Amazon.com Review

If looking up at the sky on a clear night has always held more than abit of curious fascination for you, Starry Night Backyard, Special Edition isthe perfect tool with which to explore your intergalactic interests. Theapplication is packed full of information to delight the backyard stargazer, butis powerful enough for the serious student.

View the stars from your exact location on Earth (or any other location on theplanet), or travel throughout the solar system to see views not possible untilnow. If that's still too close to home, Starry Night Backyard can produce viewsfrom anywhere within 20,000 light-years of the solar system. Auto Identify helpsyou instantly identify the constellation you're viewing, while the Go Therefeature lets you travel to the planet, moon, or star of your choice.

Basic information about each star, planet, or galaxy is available within theprogram. This special edition also includes the Starry Night Companion, a240-page guide to understanding the night sky using Starry Night.

Curious about the way the universe looked in the past or how it will look in thefuture? This software allows you to travel through 200,000 years of time in amatter of minutes. You can also create QuickTime movies of your adventures andsend them to friends.

With almost too many features to mention, Starry Night Backyard, Special Editionis an amazing tool for anyone with a fascination for space. It's as close as youwill probably ever get to owning your own planetarium. --Joshua Craig ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Great Program!
This is a great program for people interested in astronomy. It helps me find which star(s) I'm going to use to align with (by the way I have an etx 70 at and its great!) and also what celestial wonders I'm going to view. You can even go back to the 1200's and find objects that were up at that time. Also you can go up in time by how much time you desire so you can see what will be up that night. One note though, make sure you know your coordnates so you can punch them is and it will take you to where you are. Definatly purchase this and the etx 70 at if you are a begginer to amatuer astronomer.

It's Great
I have enjoyed this product since i put the game in my computer. I love it. I think everyone who likes space like me should try this game.

Starry Night
This is an excellent way to learn astronomy and stargzing. I purchased the "Starter" edition then upgraded to "Backyard" though this is not really necessary to get value out of the purchase. Both editions come with a book that is so similar it is redundant, but there was no choice when upgrading online at the manufacturer's site.

Starry Night has many features that will help any level of astronomy student. Backyard allows one to travel further back and forward in time to understand the motion of the Universe. It also has more stars (supposedly one million, but who's counting).

The book(s) is(are) well written and reference the software so one can actually see what is being described. I hope other scientific books follow a similar path. The software is easy to use and lots of fun. My kids and I have spent much time looking at the features and will likely do so for years to come.

I want more
This product is great. I just bought it yesterday, and within an hour, I was intrigued by it's capabilities. Definitely worth the money. I had trouble deciding on whether to get Starry Night backyard Special Edition, or Starry Night Pro. I chose Strarry Night backyard, and I agree with the other reviewers, it is very easy to use, right out of the package.
It shows you the stars as you would see them, right in your own backyard. You can zoom in and out, view the sky as time flies from morning till night, or day to day. You can go back in time, and into the future. You can change your location to view the stars from different planets.
I even viewed Earth from Mars !
The only problem I had, was that I wanted more.
Starry Night Backyard Special Edition is not at the level that I want to explore the night sky.
I need something a little more advanced, so I've just bought Starry Night Pro.
Now I can hook my telescope up to my computer, and use the Strary Night Pro program, to view the night sky from my telescope.

Great program for beginners & casual users
Starry Night offers an easy to use interface that can be used 'out of the box.' It looks great and runs great on a Radeon video card giving smooth realtime animation. The star and constellations are labeled, plus there are other navigation features that can be switched on/off. Different points of view show the movement of planets relative to each other and the star background, making it easy to find the planets and know what their position will be in the future. Also I recommend spending the extra $10 to get the book, it explains many of the basic concepts in an easy to read and understand format. Now if only it could just do something about those cloudy nights. ... Read more

Features

• Created in response to global concern for the environment
• 400+ photos; 100 animations; 50 minutes of videos
• 285 species profiles; 16 thought-provoking articles; interactive maps
• 3 CD set includes interviews with world-renown scientists
• Plus behind-the-scenes tour of a real zoo

Amazon.com Product Description

Fly your own rocket to fascinating locations around the globe. While you snap pictures to print and color, learn worlds about continents, oceans, landmarks and maps. Then, test your knowledge with quizzes from Astro-mouse (Ages 4-7). ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great educational value for the price!
At $9.99, the Earth Scount software was a great value and has helped my 5 year old homeschooler begin to familiarize herself with the names and locations of continents, countries, oceans etc. in a fun and self directed way. I would recommend it as a great way to start kids off, or as a great review for older kids! There are lot of interesting facts about historical attractions in the countries and kids can "collect" pictures of said attractions as they globe trot. Very neat! Wish I had had this as child! ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

If you know any kids who are intrigued by wild African animals, interactive scholarship, and the flashing announcement of incoming "e-mail," you owe it to them to snare a copy of this award-winning software from WNET's Nature TV series. From the very first moment, when an impressively stamped passport allows users entry to the game, Nature Virtual Serengeti successfully captures kids' imaginations by asking them to play an integral part in an exotic research trip. That creative framework, along with the fascinating videos of animal activities in the Serengeti--including a wildebeest giving birth as it runs and a crocodile carrying its baby inside its gargantuan jaw--couldn't provide more exciting or enduring educational moments.

