• SIRS® Decades now includes correlations to history standards from the National Council for the Social Studies.
  
  
• Our SIRS team has redesigned our popular Spotlight of the Month feature to make it more graphically appealing and uniform across our SIRS solutions. We have also included a spotlight quiz to test your knowledge. This month's spotlight is on Black History Month -- don't miss it.
  
  
• We improved search capabilities in SKS and fixed numerous errors that were hampering research. This should eliminate "no results" and "internal server error" messages.
  
  
• We improved search capabilities to now include plurals for words. Searching tornado will also bring back results for tornadoes, etc.
  
  
• When doing general keyword searching, results under the graphic tab should now be more accurate as it now checks the captions for keywords.
  
  
• Leading Issues editorial content (Overview, Pro/Con, etc…) now appears through traditional Subject Heading searches.
  
  
• When you click on an inauthentic subject heading (such as Death Penalty) you get automatically directed to the authentic term (Capital Punishment).
  
  
• Cartographica maps are now searchable through caption search on the Advanced Search page along with the Maps page from SIRS Researcher.
  
  
• We added citation guidelines for citing Leading Issues Overviews and Pro/Con overviews to the How to Cite guide on SKS.
  
  
• We updated Focus on Terrorism to identify new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and to reflect on the execution of Saddam Hussein. Similar additions have been made to SIRS Interactive Citizenship books.

• Global Warming Man-Made, Will Continue
  
  
• Milestone Resonates Beyond NFL
  
  
• Bush's (George W.) State of the Union Address (2007)
  
  
• Interior Department Announces Delisting of Western Great Lakes Wolves; Proposed Delisting of Northern Rocky Mountain Wolves
  
  
• New NASA Orbiter Sees Details of 1997 Mars Pathfinder Site

For years, students in grades one through nine have relied on SIRS Discoverer WebFind to direct them to the highest-quality educational websites.

With its colorful, easy interface, along with clear topical organization, WebFind has been the must-have add-on to SIRS Discoverer for years. And our editors add new sites everyday!

Great news! Recently, ProQuest Information and Learning decided to integrate WebFind within Discoverer.

That means that every single Discoverer subscriber can take advantage of the 9,000-plus websites found in WebFind –- through their standard Discoverer interface! Welcome to this month's SIRS podcast from ProQuest Information and Learning.

Tracking down educational websites via Discoverer is a snap. There's two ways to locate WebFind links. First, conduct a standard search, and wait for the results to appear.

Near the top of the results page, you'll see tabs that correlate to each content set. You'll notice that there's a new tab on the right –- WebFind sites! Click it to continue.

Your results have now been re-sorted to show only WebFind destinations. Each result includes a short summary, direct URL, reading level icon, and source information. Just click a hyperlink to connect to the site.

The second way to take advantage of WebFind is to click this graphic on the main search page of Discoverer.

The search interface will transform into a WebFind-only search tool, complete with colorful links to our main topics, as well as a search box that targets websites online. Click a topic to continue, and keep clicking until you find that you need.

We hope all of our SIRS Discoverer subscribers enjoy this new, free content in 2007 -– more than 9,000 educator-vetted website links available from within each and every Discoverer search!

• Global warming
• Marijuana
• Gangs
• Capital Punishment
• Abortion
• Teenage pregnancy
• Same-sex marriage
• Eating disorders
• Child abuse
• Immigration

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1. Type "African American History" in the Subject Search, then click Search.
   
   
2. Click the Web Sites tab on the Results list page.
   
   
3. Assign students to select a separate website from the results list.
   
   
4. Web sites should focus on different topics, for example: African American Art, African American Women Scientists, African American Women Writers of the 19th Century, African Americans in the U. S. Army - Early WWII, The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords, Brown v. Board: An American Legacy, Carter Godwin Woodson: Father of Black History
   Bio-Bibliography, The Civil War: Black American Contributions to Union Intelligence, Chicago Renaissance, Images of 20th Century African American Activists: A Select List.
   
   
5. Students should use the mini-research report format presented in our Researcher guide.

• What was the major focus and purpose for the creation of this website?
• Who are the most famous people or events featured?
• How does the time period featured on the website impact on African Americans?
• How does this information contribute to appreciation of Black History Month?

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• Ethiopia, the oldest independent nation in Africa, was known anciently as Abyssinia.
• Ethiopians claim that the real Ark of the Covenant mentioned in the Bible resides in the St. Mary's of Zion Church in Axum, where it is guarded and cannot be seen.
• Elderly people are highly respected in Ethiopia. Adult children are responsible for taking care of their parents.

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MindZone: A Mental Health Site for Teens
Organization: The Annenberg Foundation

This site aimed at teenagers offers personal stories and suggests strategies for coping with mental health disorders. Visitors may take part in polls, learn about personal strengths and how to deal with emotions, find facts about anxiety disorders, and question experts.

The Modern English Collection: Electronic Text Center
Organization: University of Virginia

The Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia Library has collections of over 5,000 texts available to the public. "This [particular] collection contains fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, letters, newspapers, manuscripts and illustrations from 1500 to the present, arranged for browsing by author's last name or by category of interest." (UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA) Categories include texts by African Americans, Native Americans, Women Writers, and more.

Social Explorer
Organization: Queens College, City University of New York

"Social Explorer is dedicated to providing easy access to demographic information for United States. We have hundreds of interactive data maps of the United States, including historical data back to 1940. Social Explorer is under continuous development. Our goal is to provide complete historical census." (QUEENS COLLEGE)

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• Courses listed by date
  
• Courses sorted by class name
  
• Listing in Spanish

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