Do you think you have too much homework?
Well, you may be right.
According to a new study that is making its way around the internet (Time Magazine [1]) (CNN [2]) (The Today [3] Show), students in lower grades (K-3) are taking home up to three times more homework than the NEA (National Education Association) thinks is good for someone at that age level.
By the time a student is in middle school or high school, however, other factors, such as a parent's free time or knowledge of the material, may also affect how much homework is done on a given school night.
One thing that can make homework go by faster is having a good place to look up information and get materials for school assignments.
The library's new Student Portal [4] is one place anyone with a JCPL library card can start.
The portal is split up into areas based on grade level, and has resources you can use to help with school -- from the World Book encyclopedia to current news and magazine articles available in INSPIRE. There are other links as well, for instance to AskROSE, the Rose Hulman free math hotline, or to Indiana Memory, the state's digital library of Indiana history, or What Tree is That to help with identifying trees, or the Online Writing Lab at Purdue to help with essays and school papers.
There is also a page of downloadables -- ebooks and audiobooks, including current titles available through OverDrive, as well as free public domain classics from Gutenberg.org and Librivox, that you can put on your school or home device to read for school assignments.
This portal is designed for you, our students, to help you succeed in school, and we want to hear from you what you would like to see here. Give us your thoughts using our handy feedback form and we will try to make changes and add resources you want to use.