The "guide" for the trip is the absent Dr. Elgin Carp, an amusing, hyperkinetic zoologist, who is being whisked off to conduct far-flung field studies and thus cannot complete the work he has begun in Tanzania. Contacting you with frequent mock "e-mails," Carp explains that he's leaving you with his half-started field journal and a full map of the Serengeti region, plus he's giving you use of his hardy jeep and his small private plane. Your job is to find 150 missing "animals" (i.e., videos) by scrolling for these creatures amidst 58 gorgeous 360-degree panoramas of the Serengeti plains. Once an animal is "found" (by running your mouse cursor carefully over all areas of the panorama), you must properly classify it in the journal, based on the area of investigation the film footage illustrates. Shots of a zebra grazing, for instance, will likely belong in the journal section that discusses different animal fur patterns and their significance to the animals' survival.

This CD-ROM is advertised for children 9 and older, but we found that its most sincere devotees fell into the 7- to 8-year-old range. They were still young enough to be seriously excited about receiving frequent "e-mails" from goofy Dr. Carp and having a chance to go onto the Web a bit to read the Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia Online articles and to follow a few selected animal Web links. As well, the younger set will likely display a little more astonishment at the footage captured in this program. --Jean Lenihan ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Nature Virtual Serengeti, Perfect!
I would say that even by looking at the boz cover and reading the back of it would really make you think,"Wow! This is really cool!" I said that when I saw this software game. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review

If you're looking to prepare for a chemistry exam, ChemTutorwill drill you with tons of multiple-choice questions, training you forthe most rigorous of tests. However, if you want something more thanmere practice, this isn't for you, as the application does little morethan provide users with questions and answers.

Installation is simple with a standard Windows setup program, butthere's no included manual or online help. The program is simpleenough, however, that you shouldn't have much trouble figuring out howto use it.

ChemTutor divides chemistry into 20 topics, covering such key areas asgases, thermodynamics, and organic chemistry--most of the subjectsyou'd find in a first- or second-year chemistry textbook. When you runthe program, you'll select one of these topics for drilling. Theprogram then randomly chooses multiple-choice questions from itsdatabase of hundreds, letting you do repeat drilling on the samesubject. The questions incorporate graphs and tables, similar to thoseyou'd expect to find on a standardized chemistry test, such as the APor the SAT II exams.

Drilling comes in two forms. You can challenge yourself in tutorialmode, in which the program tells you after each question whether youanswered correctly or not. Test simulation mode waits until the end totell you your grade. These drills can cover only one subject, or youcan self-design a "semester exam" covering multiple areas.

Make no mistake about it, ChemTutor won't teach you chemistry.It's test preparation software, plain and simple. But if you're lookingto improve your performance on multiple-choice tests such as the SAT IIor AP, it will certainly do the trick. --Ken Feinstein ... Read more

Reviews (9)

ChemTutor
This software would have been great 10 years ago. Now it is litle more than an online test which can be obtained free at many chemistry websites. This is not worth what I paid for it. It would be a great ... product because it gives you practice taking chemistry tests IF you already know the subject very well.

ChemTutor
"ChemTutor® is a blessing. I've always been a good student, but when I got to high school, math and science hit me hard... especially chemistry. I found that doing ChemTutor® for two or three days before every test improved my test scores by almost a letter grade. I'll never be a chemist, but at least now I feel more confident walking into chem class everyday."

Sarah Hudson, 11th Grade Advanced Chemistry Student, Kennett Square, PA

ChemTutor
"ChemTutor® made all the difference for me in Chemistry. I was having difficulty with Chemistry, but when I started using ChemTutor® my grades shot way up."

Alston Lambert II, 10th Grade Chemistry Student, Brooklyn, NY

I was disappointed
I had purchased this expecting a chemistry tutorial. It is actually just a bunch of test questions. There is no intial instruction. It is not what I was looking for.

ChemTutor
"At Westtown School we have all three ScienceTutor™ applications on our school's computer network and many of our students also have the software on their own personal computers. My own students have found ChemTutor® to be extremely helpful for studying and preparing for tests. This past spring, for the first time, all of my first-year chemistry students had access to ChemTutor® to help them prepare for the SAT II in Chemistry. I was very pleased with how well those students performed on that exam... better than any previous group of students I have ever taught."

