"Abby! Don't let the dog lick you! Her tongue is full of bacteria!" Ever since we got a dog a few years ago, my mom has always been saying that. I love when my dog runs to greet me when I get home from school and says "hello" by giving me licks. What I hated, though, was feeling guilty and disgusted about having her doggy bacteria all over my face. So I decided to do a test to see how dirty dogs' tongues really are.

People see winter as a cold and gloomy time in nature. The days are short. Snow blankets the ground. Lakes and ponds freeze, and animals scurry to burrows to wait for spring. The rainbow of red, yellow and orange autumn leaves has been blown away by the wind turning trees into black skeletons that stretch bony fingers of branches into the sky. It seems like nature has disappeared.

"Suddenly, Earth began shaking and quickly got louder by the second." This seventh-grader from New York paints a vivid picture of earthquakes, from how they form to contemporary safety measures.

The landfill dump near his home had been closed for years, but was their still a risk of chemicals lingering in the groundwater? See what this young naturalist's experiments determined.

Travel with your students from a warm summer meadow to the deep sea to explore the phenomenon of bioluminescense with this practical and printable exhibit guide.

Ponting is one of the best photographers to have documented Antarctica. He was also a fine travel writer. Read an excerpt from his account of traveling with Robert Falcon Scott on his last expedition.

Along with being one of the first two men to scale Everest, Hillary also was a noted Antarctic explorer. Experience a trek across a band of crevasses near the South Pole with his firsthand account.

In November 1911, Robert Falcon Scott set out for the South Pole, hoping to be first. After the disappointment of coming in second, Scott tried to return to his ship. Read excerpts from his diary.

Just one day away from Antarctica, Shackleton's ship was crushed and destroyed. Yet his ingenuity and bravery helped save the crew. Read about his 800-mile voyage in a lifeboat to go find help.