Website Evaluation of National Geographic
By Stephen Vanderpool
Content Area Social Studies 8-12



I. National Geographic
II. www.nationalgeographic.com
III. Copyright 1996-2007
IV. National Geographic Society
V. The website that I visited for this evaluation was National Geographic’s site. The site was relatively easy to navigate. It had a flash movie playing on the homepage that showed the main stories that the organization was promoting at the time. There were several icons on the left side of the page that helped one to navigate the site better. There was a link through the icons to animals, history, maps, news, people and places, video, and world music. Another added benefit of this site is the link to their online store. This would include items that one could use in their classroom such as videos or DVDs.
There is a section that is designed just for kids. I think as an educator this could be very beneficial, but as the educator I think if you lead a younger student to this page then you would have to help them to where you wanted them to go. In the National Geographic Kids section the website becomes much simpler to use. The navigation at this point of the site includes a lot of pictures and icons that younger students can figure out on their own. It also happens to include activities that students can do. One such activity that I discovered would be good for a younger student in a science class. The activity was to fill bottles up with different amounts of water and to blow over the opening in the bottle. We as adults know that this will cause different pitches.
Next, I think that the home site is actually easier to use if you are an adult. I would not necessarily lead a student to this site unless they were proficient enough on the computer. The home page www.nationalgeographic.com seems to be designed for the adults, which is to be expected. I feel like the kids’ site should be closer to the top so that students do not have to look around on the site. If you are not paying close attention then the link is quite easy to miss.
VI. I happen to like this site because it includes information on my major in college and also on my content area. My content area is history. I actually find it hard to find sites that include quality information and that can at the same time be trusted with that information.
Another thing that I happen to like about National Geographic is that I can find quality photos to illustrate what I might be talking to students about in the future. This could include photos of many things such as the holocaust, the soldiers that were in Vietnam, or Gulf War veterans. It also includes photos of current events which make it easier to relay a comparison to the students if I need to.
Also, I happen to like the fact that within this site I can find quality first person narratives or a story about a small group of Jews who escaped further persecution by escaping from a concentration camp and hiding in a cave. It is full of important information that I might not be able to find anywhere else and as I stated before I do not have to worry about the legitimacy of the work because National Geographic can be trusted with their stories and information.
I would encourage the use of this site to my students if they were working on a research paper and needed a quality source. It can also lead students onto other sources that they might find useful or the student might even find something that they find interesting and want to learn more about. The added benefit of the search box at the top of the home page can help students narrow down what they are looking for faster as well.
Also, the site helps students stay up to date on current events. This is also beneficial for teachers. For instance, if a teacher wants to initiate a discussion on a world even then they might have the students visit the site to get an understanding of the even that they are discussing. This would help the student to further their knowledge on the subject and also help the student to think creatively about the problem or event.
I think that this site can be very useful to all that visit it. It could be used strictly as an entertainment or it could be used in research. The site also has a link to a kids’ site that can be used by younger students in the district that the teacher may be employed in. All in all, this entire site is quite beneficial and I would suggest that all visit it at some point in their educational career or if they need credible information on a subject.