Kurt M. Wicks, Chemistry Teacher, Westtown School ... Read more

Features

• Kids will go on multimedia problem-solving adventure with Rocket Reader, and learn to speak Spanish with Multimedia Spanish
• Talking Math & Kids' Science Fair introduce kids to new ways of thinking and playing
• Explore the universe with Guide To The Galaxy
• Multimedia Algebra, Phonics 4 Kids, and Talking Typing teaches crucial learning skills in a way that's easy and fun
• 3D World Atlas and Top 30 Games For Kids help kids learn, explore, and grow more intelligent!

Features

• Dinosaurs and Their World takes you though the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic periods - you'll explore the diverse environments in which dinosaurs lived
• In Dinosaurs and Other Living Things, notable Dinosaur Experts recount the lives and findings of famous paleontologists and geologists
• Explore the relationships and lineage of dinosaurs with the Interactive Dinosaur Family Tree and Timeline
• Related Web sites and magazine articles, selected by Britannica editors, provide a wealth of additional information
• Special tools let you enter notes, bookmark articles & pictures and format reports

Amazon.com Product Description

Move beyond one-dimensional science book lessons with the experiments, videos, and 3-D tours of Real Science. This comprehensive program on 4 CD-ROMs lets curious students explore life, earth, astronomy, and physical sciences. From the basic laws of science to applied skills in analysis and experimentation, Real Science builds abilities naturally through simple, easy-to-follow tutorial lessons designed for students 10 to 18 years old. ... Read more

Features

• Watch as dragonlike creatures stomp through forests and glide above you
• Visit with fierce creatures like the deadly T-Rex and the powerful Triceratops
• Follow the Timeline to see how dinosaurs evolved & adapted over time
• Learn the history of human scientists' search for these ancient thunder lizards
• 45 impressive dinosaurs are explained throuoghly with graphics and text

Product Description

Starting with a great song with a calypso beat, Ocean Explorers promises and delivers a lot of fun. In the main menu, Zippy the Bathysphere tells you about each of the five habitats on the screen (when your cursor turns into a question mark near a habitat) and inside his master control room when you click directly on him. Each of the other five pictures takes you to a specific habitat with informational videos and games. In each of the habitats are pictures of creatures that live in that environment. Click on the creature for a short informational video packed with information about the entity you selected. Although picture quality on some of the movies could be a little better, they were very interesting, and not only for kids. Did you know that manta rays are basically flattened sharks... or that sharks have three eyelids? You learn interesting bits of trivia that is easily remembered and great to amaze your friends. Each area has a host, such as Spike the Sea Urchin or Clyde the Giant Clam. Clicking on the host takes you to their games. Play Spikes matching games or Gabby Garibaldi's Guess Who and Rub-a-dub. For just plain fun, create some crazy-looking fish in Clyde's Fish Gumbo. In Spout's ABC game, click on a letter to place the creature beginning with that letter on the screen. Finally, search through four screens of a coral reef to "Find the Fish" that Sammy is looking for. The games range from very easy to slightly challenging. When you do something right, the game is very generous with praise... perfect for building self-esteem. ... Read more

Features

• Kids explore the oceans through fun games and interactive multimedia.
• Loads of activities to keep children interested and fascinated.
• By the experts at Comptons Media!
• PC: Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98/ME
• MAC: SYstem 7.0 or Better

Product Description

Health Beats V1 - The Body. Topics include: Brain, Kidneys, Heart, Skin, Blood, Muscles, Skeleton, Hearing, Vision, Teeth, Taste & Smell, Immune System, Respiratory System, Digestive System, Endocrine System ... Read more

Features

• Number 1 Rated Health Software by Childrens Software Review
• Perfect for kids 9 to 15 years old and parents can benefit too
• Content is authored by an internationally acclaimed pediatrician
• Lots of interactivity and games
• Awesome for home schooling

Product Description

The worlds most definitive bird guide is now available on CD-ROM! You will fully explore the life histories of 672 North America birds and 277 less common species with the full text and art work of the Petersons Guide to Birds, Eastern and Western presented in an accessible and highly interactive format. ... Read more

Features

• Grade Levels: 9-Adult
• Investigating over 700 photographs of birds in their habitats
• Viewing short videos including an interactive birding tutorial for beginners.
• Hear over 700 bird songs and calls
• See, hear and learn about the birds of North America!

Amazon.com Product Description

Modern science comes to life with discussions about plants and animals, oceanography, and the five kingdoms of life. Junior high students are motivated to learn with these thought-provoking topics that go beyond mere memorization. Examine and explore the forces that shape land and sea; observe the mysteries of life in the world of nature; learn about plant and animal classification, cell division, reproduction, and more. With over 3,500 images; hours of multimedia presentations; interactive questions and answers; and a customized electronic glossary, this software is a valuable learning tool. ... Read more

Product Description

The Multimedia Education Lab Pack provides you with a 5 pack (5 Copies of the Bird CD) so you can use within your classroom. Also included is a white 3-ring binder which will allow you to print out the information and keep the binder for a reference for your students. ... Read more