Freebies offers opportunities for you and your students. Remember: We do not screen products for subtle or not-so-subtle plugs.

Homework Day

Oct. 21 is "Homework Day," a live interactive Web event to show off Wolfram/Alpha, www.wolframalpha.com.

The Web site is powered by a computational knowledge engine that answers questions in real time by doing computations on its own internal knowledge base.

During Homework Day, Wolfram/Alpha creater Stephen Wolfram will be joined by a team of experts to take questions and give specific advice on a wide variety of subjects relevant to students and educators, from K-12 through college.

Time magazine recently named Wolfram/Alpha one of the 50 Best Web Sites of 2009.

Start those student cams

Cash prizes totaling $50,000 for teachers and students are available in C-Span's 2010 Studentcam Documentary Competition. The national competition invites students in grades 6-12 to produce a short video documentary using C-Span programming.

Entrants can choose from two topics: "One of the country's greatest strengths" or "A challenge the country is feeling."

Go to www.studentcam.org for details. Entry deadline is Jan. 20.

Fill your shelves

The National Endowment for the Humanities, in cooperation with the American Library Association's Public Programs Office is accepting applications for the seventh "We the People Bookshelf" grant project.

Public and school libraries are invited to apply, through Jan. 29, at http://publicprograms.ala.org/bookshelf.

Science contest opens

The Toshiba/National Science Teachers Association ExploraVision Awards Program, the world's largest K-12 science and technology competition, is accepting entries for its 2010 program year.

Entries must be in by Feb. 2. For details, visit www.exploravision.org or e-mail exploravision@nsta.org.