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How Can You Find Good Places to Go and Things to Do Online?

Wonderful adventures are waiting in cyberspace. In fact, more than 1.5 million sites exist on the World Wide Web, with thousands more being added each day.⁷

Good Places to Go and Things to Do Online

There are several ways to get started finding good places to go and things to do online. A number of magazines, newspapers, and organizations publish their "best picks for kids" of Internet sites.⁸ These can be useful resources, but keep in mind that sites frequently change their content and location, so review recommendations with care.

Also, remember that these publications usually don't distinguish between sites that are commercial and those that are not - an important distinction since the commercial ones contain advertising and marketing devices, some of which might be inappropriate for or exploitative of children. We suggest beginning with sites that are well-known, noncommercial, and educational.

Since experimenting for yourself is the best way to get started online, we have picked a few activities and sites that are fun, educational, and safe. Once you have experimented with these, you can move on to explore the wider range of options available online.

1. Visit the American Library Association’s Great Sites at http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/amazing.html.
   
   
2. Visit the Library of Congress at http://www.loc.gov.
   
   
3. See what the space agency, NASA, has put online at http://www.spacelink.nasa.gov/index.html.
   
   
4. Visit exhibits from the San Francisco interactive science museum, the Exploratorium, at http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/.
   
   
5. Visit the National Weather Service’s Interactive Weather Information Network at http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/.
   
   
6. The National Parent Information Network (NPIN), at http://www.npin.org.
   
   
7. The National PTA Web site, Children First, at http://www.pta.org.
   
   
8. The National Urban League, at http://www.nul.org.
   
   
9. The Children’s Partnership, at http://www.childrenspartnership.org.
   
   
10. The Benton Foundation’s KidsCampaigns, at http://www.connectforkids.org.
    
    
11. Children Now, at http://www.childrennow.org.