FREE web site provides New Resources for

Teaching and Learning

Hundreds of resources for teaching and learning can now be found on one Web site. The Federal Resources for Educational Excelence/(FREE) Web site is a collaboration of the efforts of more than 35 federal agencies, and makes hundreds of Internet-based education resources easier to access for students and teachers.

"This new Web site...offers one-stop shopping for a teaure trove of historical documents, scientific experiments, mathematical challenges, famus paintings, and other tools for teachers and students," U.S. Seceratary of Education Richard W. Riley said.

Thousands of topics can be searched on the FREE Web site: the Civil War, the Constitution, photosynthesis, condensation, immigration, Picasso, Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Mary Cassatt, Jackie Robinson, the Amistad Case, famous FBI cases, cartography, genealogy, the Renaissnce, the solar system, and others. Resources can also be viewed in 10 subject areas.

The FREE Web site was developed in response to a diective President Clinton issued more than a year ago to expand access to Internet-based education resources for children, teachers and parents. The FREE Web site supports President Clinton's Technology Literacy Challenge, which comprises four goals:

All teachers will have the training and support the need to help students learn to use computers and the information superhighway;
All teachers and students will have modern computers in their classrooms;
Every classroom will be connected to the information superhighway; and
Effective and engaging software and on-line learning resources will be an integral part of every school's curriiculum.

The site also offers a "Looking for Partners" page to facilitate future partnerships between teachers, federal agencies and organizations. For more information about the FREE Web site, visit http://www.ed.gov/free. The U.S. Department of Education's publication's a Parents Guide to the Internet is available by visiting http://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/internet/ or by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN.