Electronic Bibliography: Kid-Friendly Government Web Sites

Kid-Friendly Government Sites

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A selected electronic bibliography

Compiled by the Wirtz Labor Library Staff
U.S. Department of Labor

Arts

NGA Kids(National Gallery of Arts)
The site has interactive art adventures, an animated musical adventure about Lizzy and Gordon visiting the Sculpture Garden, a section on Jarama II that includes a guessing game, and a section on Saint George and the Dragon by Rogier van der Weyden.

Smithsonian Institute Kid's Castle (National Gallery of Arts)
The Arts is one of eight sections in the clubhouse. In the arts room, you can find information and activities in the fine arts, including music, writing, and art itself. (other sections of the site are: science, animals, personalities, sports, worldwide, history, and air and space)

Education

America's Story (Library of Congress)
This site allows kids to discover the stories of America's past. Meet Jane Addams, Buffalo Bill Cody, Duke Ellington, Harry Houdini and many more amazing Americans. Take a trip to an era in American history. Explore the states. Play games. Discover America's favorite pastimes, sports and hobbies! Watch a movie, hear a song, play a tune from America's past.

Student Links from the Department of Education
Loads of links for students in the following subject areas: Arts, educational technology, foreign languages, health and safety, language arts, mathematics, physical education science, social studies, and vocational education.

Mega-Mathematics From Los Alamos National Lab, here you'll find the Infinity Hotel, games on graphs, the most colorful math of all, machines that eat your words, etc.

Environment

EIA Kid's Page Energy Ant is your host on this site from the Energy Information Administration that has information about both renewable and non-renewable energy sources. Kid's Corner has "Greek Mythology and the Forms of Energy", a unit of measurement conversion chart, and energy pioneers.

Kids Corner Endangered Species
On this site, kids can play the "Risky Critters" game, access a crossword puzzle, and find Creature Features! & Wildlife Fact Sheets.

Recycle City
Play the Dumptown game. See how the people of Dumptown turned their town around. Find out how Recycle City reduces waste. Learn where all the garbage goes.

USDA for Kids This is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's portal to all sorts of kid information. Smoky the Bear and Woodsy Owl are here, as are S.K. Worm, the Beagle Brigade, RUS the surfin' squirrel, and Thermy.

U.S. EPA's Explorers' Club
In the Clubhouse Science Room, you'll find "Darby Duck and the Aquatic Crusader" and "On the Trail of the Missing Ozone". In the Art Room, visit with the many animals in Charlie Chipmunk's forest home. There are also Earth Day and Planet Protectors activities and coloring books. In the Game Room, there are activities like Detective Training, Environmental Science Center Games, and The Environauts Mission to Earth.

Global

NationalGeographic.com Kids
This site is loaded with things for kids, like the NG Kids Magazine and NG Explorer Classroom Magazine. There are games, activities and experiments, creature features, a cartoon factory, the GeoBee Challenge, homework help, a book club, maps, and a print 'n' go coloring book.

Peace Corps Kids World
On this site, kids can help the site's guide, Traveler, get ready for the Peace Corps with the "Pack Your Bags" game. The site includes folk tales and information on other countries and cultures (food, holidays, schools, a typical day, etc.).

United Nations CyberSchoolBus
This United Nations site has a water quiz and the flag tag game. There is information about how the U.N. works and about the member nations. Kids can find out about the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and the model U.N. program. There is also a galley of kids drawings about peace.

Government

www.kids.gov for Kids
This is the U.S. government's interagency Kids Portal. Developed and maintained by the Federal Consumer Information Center, the site provides links to federal kids' sites and some of the best kids' sites from other organizations all grouped by subject.

Kids in the House
This is the Office of the U.S. House of Representatives Clerk's Web site for children. Here kids can explore the role that the Office of the Clerk plays in the U.S. House of Representatives. Learn about the legislative process and its effect. Fun stuff includes build-a-bill, capitol trivia, coloring pages, tic tac toe, and seek-a-word.

Kids Next Door (Dept. of Housing and Urban Development)
Learn about being a good citizen. Take field trips to places in the community. Learn about community workers and about the homeless in our communities. Go on a scavenger hunt, or try to catch the Community Scrambler.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Kids Pages
Play games like the Towers of Hanoi and the Gold Mine, and work mazes, picture puzzles, and word searches. Check out the patent time machine to see what was invented when. Visit the idea hatchery.

www.whitehouse.gov/kids/
Four friends help kids tour this site. Spotty leads a tour of the White House. Barney has the White House ABC's. India has group of history quizzes for kids. Ofelia introduces kids to the American Dream Team of baseball players and other athletes, patriots, teachers, and authors. The site also provides links to information about President and Mrs. Bush and Vice President and Mrs. Cheney. Kids can meet the White House pets Jackson and Dave.

Health

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Kids' Pages
This site is loaded with fun things for kids to do, including brainteasers, jokes, puzzles, story time, name that tune, coloring pages, and links to all sorts of kid-friendly science pages.

Garfield Star Sleeper
Garfield — a Star Sleeper — has teamed up with the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research to tell about sleep and how getting enough sleep at night helps you to do your best during the day. The site has games and a Star Sleeper contest.

