It comes as no surprise to find that our government is one of the largest online publishers in the world. Through its various agencies, it publishes some 47 million Web pages of government information and services.

Of those millions of pages, educators can access thousands of free lesson plans, millions of education-related documents, message boards filled with teachers itching to share their ideas, online activities and much more.

The trick, of course, is finding all those goodies.

We have narrowed down the search for you by identifying this list of seven federally supported Web sites you won't want to miss.

The Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)
http://www.thegateway.org/

GEM is the largest of all educational Web sites due to the sheer number of instructional resources that can be found there. Because Gateway is a consortium with over 400 members, it provides a quick and easy way to access more than 23,000 Internet-based resources including lesson plans, curriculum plans, and other educational materials. Consortium partners range from federal agencies to public schools to private publishers. Only some of the materials listed in GEM are available for free; others must be purchased.

AskERIC Educational Resources Information Center
http://ericir.syr.edu

Now in its 10th year of operation, the AskERIC Virtual Library provides access to literally millions of educational resources. Teachers will find over 2000 lesson plans in the AskERIC Lesson Plan Collection. The lesson plans published here have been submitted directly to ERIC for publication on the Web site. They are all carefully reviewed by ERIC and are available at no cost to the user. In addition to the lesson plans, there are more than 25 email discussion groups you can join, and a comprehensive list of over 3000 educational resources. A new feature, AskERIC Live, offers a real-time chat service that allows educators to pose questions directly to AskERIC librarians for immediate answers. Last but not least, AskERIC gives users access to the comprehensive ERIC database, which contains over 1 million education abstracts.

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE)
http://www.ed.gov/free/index.html

Yet another portal site, the Federal Resources for Education Excellence or FREE Web site combines the forces of 50 different federal agencies to improve access to hundreds of federally supported teaching and learning resources developed each year. These resources include free lesson plans, posters, case studies in curriculum, web sites and online archives. FREE focuses solely on instructional materials available at no cost.

Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education (ENC)
http://www.enc.org/

ENC Online contains one of the most comprehensive collections of K-12 math and science curriculum resources in the nation. Teachers can search for resources using an online database to locate materials and Web sites sorted by subject, keyword, grade and other criteria. ENC also produces exceptional free professional development resources, including standards and benchmarks documents, a quarterly magazine, and others. If you are fortunate to live near one of their resource centers, you can take advantage of free professional development workshops and hands-on resources.

EDSITEment National Endowment for the Humanities Partnership
http://edsitement.neh.gov/lessonplans.html

This user-friendly Web site is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and contains links to the top humanities sites as well as hundreds of lesson plans for literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies. All materials linked to EDSITEment have been reviewed for content, design, and instructional value.

Smithsonian Institution Online
http://www.smithsonian.org/

Housing the world's largest museum complex, the Smithsonian Institution offers a vast array of resources on its Web site, ranging from lesson plans to instructional content. The Smithsonian's scope includes a wide range of subjects from art and culture to history and science. Online, they offer lesson plans, photo collections, hundreds of links to related Web sites, multimedia presentations, and other educational content. Visit the Virtual Smithsonian to experience interactive presentations thematically arranged into three interdisciplinary sections, Discovering, Imagining, and Remembering.

American Memory Learning Page Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/index.html

This site includes over 100 thematically organized collections containing more than seven million items from historic documents to audio clips and images. The Learning Page is designed to help educators use The American Memory Web site in the classroom. It includes an orientation page discussing ways to use the site, online activities, lesson plans, professional development resources, and access to the collection.

Each one of the above resources provides a wide variety of resources for the classroom teacher. Of course, this is simply a short list of great Web sites your federal government provides. There are many more out there that are sure to appeal you.

Other valuable Web sites worth visiting include

• National Science Foundation
• U.S.Department of Education
• Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL)
• NASA
• ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English and Communication
• The White House
• The National Park Service
• U.S. Census Bureau
• Third International Mathematics and Science Study.