English for Wizard

Discover the world with National Geographic

By John Moore

ナショナルジオグラフィックの子供向けサイト

Talking about maps last week reminded me of the magazine National Geographic. So Peter and I visited the National Geographic Web site (http://www.national
geographic.com) where we found so much interesting stuff that we ended up spending all day just at that Web site.

Do you know the difference between geography and geology? Both these fields involve studying the Earth's features, such as mountains and oceans. But many people forget that geography also includes living things like animals and people. That's what makes National Geographic so colorful and fun.

First let's look at the menu on the left side of the home page. Each item there leads to another page full of neat things. If you click on "Adventure and Exploration," for example, you'll see stories and pictures about deep-sea diving, mountain climbing and more. There is also an Adventure Magazine with an "Adventure E-Newsletter" you can sign up for.

More content is available if you click on "Animals and Nature" or "History and Culture." Under "Maps and Geography," furthermore, you can search for maps and view them with the special "Map Machine," although when Peter and I tried it, there was a JavaScript error, and we could not see anything. Oh well, maybe they have fixed it now.

"What about fun things for kids?" Peter always asks, so next we clicked on "For Kids," in the lower part of the National Geographic menu and we found a whole new Web site!

First we learned about dinosaurs with the "dino-mite" brainteasers. Then we played the "Shark Surfari" game, listed with eight other games under the Games menu. After that, we tried the neat Pirates game, but it had too many hard words for Peter, and it was a little scary, too.

That's OK, Peter printed out some mazes and animal pictures to color with his colored pencils, while I did the fast-paced GeoSpy challenge ( http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geospy/ ). It's really just another quiz game, but it's got great sound effects and Shockwave graphics.

National Geographic is also on air with its own TV channel. Go to http://www.nationalgeographic.com/channel/ for yet another Web site full of streaming video content.

There's more and more. National Geographic also has a parents' guide and a teachers' guide, along with an encyclopedia, arts and crafts projects, recipes and science experiments. I have never seen a Web site with so much educational content.

Shukan ST: Sept. 12, 2003

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