Support for long-term classroom planning and professional development. Information covering important topics for today's educators and parents. A letter to the teacher recommends a flow of the lesson that begins with the solicitation of student ideas, investigation of the Web site by the students, and the generation of additional student questions. The site includes four interactive elements and five hands on activities that are distributed throughout the content in the site. The activities have objectives, a list of required materials, time requirements, and procedures.
Teachers can also find tips and real world connections that they can apply to the lesson.
The home page offers four main content sections including Inventors Workshop, Leonardo's Perspective, and Leonardo Right to Left. Students can learn to make more detailed observations, understand the role of simple machines in gadgets, and guess the uses for sketches of Leonardo's. Students analyze the role of simple machines in complex gadgets such as hand powered drills, wing handled corkscrews, and scissor style jacks. A game called Leonardo's Mysterious Machines have the students match drawings of his inventions, such as helicopters, tanks, and machine guns, with their use. When students see how Leonardo discovered the role of haze and the color blue in making pictures appear more three dimensional, they are encouraged to look at the world around them from other perspectives.