December 19, 2008–The Parents’ Choice Foundation chose both the Wolfram Demonstrations Project and The Math behind NUMB3RS as two of its Fall 2008 Website Award Winners.

Established in 1978, Parents’ Choice Foundation is the nation’s oldest nonprofit guide to quality children’s media and toys. According to its website, each year the foundation “strives to provide parents with reliable unbiased information about tools to help their children learn, to explore new challenges, to discuss ideas and to pursue dreams.”

The Wolfram Demonstrations Project received the Parents’ Choice Foundation seal of approval for all ages. In her review, Rachel Hamm of Parents’ Choice Foundation wrote, “An educational site that seeks to bring high-level computational exploration to a wide audience, the Wolfram Demonstration Project is a vast encyclopedia of sophisticated mathematical concepts and computations presented for an open-source, online community.” Hamm also pointed to “sections of the site designed for other audiences, including laypeople, children and educators” as especially noteworthy.

Visit the Wolfram Demonstrations Project to explore its resources yourself.

In addition to the Wolfram Demonstrations Project, The Math behind NUMB3RS was awarded the Parents’ Choice Foundation seal of approval for the 11-18 age range. According to Parents’ Choice Foundation reviewer Mike Jovel, The Math behind NUMB3RS is a “slickly-designed site that promotes math awareness to high school-aged children” and “instantly sidesteps the geek factor that seems to haunt many math sites.”

Like the Demonstrations site, the NUMB3RS site has “interesting, interactive demonstrations of mathematical equations,” according to Jovel. The reviewer also noted how the popularity of the show helps the site “teach the power of math” and answer “the age-old question, ‘Why do I need to learn math?'”

See the math behind NUMB3RS episodes.

More information on these awards and the Parents’ Choice Foundation is available online.