Neme Alperstein, a fifth grade teacher at Harry Eichler School in Richmond Hill, Queens, has a gift for teaching on the Web like Garrison Keeler has a gift for story telling. She is a master. She already had her fifth graders going online for Stock Market Games and corresponding with NASA sites when a friend told her that ThinkQuest,1 an international organization encouraging student learning through technology, had opened a junior competition.

Alperstein immediately went online to check out this rumor and discovered that there was exactly half an hour left to register and file for the 1999 junior competition. Knowing what this could mean for her students, and what they could do, she filed. The race was on.

Harry Eichler (Public School 56 in New York City) is a school long on challenges (it must educate students from more than 35 countries) and short on resources (it has no library, only a rolling cart of books).

Part of the compelling draw of ThinkQuest for students and teachers alike is that kids form their own teams for the competition, and can choose any topic they wish as the basis for participating. Motivation comes from pursuing what truly interests them. Fifth grade student Madeline Gesslein wanted to lead a team. She was about to get orthodontic braces and thought others kids would like to know about this daunting procedure. Alperstein's son was also about to have oral surgery, and she realized the kids could learn about medicine and health on the project. These opportunities and interests gave birth to, "Yo, It's Time for Braces,"2 a ThinkQuest Junior platinum winner in the sports and health category for 1999, and a finalist (with the Mayo Clinic) for the Global International Infrastructure (GII) Award.

The Web site is now a worldwide resource for children who must get braces, one that greets children with this opening banner:

"Warning: This site contains a great many teeth."

The site offers three major pages: Deciding to Get Braces, What Happens at the Orthodontist's Office, and Living with Braces. The students interviewed an oral surgeon and surveyed fourteen orthodontists. Madeline, the team captain, chose her friends Svetlana and Val as her principal colleagues. Alperstein encouraged students with different kinds of skills to participate. Svetlana translated five of these surveys, as well as a "Picture Glossary" into Russian.

On the site there is a cartoon drawn by the team members called "Sandy Gets Braces." Madeline's Journal, about her experiences with braces, includes original artwork. There is a page about celebrities who had braces. Visitors are encouraged to write about their own experiences in the guest book. "We think that if kids know more about braces, then they won't be afraid of them," say Madeline and her friends.

Because the site is carried on the ThinkQuest server, kids from around the world continue to click in to learn about braces and leave letters sharing their own experiences in the guest book.

But the story doesn't end there. After Alperstein's class won its ThinkQuest award, the students had another idea. One student had bought a Pokemon card that turned out to be a fake. The class decided it was important to learn more about copyright issues. Students worked with webmasters at several government agencies, including the Patent and Trademark Office's special Kid's Page, the staff at the National Digital Library, and the Art Museum Image Consortium. They launched "Art Rights,"3 their newest Web site containing among the most sophisticated information available on copyright and the Internet-written by and for kids.

"These are 10-year-olds," Neme Alperstein says. "They do things I don't know how to do-my main directive is 'make it work.' They work intuitively; they find a way. We are not into failure." She also observes that "The kids have no fear, they don't know that 10-year-old kids don't usually get responses from adults."

Despite the challenges of their educational surroundings, these kids-and their teacher-are real winners.

1. http://tqjunior.thinkquest.org
2. http://tqjunior.thinkquest.org/5029/
3. http://library.thinkquest.org/J001570/