Is it hot around here, or is it just me? It's not just me... this CD-ROM is hot, and so is the subject matter!

Digital Frog International, makers of the Digital Frog 2, The Digital Field Trip to the Wetlands and The Digital Field Trip to the Rainforest, have come up with another gem, the Digital Trip to the Desert.

Excellent educational CD-ROMs are visually stunning, engaging, provide lots of information, are well organized, allow for easy interactivity. I am happy to report that the Digital Desert CD meets all these criteria.

There are several different ways you can use the Desert CD. The first screen is divided up into 5 sections: the interactive field trip itself, plus four extra sections that focus on desert types, desert study, desert mechanisms and human impact. In each of the sections you will find educational subsections... more about those later. Let's look at the field trip first! Clicking on field trip will give you several field trip choices from the southwest USA;

Yep, you've got 5 field trips to choose from, and they are all fantastic. When you say "desert" a lot of students immediately think "sand"... but there is a tremendous amount of diversity in just a single field trip - all 5 field trips can keep you busy for hours!

A field trip consists of many Quicktime VR movies joined together as "checkpoints" on your fieldtrip. At each checkpoint you'll find things inside the Quicktime movie to click on.

If you choose to click on these extras, another page opens up... many of these contain animations that explain various desert phenomena;

Some the extras included with the CD do a great job explaining biological mechanisms that are at work in the desert, for example, feedback systems;

Along with all this great CD material, you'll also get a well-constructed workbook on the CD, and in print format if you buy the educational version.

In summary, ScienceMan heartily recommends The Digital Field Trip to the Desert. You students will enjoy it and it's money well spent!