iWASwondering.org is a Web site of the National Academies, which includes the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, National Research Council, and National Academies Press, and is covered by the Privacy Statement and Terms of Use of the National Academies, and the additional specific privacy terms related to this Web site as described below. The National Academies is committed to protecting your privacy as you use and enjoy this Web site.

Except as provided herein, we will not request personally identifiable information from children under 13 years of age, and we will not provide personal information to third parties. It is our policy to collect only enough information that is necessary to participate in activities offered on the iWASwondering.org Web site.

• In almost all activities, the information we collect is non-personal (such as first name and state/province or country). We only collect enough information from our visitors to make activities on iWASwondering.org fun and interesting.
• If you submit questions, answers to questions, comments, or anything else to us that will be posted on our Web site, you will be identified on our Web site only by first name and state/province or country.
• If you send us an e-mail with a question or comment, or enter one of our contests, we may write back using your e-mail address, but we will not keep the e-mail address or use it again. We will not share this information with a third party other than our contractors or agents for the limited purpose of helping us to operate the Web site.
• No one will be excluded from our Web site for not giving us personal information.

The Ask It! activity allows kids to submit scientific questions, answers to questions, and comments on posted answers to the Web site. A user can set up an account that will allow them to keep a record of their activity on the site, including questions they have submitted and questions they have marked as their favorites. When a user creates a username and password on iWASwondering.org, we do not collect any information that would allow us or anyone else to identify you. When prompted to create a username, we strongly recommend you to use only non-personally identifiable information.

In order to establish an account, you will be required to provide an e-mail address of a parent or guardian. We use the provided parent or guardian’s e-mail address to send an e-mail notifying the recipient that their child has created an account on Ask It!, and informing them of their child’s username and password. If the child requests a forgotten password, notification will be provided to the parent or guardian’s e-mail. We will not share the parent or guardian’s e-mail address with any third parties. The parent or guardian will be provided with all information provided by the child upon request, and the Ask It! account will be terminated upon request of the parent or guardian.

Questions, answers, and comments submitted by users will be moderated before being posted or otherwise made available to the general public. We will make every effort to ensure that no personally identifiable information appears on iWASwondering.org, but we cannot guarantee that no such information will appear.

As you visit iWASwondering.org, it is possible that several cookies will be set on your computer. A cookie is information a Web site places on your computer's hard drive so that the Web site can remember your preferences and/or which pages you visited on that Web site. We use the information from cookies to improve our visitors' experiences on our Web site as described below. No personal information is ever stored in an iWASwondering.org cookie, even if you have entered your name or e-mail address on other parts of the site, and we will not sell any information collected through the use of cookies.

The iWASwondering.org Web site uses cookies for the following limited purposes:

• When you watch a video clip or listen to an audio clip on iWASwondering.org, a cookie will remember that you watched or heard the clip so it doesn’t play repeatedly.
• As you explore iWASwondering.org, a cookie will tell us which pages you visit and the amount of time between each page visit. This cookie does not remember any information about you or your computer. It is used to identify new and repeat visitors and tell us how long a visitor spends on our Web site and which pages receive the most traffic.

If we add an activity to iWASwondering.org that involves the collection of personal information, we will notify parents what information is being requested, disclose the reasons for collecting such information, and disclose our intended use for the personal information. We will seek verifiable parental consent before collecting any personally identifiable information. If we do collect it, parents may request information on the type of data being collected, view their child’s information, and, if they choose, prohibit us from making further use of their child’s information. We will not provide personal information to third parties.

Content submitted by users of iWASwondering.org, particularly the Ask It! activity, will be reviewed by a moderator before posting. We may, in our sole discretion, screen, edit, remove, or refuse to post any content submitted for posting that does not comply with the terms of use or is otherwise harmful or objectionable. We will make every effort to screen content appropriately but are not responsible for any failure or delay in preventing such content from being posted. Content submitted by users and posted to iWASwondering.org is not guaranteed to be accurate, current, or suitable for any particular purpose. The content is subject to change without notice at our sole editorial discretion.

The Web site iWASwondering.org may contain links to third party Web sites. These links are provided solely as a convenience to you. We are not responsible for the content of any linked third party sites, and we do not make any representations regarding the content or accuracy of any content or materials on such third party Web sites. If you access any linked third party Web site, you do so at your own risk. Your use of third party Web sites is subject to the terms and conditions of use for those sites.

You are permitted and encouraged to link to www.iWASwondering.org from your own Web page.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about our privacy policy—or to review, change, or modify personal information collected previously—please contact us at WASComments@nas.edu or at Women’s Adventures in Science, The National Academies, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Room 314, Washington, D.C., 20001. Attention: Terrell Smith. You may also contact us for permission to use, copy, or reproduce www.iWASwondering.org copyrighted material found on the site. Please submit your request, along with a statement concerning how you would like to use the material, in writing to the above contact.

Due to the changing nature of the internet, this Privacy Statement may be changed at any time at the National Academies’ discretion. Your use of this site is conditioned on your having accepted these terms. You should check back to this policy frequently, since it is subject to change from time to time, and your continued use of the site is conditioned upon your acceptance of any modifications hereto.