Riley Announces New One-Stop Web Site for
Teaching and Learning Resources

April 8, 1998

Hundreds of federal resources for teaching and learning can now be found at one web site, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley announced today.

"This new web site, 'Federal Resources for Educational Excellence' (FREE), offers one-stop shopping for a treasure trove of historical documents, scientific experiments, mathematical challenges, famous paintings, and other tools for teachers and students," Riley said.

A search of the web site produces dozens of resources for teaching and learning from more than 35 federal agencies. Thousands of topics can be searched - the Civil War, the constitution, photosynthesis, condensation, immigration, Picasso, Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Mary Cassatt, Jackie Robinson, the Amistad Case, the America Reads Challenge, famous FBI cases, cartography, genealogy, the Renaissance, calculus simulations, "today in history", the human genome project, epidemiology, "the African American odyssey", the solar system, the microbe zoo, and others. Resources can also be viewed in 12 subject areas.

"More than 35 federal agencies have collaborated for nearly a year on this effort," Riley said. "Their work - this web site - offers a glimpse of how government can use technology to serve citizens in ways barely dreamed of a decade ago."

This FREE site was developed in response to a directive President Clinton issued nearly a year ago. It can help make compelling online resources available in every school, which is part of the president's Technology Literacy Challenge. The four goals of this challenge are:

• All teachers will be trained to help students learn through computers and the information superhighway;
• All students and teachers will have access to modern computers;
• All schools and classrooms will be linked to the information superhighway; and,
• High-quality software and online resources will be part of the curriculum in every school.

"FREE is just a first step," Riley said. "And it is more than just another web site. It is a place where federal agencies and teachers can begin forming partnerships to develop additional high-quality, standards-based resources for teaching and learning."

The FREE website is at: http://www.ed.gov/free

Attached is a list of federal agencies and federal organizations that participated in the FREE Working Group, which developed the FREE web site:

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Agency for International Development, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Corporation for National Service, Department of Agriculture, Department of Army, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Interior, Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Department of State, Department of Transportation, Department of the Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Maritime Commission, General Services Administration, High Performance Computing and Communication, Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Personnel Management, Peace Corps, Securities and Exchange Commission, Smithsonian Institution, Social Security Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Information Agency, U.S. International Trade Commission, U.S. Postal Service, The White House,