Untied States Department of Agriculture

I. Web Site Name: United States Department of Agriculture
II. Web Site: http://www.usda.gov
III. Copyright: Last Modified 10/26/07
IV: Organizational Credentials: The United States Department of Agriculture website is a national used multimedia project provided by their agency. It has numerous subject areas ranging from simple to advanced topics for educational uses, as well as information for their employees.
V: Web Site Design: This is a tremendous website with a wealth of information. When you open their site you find menus on both sides of the page. It is easy to locate your topic. I went to related topics and found USDA for Kids. In this specific area it showed topics ranging from information on the food pyramid and eating healthy to raising your own garden in the classroom. The pages were very colorful and would attract kid’s attention. I next looked at Ag in the Classroom and was amazed. You had an option of Beginning Students, Intermediate Students, or Advanced Students. I clicked on Beginning and it brought up a ten question quiz that was very simple and fun to take. I then went to the Advanced and it was laid out the same. It had a ten question quiz to take. After the quiz it had a link to information on each one of the questions. Next, I went to the link that showed lesson plans, and chose Dolly. When it came up it was Hello Dooly, an introduction to cloning. The information given was very organized. It game a summary of the law on human cloning and compared it to animal cloning. Then it proceeded to the process and gave activities to do for the lesson. Interesting enough it tied it back to information on Dr. Frankenstein and another link that was fun. The lesson on Cloning was very insightful and would be fun to teach. The site gave 10 other lessons that would be very useable.
VI: Response and Recommendation: I would definitely recommend this website for various needs. It has a great directory on the home page that leads you wherever needed. Next, the lesson plans are wonderful. They break it down into age groups. They have extra links to go to other areas, and the table of contents is very specific. There is also a link at the bottom of the table that gets you to other states lesson plans as well. They also have a national resource directory link that I looked at and it is amazing. They tie agriculture to science lessons, geography lessons, and also vocabulary building. It would be very useful in planning lessons.