Database Highlight #7: We've got the Encyclopedia for That

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Remember choosing an animal to research then having to choose a different animal because the encyclopedia with your animal in it was being used? Those days are gone! Now students have access to a full encyclopedia 24/7. This week’s database highlight is Britannica Library Children and Britannica Library Young Adults.

Britannica School is the go-to site for learning more about any subject—for all grades and all reading abilities—offering thousands of up-to-date, curated, and curriculum-relevant articles, images, videos, audio clips, primary sources, maps, research tools, recommended Web sites, [and more]  – from the vendor

Offering four levels – elementary, middle, high, and adult – this comprehensive database is a great place to start a research paper or just learn more about a subject. With the Britannica name, you know you’re getting an authoritative source. Escolar offers the content in Spanish.

This week’s open site is Atlas Obscura. It’s less of an atlas and more of a catalog of strange and unusual stories tied to places. You’ll find articles about vigilante public service and Oklahoma’s own American Pigeon Museum (highly recommended).

Action Steps

  • Using any level of Encyclopedia Britannica, search for your favorite animal. List one interesting fact in the comments.
  • In Atlas Obscura look for any location in the world and list a strange site from that location in the comments. 

First 5 respondants will get something from the random swag pile!

Comments

12
tpodzemny
All tentacles and hand grenades

"Scientists think the common octopus is the most intelligent invertebrate."

Bydgoszcz, Poland: The Exploseum. "An abandoned Nazi explosives plant founded by the inventor of dynamite is now an underground museum."

Neat!

sadie.bruce
the future

Yes, Octopuses will inherit the earth!

jmoad
Random Swag!

Britannica Library Children -- Red Panda: "During the day they sleep curled up in a tree."
Atlas Obscura -- Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma State Firefighters Museum (My dad, a retired OKC firefighter, took me to the museum several times when I was little.)

samuelgarcia
The Majestic Platypus and a large bench.

The platypus "is one of two animals that form the order Monotremata (egg-laying mammals)"

Broken Hill, Australia: The Big Bench was built in 2002 and is "two and a half times regular bench scale"

sadie.bruce
egg laying mammals

What's the other one?

samuelgarcia
The august Echidna. Think

The august Echidna. Think chubby hedgehog.

sadie.bruce
ahhh
bridget.scheffler
Echidna

Knuckles from the Sonic the Hedgehog game is an echidna!

sadie.bruce
Kunckles

drobertus
white tigers

"Pure white tigers have white fur with no stripes... White tigers are extremely rare in the wild. "

drobertus
white tigers

"Pure white tigers have white fur with no stripes... White tigers are extremely rare in the wild. "

kdewbre.burrows
Now We Know!

Among the calls of the fox are a quick yapping bark and a shrill howl.

More than 200 ships built in Baltimore were burned and half-sunk in Mallow’s Bay, the region’s largest and most famous ship graveyard.

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