PROUD HERITAGE School kicks off with Hispanic Heritage Month, and the AFT human rights and community relations department offers several online materials to help classrooms commemorate the event. Visit AFT online at www.aft.org, select AFT human rights and community relations under the “departments” button, and then choose “resource materials.” The Hispanic Heritage Month section offers lesson plans, useful Internet links, a history of the commemoration and more.

FOR NEW TEACHERS Setting up a new classroom can be an expensive proposition, and the New Teacher section of Scholastic’s Web site features a number of free downloads and price reductions on materials to help novice teachers in grades preK-8 get up to speed quickly. Included are printable teacher calendars, a classroom homepage builder, and more. The site provides new teachers with a $10 coupon toward books from Scholastic Club Books. Visit www.scholastic.com/newteacher.

ON THIS DATE Expanded science and nature entries, including dates for meteor showers and migration seasons for monarch butterflies, are some of the new additions to The Teacher’s Calendar: School Year 2003-2004. This resource book, which contains more than 3,900 entries, has been updated and expanded for the 2003-04 school year with hundreds of new events, anniversaries and activities. The 300-page paperback is fully indexed, retails for $19.95, and is available at local bookstores or through online retailers.

HEALTH NUMBERS The Young Epidemiology Scholars (YES) program has launched its second annual teacher competition. Up to 18 projects will be selected as regional winners, with a $5,000 award for each. Of these, up to six projects will be selected as national winners, with each receiving an additional $15,000 award. Winning entries from the first YES teacher competition included curricula addressing the transmission of HIV; the probability of diabetes occurring in certain populations; and social epidemics, such as poverty, drug abuse and illiteracy. Each year, the YES program will post winning entries on its Web site at www.collegeboard.com/yes. The site also offers details on this year’s competition, which has an Oct. 15 deadline for entries.

MUSIC MUSCLE Keeping music education in schools is the mission of the supportmusic.com initiative. The heart of the campaign is an interactive Web site that interviews visitors about their particular concerns surrounding music education in their local schools, and then hooks them up with the relevant facts and statistics needed to build their case to local school boards and education policymakers. The site, located at www.supportmusic.com, also offers links to community groups, elected leaders, and updates at the national and state level.

HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT The link between the world’s threatened ecology and the emergence of new health risks is the focus of a new Web site from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, PBS and other groups. The site features five thematic areas dealing with such issues as biodiversity loss, ozone depletion and international pollution, and is augmented with video clips from the “Journey to Planet Earth” miniseries that aired on PBS affiliates last spring. The site also contains National Science Education standards-based lesson plans developed by PBS TeacherSource. For details, visit www.pbs.org/johnshopkins.

FREE BOOK OFFER Teachers: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started teaching? Share your insights by completing the Simon & Schuster survey that beginning Sept. 1 can be found online at www. kaptest.com/teachersurvey. The first 1,000 teachers to respond will receive a free book from Simon & Schuster. See the Web site for details. Deadline is Oct. 10, 2003.

O PIONEERS! In honor of the national bicentennial commemoration of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Space Day 2004 design challenge will feature as its theme “Blazing Galactic Trails.” Created by the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, Space Day will encourage young people to harness the same qualities of resourcefulness and determination embodied by the legendary explorers of the American West. The event encourages students to design, implement and document scientific expeditions throughout our solar system as well as invent tools and vehicles to use on their journey. Online lesson plans, classroom activities and teacher resources will be available for educators. Details and online registration will be available in early September at www.spaceday.org.

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