Explorer WebQuest

Introduction | Task | Process | Evaluation | Conclusion | Credits

Introduction

Every year in our country, we celebrate many holidays. Several of those are in honor of famous and important people from our history, like Martin Luther King, George Washington, and Christopher Columbus. In this WebQuest you are going to find out more about an explorer your team chooses and about how and why we use holidays to honor them.

Who was this explorer? What is important to remember about him or her? How can you use a holiday celebration to tell his or her story well and communicate the important aspects of his or her life and accomplishments to the public?

Task

Imagine that your state has decided to create a new holiday to honor a world explorer. You've been assigned to a task force that will choose a worthy person and design the holiday celebration. The sky is not the limit though. What you design has to meet several criteria outlined by the legislators in the Evaluation section below. Your team will also need to create a multimedia presentation to convince a committee of legislators that your plan is sound and should be adopted.

Process

Phase 1: World Holidays

The first step is to learn as much as you can about how we honor people with holidays. Note: your team will have a folder to organize your materials. Keep everything you do! You will be turning this folder in at the end of the project.

1. Select one of the holidays from the list below. Be sure each person in your team selects a different holiday.

2. On your own, use at least two sources (one Internet and one print) to gather information about the holiday to complete the Big6 Data Chart for Phase 1. Complete a bibliography slip for each source.

3. Share your results with the other members of your team and compare the holidays. Use the back of the chart to make a list of similarities and differences that you find.

4. Use these Internet sources for your research:

• http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/factover/holidays.htm
• http://www.theholidayzone.com/
• http://www.worldbook.com/features/holidays/html/others.htm
• http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/holidays.htm

Phase 2: Choosing an Explorer

The next step is to identify one explorer who is worthy of being honored with a new holiday and to learn about that person so you can design an appropriate celebration.

1. Work with your team to select a world explorer from the list the teacher provides you.

2. Determine how your team will split up the work necessary to complete the Big6 Data Chart for Phase 2. (For example, you might assign each person to study one source and answer several questions, or each person could be responsible for one question and locate the answer in various sources.) You must use at least two sources (one Internet and one print) to answer each question. Complete a bibliography slip for each source.

3. Generate a list of aspects of your explorer that are worth celebrating based on your research. Include any other interesting facts you may have found beyond the questions.

4. Begin creating a map that shows the voyages your explorer took. This map will be completed in Phase 3 as part of your folder, and you may also use it during your presentation.

5. Use these Internet sources for your research. Note: Remember to review sources critically as we learned in earlier lessons. Don’t forget that all the biographies here at AllAboutExplorers.com are fictional and should not be used for your research in this project!

• http://www.mariner.org/age/menu.html
• http://www.cgps.org/cgslab/explorers.htm
• http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/discovery/index.html
• http://tqjunior.thinkquest.org/4034/hall_of_fame.html
• http://www.bham.wednet.edu/BIO/explore.htm
• http://www.42explore.com/explorers2.htm
• http://library.thinkquest.org/C001692
• http://www.enchantedlearning.com/explorers/1600.shtml

Phase 3: Developing Your Presentation

The last step is to create a presentation for a committee of state legislators to persuade them that your plan for a new holiday should be adopted. The role of the committee will be played by a group of teachers and students from our class.

1. Generate ideas for your design. Remember that when brainstorming, all ideas are accepted and recorded. Model your ideas after the holidays you researched in Phase 1 and be sure you incorporate the qualities of your explorer you identified in Phase 2.

2. Create a list of criteria for evaluating your ideas. Consider that you must persuade the committee, so base your criteria around what you think will be most convincing to the most people. Some criteria you might consider:

• Does it honor the explorer in a way to make people want to learn more about him?
• Does it involve many people of many different ages and cultures?
• How easy is it to plan and organize the celebration?
• What will it cost in time and money to put the celebration on?
• Can the celebration be held in many different locations?
• Are there many different options for celebrating (e.g. games, fairs, parades, days off, community service, etc.)?

3. Use your criteria to narrow your list of ideas to a few that you believe will be the best way to honor your explorer.

4. Design your holiday celebration.

5. Develop your presentation. Be sure to follow all of these requirements:

• The oral presentation must involve all members of the group
• It must last between 5 and 10 minutes
• You must make a persuasive argument for both your selection of explorer and your design of the celebration
• You must incorporate some technology into your presentation. This could include word processing, a graph made with Excel, a PowerPoint slide show, using Inspiration to create your visual , etc.
• Your presentation must have one visual. This could be a map, picture of the explorer, poster, chart, PowerPoint, etc.

6. At the time you give your presentation, you must turn in a folder to the teacher that includes all of the following items:

• A written outline of your presentation
• Data charts from Phase 1 and Phase 2
• Group notes and brainstorming from Phase 3
• Bibliography slips including all sources used during your research
• A map showing the explorer’s voyages

Evaluation

You will be evaluated according to the rubric below. Use this as a guide while you are working to be sure you are meeting all the criteria.

Conclusion

Put a few sentences here that summarize what they will have accomplished or learned by completing this activity or lesson.

You might also include some rhetorical questions or additional links to encourage them to extend their thinking into other content beyond this lesson. To foster the habit of lifelong learning, give them links to additional information here that they can pursue on their own.

Credits & References

Thanks to the Centennial School District for supporting this project by allowing us time to develop the All About Explorers web site, create the lessons, and field test all the activities. Thanks also to Centennial teacher-librarians Nancy Ring, Jack McAvoy, Chris Shepper, Joanne Brown, and George Fisher for assistance with writing biographies and field testing activities. Special thanks to Dr. Jenny without whom none of this would have been conceivable, let alone possible.

We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this WebQuest, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original authors’ names are retained along with a link back to the original URL of this WebQuest. On the line after the original author's name, you may add Modified by (your name) on (date). If you do modify it, please let us know and provide the new URL.

Based on a template from The WebQuest Page