GirlPower
From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the site was designed to help encourage and motivate 9- to 14- year-old girls to make the most of their lives. The GirlPower locker has sections for making your own web page, games and puzzles, body wise, books for girls, etc.

healthfinder for kids
Cool and uncool stuff about health, like alcohol and other drugs, environmental health, exercise, and feelings. There are games like Bash the Toxic Waste Bugs! and Feed the Worms. There are also art contests like the Refrigerator Art Contest.

Law and Order

CIA's Homepage for Kids
The site has a wide variety of activities, from a Electronic Bibliography of the CIA, information about items from the CIA Museum and the SPY-FI Archives (40 Years of TV and Movie Spy Fiction). There are code breaking and disguise activities and a geography quiz, as well as information about the CIA Canine Corps.

FBI Kids Pages

Kindergarten through 5th grade- Visit with Darryl and Shirley, bomb sniffing dogs at the FBI. They'll take you on a field trip of the FBI and let you play games like the "Special Agent Undercover" game.

6th through 12th grade - Check out a day in the life of a special agent or take the special agent challenge. Follow FBI cases and adventures.

Justice for Kids and Youth - This site has offerings for kids in K-5th grades, 6th-12th grades, and teachers and parents. Included are categories on cyberethics, crime prevention, and what it's like inside the courtroom.

Puzzle Solvers at Cryptic Manor - This is the National Security Agency kids' page. Codey, the site's owlish guide, helps you explore the rooms of the Cryptic Manor to find hidden links to puzzles and codes. The site contains both interactive puzzles and ones to print out and work with paper and pencil. NSA designed the puzzles to be challenging, so you'll need both time and brainpower to work out the solutions.

Military

Air Force Jr.
The site includes information about the NavStar satellite, a game room with puzzles and word searches, a math adventure, and the story of the Air Force.

Maritime Administration Especially for kids and teens
This site has a video theater, a 3D photo gallery, a Smithsonian presentation of FDR talking about the role of the American merchant marine and shipbuilding industry during World War II, information about the Adopt-A-Ship program in which each ship involved is adopted by a classroom and the class and the ship's crew correspond and share experiences. There are links to sites about fascinating historic vessels, including the World War II Liberty and Victory ships still sailing today.

U.S. Coast Guard Kids Corner
Although under development, the site has "Boat Safe with Coastie", coloring books, and information on lighthouses, lightships, shipwrecks and more.

Money

H.I.P. Pocket Changes (U.S. Mint)
From the U.S. Mint, this site has cartoons, games, a time machine, Camp Coin, and other information about coins.

Money Central Station (Dept. of Treasury)
An interactive site with games broken into two age groups. Bucky's Fair is for ages 5-8 and has games like "Whack a Buck" and " Funny Money". The Treasure Dome, for ages 9-13, has games like "Alien-A-Buck-tion" and "Treasury Planet".

Safety

FDA's Kids Home Page
An interactive site where kids can help Mac & Molly inspect a food warehouse, solve a sliding pet puzzle, and take a food safety quiz. There is also a teen section with links to information and a "cosmetics" quiz. The parent's section has FDA Consumer Articles.

FEMA for Kids
The site is hosted by Herman, the spokescrab. Kids will learn how to be prepared for disasters and how to prevent disaster damage. They can also learn what causes disasters, play games, read stories and become a Disaster Action Kid. A story about Herman's search for a disaster-proof shell is also available.

MSHA's Kids Page (Mine Safety and Health Administration)
This site allows kids to do some virtual prospecting, find out about the coal miner's canary, and even explore the quantity of minerals each new born baby will use in its lifetime.

United States Fire Administration Kid's Page
This site has a quiz that let's kids become a junior fire marshall. There are online games about fire safety and Hydro's Hazard House game.

Science

Dr. E's Energy Lab
From D.O.E.'s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the site has activities, quizzes, and information about general, geothermal, solar, and wind energy and alternate fuels. The site also provides energy efficiency tips.

Kids' Science Page (National Agricultural Library)
On this site, kids can check their nutrition IQ, find out about animals, insects, and veterinary medicine. There is also information on plants or ecology and chemistry, all part of the food and agricultural sciences.

Space

NASAKids
In addition to NASA News and News by NASA kids (such as an interview with Sally Ride), the site has lots of interactive pieces. There are projects and games, NASA "toons", and sections on rockets and airplanes, astronauts living in space, creation station, and our earth.

StarChild
This site is a learning center for young astronomers. It provides information and activities on the solar system, the universe, and biographies of Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton. There is a companion site for teens at Imagine the Universe.

Transportation

Transportation Wonderland
On this page from the Department of Transportation, kids can explore how things are transported. Sections include transportation super heroes and activities at the bus station, marina, and train depot. The site also has a truck stop, a rest stop, and a garage with more information and activities.

Vince & Larry's Safety City
From the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the site has lots of things for kids to explore--a bike trail leads to information about bike safety. The research lab talks about crash testing and seat belts. There is information about school bus safety and emergency medical services. The art gallery has coloring pages.