Wonderopolis

            Wonderopolis (https://wonderopolis.org/) is a website that lets curious students ask different questions about absolutely anything. It was created by the National Center for Families Learning in 2010. NCFL is a national nonprofit organization that is dedicated to helping children and adults learn.

With Wonderopolis, individuals can ask intriguing questions and these questions can be voted as the “Wonder of the Day”. When a question becomes a “Wonder of the Day”, the members of NCFL research and find answers for the question. This will help students who have questions, us teachers do not even have an answer too.

In addition, Wonderopolis also offers a free online summer-learning website called Camp Wonderopolis that features interactive STEM and literacy-building topics. With it, children can improve and build their vocabulary, background knowledge in Science, reading comprehension, and critical thinking. Every summer, Camp Wonderopolis has a different topic. In 2014, students learned about the zoo, Chemistry, and Biology. In 2015, students learned about first aid, technology and innovation. For 2018, Camp Wonderopolis will explore the symphony of wonders, which I believe will be about music, art, and poetry.

Besides Camp Wonderopolis, Wonder Ground is another website that helps educators find ready-to-use lesson plans and classroom resources that relates the “Wonder of the Day” to education standards. The “Wonder of the Day” questions are aligned to the Common Core State Standards, the STEM Educational Quality Framework, and Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy.

            Overall, Wonderopolis and its sister websites offers abundant resources for students and teachers. The “Wonder of the Day” can be an intriguing anticipatory set and help critical thinking happen in the classroom. It is also a good ice-breaker to help students feel comfortable asking, even the strangest, questions.