Welcome to the first of our new Explorations. Joining the work of What if Math and Education Resources Consortium (ERC), Explorations provide students with a comprehensive learning experience with fascinating questions, interesting places to go, and powerful tools to use to solve problems.

Our first Exploration is Sand and Stars where students can discover an answer to the question: “Are there more grains of sand on earth or stars in the universe?” Sand and Stars is free, as will be the case with all future Explorations. This Explorations is designed for students to use on their own independently or in teams collaboratively, accompanied by instructional support as needed.

If you want highly interactive online content, if you want your students to work together on experiments and projects that interest them, if you want them to learn to use the power of the Web and digital tools like spreadsheets, to learn to communicate with each other, to productively search the Web, to have a STEM focus, and to become problem solvers in the digital age; we encourage you to try our first Exploration, Sand and Stars.

In this time of change, when education must now be Web-based and in the foreseeable future when the Web will play a large role, it is our dream that you and your students find Sand and Stars a valuable and thrilling learning experience, the first of many such resources for learning in the digital age.

We look forward to your thoughts and comments. More to come soon! Here is the Teacher’s Guide to get you started.