Treasure troves

Lifestyle/Technology | Going online can help with studying the Bible, learning about the Civil War, and getting a grasp on mammoth deficit spending | Susan Olasky

The internet is enormously educational if you know where to look. Four examples:

• Biblemap.org, developed by He Lives Ministries, is a free Bible atlas that uses Google maps to plot geographical locations mentioned in the English Standard or King James versions of the Bible. Geographical place names are color coded to match pointers on the map. The screen displays the text and map so users can visualize an area as they read about it. Click on the pointers and more information about locations (Pontus, for instance) appears.

• Getting the "lay of the land" is crucial to understanding military battles. Civilwar.org is the website of the Civil War Preservation Trust, the largest group devoted to preserving Civil War battlefields. It has resources for teachers and students and interesting animated maps that show troop movements along with a timeline, including maps for the first day of Chancellorsville, The Battle of Chantilly, and the Battle of Fredericksburg. The website is also a rich archive of historical maps of the various battlefields.