Timelinescience bills itself as “one thousand years of scientific thought”. According to the creators, this resource was “produced to celebrate (those) years of scientific thought in the period 1000 to 2000 (A.D.)”. The site's content and design was created by Webucators with help from history consultant Gary Mitchell, Ringwood School History Department. Timelinescience is an educational tool to help teachers deliver the UK science national curriculum to pupils. It allows both groups to explore the changes over time in the way we perceive our world. The site includes educational activities that contain links to resource material on a wide variety of topics and teacher's notes for these resources. Educators and students are encouraged to contribute suitable activities and material to be added to the site's content.
This resource breaks down its timeline of scientific thought and discovery into periods. Between 1000 A.D. and 1600 time spans are in 100 year increments. As scientific exploration expands, the years 1600 to 1900 are broken down into periods of 50 year spans. In the twentieth century with the depth and breadth of science discovery and thought continuing to expand, this period is covered in four blocks of 25 years.
To access the material in Timelinescience, the user simply clicks one of the years listed on a model of the DNA double helix that appears on the site's front page. Rolling a cursor over a date allows the user to see the start and end date of that period. When the user clicks on the date selected, they are taken to a page that is divided into two parts. The top part called “Setting the scene” tells the state of the known world at that point in time. Clicking on the signpost commentary icon allows the user to learn more about that particular time period. The commentaries discuss the role of science from the high middle ages to the modern world of the twentieth century. These signpost sections detail, in synopsis form, the important cultural, religious and political events that affected scientific thought. In the “Twentieth century” section (1901‐2000), the material is presented in such a way as to provoke further discussion. The second part of the page below “Setting the scene” is a scientific timeline that lists, in factual and concise language, all significant scientific discoveries and notable events and persons from the chosen period.
Throughout the timeline after 1100, links are provided to educational curricula (R) for resources. Examples of curriculum material/links already available on this site include The Life and Science of Michael Faraday, Infertility, Thomas Midgley – Man of Ideas, and Notes on Newton. All of these resources contain pictures, charts and diagrams where necessary. Classroom activities and quizzes are also included to help the students better understand the material presented. Teacher's notes – (T) are accessed from the “Mainly for teachers” link on the front page of the site. The teacher's section indicates that resources are targeted at different age ranges according to the science national curriculum.
While the timeline, signpost commentaries and the content of the site provide a wealth of useful and important information, the search engine is not always able to retrieve something that the user might ask of it. For example, a search for information about the artificial heart only returned two hits, both of which focused on the word artificial, but ignored the term heart. On the other hand, another search for patents revealed three entries tied directly to patents for scientific innovations. A guide on how to most effectively use the search engine would be most helpful.
Despite this, Timelinescience is a resource that junior high school and high school science teachers will find valuable. One has to remember though, that this resource was created to satisfy British educational curricula requirements, so emphasis on topics does reflect this. For those teachers wanting to challenge and empower their students, Timelinescience is great resource.
