Welcome to our growing FFFBI site. Here at the Triple F, our rookie recruits — your students — conduct entertaining investigations with backdrops from contemporary global culture. Agents engaged by our site quickly learn to share the goals of the Fin, Fur and Feather Bureau of Investigation as they read, write and think, while fighting for Truth, Justice, and Stuff Like That. You'll find a wide variety of activities to encourage language arts, math, science, and research skills for kids 8-13. (Our audience is mostly 4th and 5th graders.)

This quick overview will help you find your way around. We're also happy to answer questions about our content or its use.

Many teachers and librarians have added FFFBI.com to their own personal Web pages, and we hope you will, too. Help yourself to images from our logos page.

FFFBI Academy

FFFBI Academy is designed to help upper elementary and middle school kids - especially those with attention issues - manage the problems they face with schoolwork, homework, and even managing their binders.

To create the Academy, WGBH collaborated with clinicians at the Alvin V. Baird Attention and Learning Disabilities Center (ALDC) at James Madison University to create and test FFFBI Academy content to focus on improving the organizational and learning behaviors of kids ages 8 to 13 with ADHD.

Each game is designed to teach useful skills and strategies, while continually encouraging players to complete increasingly difficult tasks. To increase interest, the FFFBI Academy uses its humorous spy theme and frequent reinforcements for successful game play.

FFFBI international missions

In partnership with National Geographic, we present a series of geography-themed missions. In each, students are introduced to a new country and are given a dossier of documents to help complete a mission.

Each dossier contains maps, forensic information, media and wiretap intercepts, background information, and images. Each mission requires students to exercise geography skills and basic problem-solving in six interactive challenges.

Each mission follows National Geographic's geography standards. Upon completion, a short Coffee Guy quiz debriefs students about the knowledge they have gained.

TIP: These activities may take up to an hour each.

Destination: India

Travel to India on a Bollywood bodyguard assignment. Discover India's neighbors, its food, clothes, and languages. Interpret maps and Hindi script. Along the way, we'll play some cricket and trek into Mumbai, the heart of India's movie capital.

Destination: Japan

The FFFBI is off to the island nation of Japan to thwart CRUST, discovering sumo, and Japanese etiquette and superstition as they go. There'll also be some map reading as we island-hop and even some reading of Japanese script to navigate around the city.

Destination: Australia

Travel to Uluru, in Australia's red desert, to remove a curse. Read maps, and estimate distance and direction. Discover Australian slang and aboriginal beliefs. Interpret symbols and understand jet lag, the international dateline, and exchange rates.

Destination: Mexico

Learn about Mexican history, language, food, and geography while helping Agents McGurk and Huevo track down the wrestler La Langosta. Just what is she up to? Does it involve Mars? Most importantly, will CRUST ever be able to design a decent lair?

Destination: Antarctica

Travel with Deputy Director Napoleon waaaay south for the winter, and learn how cold it is there (very), how much ice is there (lots), and how much mischief the Sandwich-Faced Daddy's Boys can get up to with their giant laser (tons).

Other Missions & Games

Our interactive stories follow a variety of themes and contain embedded challenges. The player's choices shape the story. Tasks include solving math problems, searching for clues hidden in fictionalized source material, and deciphering visual logic puzzles. The ability to follow the story by reading a variety of text genres for meaning is a prerequisite for these entertaining activities.

TIP: Each mission may take up to an hour.

World Trivia Quiz

This is our series of short, geography-themed undercover missions, currently with seven destinations for jinks both high and low. Visit Japan, the Inner Pacific, Iceland, Scotland, Brazil, South Africa, and Kenya.

TIP: Use these games as an introduction to these regions, or as a starting point for doing geography research on the Web.

Bunkum's Tongue

This is a multiple-round trivia quiz requiring players to sort information into groups. The game becomes more difficult as it progresses.

TIP: This game could be used as a reward for kids completing other classroom tasks. It's fast and fun.

Perp Walk

This is a multiple-round alibi game involving five suspects. Agents must compare their five alibis to see which four complement each other, and which one indicates the perpetrator of the dastardly deed. The skills needed vary, as the problems are math based, language based, or chronology based. All are tricky.

TIP: This is very much a pencil-and-paper logic game.

Coffee Guy Quiz

The Coffee Guy — an ex-FFFBI Agent shrouded both in mystery and caffeine — hosts these popular multiple-choice quizzes. He also appears within our main missions, with thoughtful questions to keep the old noodle limber.

TIP: Save this quiz for dessert. The kids will love it.

The Hencoder

This is a fun, Secret Agent-style encoding device. E-mail hencoded messages to confound and delight your friends!

TIP: Players must decode the messages themselves. Hencode their next homework assignment!

Bunkum and Codswallop

Our amphibious journalists, Bunkum and Codswallop, are similar to Woodward and Bernstein (though more likely to eat live insects). They host features on their own site, including a wide selection of puzzles, stories, encoded messages, and humorous activities.

TIP: The Agent Nelson profile, for example, is a great short story to use as a jumping-off point for reading comprehension or to spur on original creative writing.