Sandra Markle, a science teacher and children's book author whose daughter Holly attends the school, actually joined the National Science Foundation's expedition to Antarctica, from where she led student explorers on the virtual tour of the South Pole. She visited the frozen continent aboard a high-tech, polar-class icebreaker conducting research on glaciers along the Antarctic coast. Following Markle's journey from their classroom, the Paideia students got a chance to explore the wildlife and imagine the harsh climate of the coldest place on earth -- without risking frostbite. "I feel like the kids online are looking over my shoulder," says Markle. "I'm their eyes and ears."

Meanwhile, third- and fourth-grade students were heating up the classroom with solar ovens, which they learned to build after gathering information about solar energy from the National Geographic Kids' Net. And a sixth-grade class used the Internet to study the effects of the additional traffic that will crowd the streets of Atlanta during the Olympics. They put the information to good use, constructing a 6-by-8-foot wall map of the Olympic Village, color-coded with main streets, interstates, and traffic information. It includes 3-D models of the venues where Olympic competitions will take place, as well as the mass-transit stations that serve them.