,000 Matthew Brady Civil War photographs, a photographic sketchbook of the Civil War by Alexander Gardner, and a couple of World War II collections selected for the site, "African Americans During World War II" and "Pictures of World War II". [DS]

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·https://soundcloud.com

SoundCloud is a popular audio distribution platform. Musicians can upload their music and music lovers can listen for free. With content creators uploading about 12 hours of audio every minute, there is almost no genre that can't be located through a simple search. SoundCloud is also available as an app for Android (4.2.2+) [CNH]

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·http://www.odrive.com

Odrive is a Dropbox-style interface that allows users to access online photos, documents, and social media platforms from one convenient location. It also integrates with Dropbox, Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive, Gmail, Microsoft OneDrive, and other applications so that you can have access to all your data without logging in and out of various apps and services. The program is easily downloadable to your computer. [CNH]

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In State of the Union, Obama Sets an Ambitious Agenda
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/us/state-of-the-union-obama-ambitious-agenda-to-help-middle-class.html?_r=0

Obama: 'The shadow of crisis has passed'
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/01/20/obama-state-of-the-union-republican-senate-mitch-mcconnell/22040331/

State of the Union 2015 fact check
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/2015-state-of-the-union-fact-check-114422.html

Ernst Focuses on GOP Priorities in State of the Union Response
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2015-state-of-the-union/ernst-focuses-gop-priorities-state-union-response-n289951

A Brief History of the State of the Union
http://mentalfloss.com/article/29811/brief-history-state-union

President Obama's State of the Union Address - Remarks As Prepared for Delivery
https://medium.com/@WhiteHouse/president-obamas-state-of-the-union-address-remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery-55f9825449b2

In his State of the Union address this week, President Obama gave an optimistic speech rooted in unapologetically progressive values. He challenged congress to help him make two years of community college free to all students, spoke of the need to tax high earners, and made a case for affordable child care. The president also threatened to veto any congressional measures that might hobble new regulations on Wall Street or the American Affordable Health Care Act, and called on Republicans to "turn the page" and help him move the burgeoning economic recovery toward the good of the middle class. He also vaunted his successes abroad, including reestablishing relations with Cuba and pulling hundreds of thousands of troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, while calling for a concerted effort to address continued difficulties in the Middle East. Responses from politicians across the web has been swift and, unsurprisingly, divided. While Democrats lauded Obama for his strong platform, Sen. Joni Ernst, of Iowa, took the opportunity to call attention to the "message" the electorate had sent in November when they voted in a majority Republican congress. Mitt Romney has also accused the president of being "more interested in politics than in leadership." [CNH]

The first and second links, from the New York Times and USA Today respectively, offer excellent overviews of Tuesday night's event and provide embedded video of the speech. The third link navigates to Politico's excellent fact check of the president's message. Via the fourth link, readers may peruse NBC's coverage of Senator Ernst's State of the Union Response, while the fifth link provides historical background on the State of the Union address, which was first broadcast on television in 1947. Finally, a transcript of Obama's speech is available in full from medium.com.