June, 2010: MendelWeb has been transferred to a new host computer and, after an embarrassing number of years without corrections, revisions or repairs, the composition of a new edition is finally underway. The new contact for questions and comments is now rblum at mendelweb dot org, and I apologize if recent communications sent to the old Netspace address didn't reach me. When the new edition is complete there will be a general announcement on all the science education lists and websites, but in the meantime I would be happy to hear suggestions concerning what might make MendelWeb more useful to students and teachers at every level of study. In the more than 15 years since MendelWeb appeared, the texts, exercises, programs and other materials have been used by hundreds of thousands of people and by students and faculty in biology courses taught all over the world. I hope that the new edition will be as useful as the last edition was when it was released (way back) in 1997.
Roger B. Blumberg
Providence, Rhode Island
I am always happy to receive your comments, suggestions, and corrections.
Roger B. Blumberg (rblum at mendelweb dot org)
"In 1859 I obtained a very fertile descendant with large, tasty seeds from a first generation hybrid. Since in the following year, its progeny retained the desirable characteristics and were uniform, the variety was cultivated in our vegetable garden, and many plants were raised every year up to 1865."
(Gregor Mendel to Carl Nägeli, April 1867, from Mendel [1950])
MendelWeb is an educational resource for teachers and students interested in the origins of classical genetics, introductory data analysis, elementary plant science, and the history and literature of science. Constructed around Gregor Mendel's 1865 paper "Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden" and a revised version of the English translation by C.T. Druery and William Bateson, "Experiments in Plant Hybridization", MendelWeb is offered as a public sourcebook and collaborative environment compatible with a variety of guided and independent studies. For some background and an early description of the project, you may want to read MendelWeb: An electronic science/math/history resource for the WWW, a short paper prepared for the 2nd International World Wide Web Conference.
You may wish to use MendelWeb as an archive for viewing or downloading different versions and translations of Mendel's paper, or as a source for essays and commentary, bibliography and reference materials. Hopefully you will find ways to make use of the English hypertext as well, with its links to glossaries, notes, discussion questions, exercises, and other sites and documents around the world. There is also the Mendelroom, accessible at either the BioMoo or Diversity University (another non-game Moo), where you can talk with others who are also using MendelWeb; if you've never used a non-game Moo before, or if you would like to know more about Mendelroom, please read the MendelWeb Moo Information page.
Because MendelWeb is constructed around primary texts, making your way around is not very complicated. If you keep in mind the meaning of the following buttons, you shouldn't waste too much time hopelessly clicking.
