Website Resources
The World Wide Web is packed with information. However only a mature student information scientist will be successful locating quality information to support his or her investigation. A well-equipped learning laboratory provides a variety of tools for accessing the Internet including computer stations and wireless laptops.
An effective learning laboratory also provides portals and "starting points" to support web exploration and searching.
Increasingly, young people are collaborating on the creation of their own web spaces.
To learn more, go to the external resource from Learning Spaces: Collaborative Web and Wikis.
The following examples demonstrates how website resources facilitate the learning experiences of the student information scientist.
Glorious Gardens
Ashley loves her garden. She entered her tomatoes in the 4H fair and won a second place red ribbon. However she's already seeking ways to improve next year's crop. As she analyzed her data, she found that the Burpee seeds were the best. She's going to use the Burpee website to explore other tomato plant options.
Explore Ashley's investigation for more detail.
Disaster Detector
As Brandon watches the news about the latest natural disaster, he wonders whether it's possible to create better systems for detecting and planning for these events. As Brandon searches for information, he begins to notice that most of the websites direct users to the United States Geological Survey earthquake center website.
Explore Brandon's investigation for more detail.
Looking Closer
Miss Hamilton enjoys partnering with the school library media specialist, Ms. Anderson. Using a theme that acrosses grade and content areas, they've established a full-year project on birding. Using the web resource at The Great Backyard Bird Count as a starting place, they began exploring the many possible connections.
As the project gained attention within the school, an older student approached Miss Hamilton about becoming involved in the project. Isabella's interest in birds and bird feathers combined with Miss Hamilton's commitment to multi-age teaching was a great combination. Isabella become the project director and a mentor for younger children.
Explore Isabella's investigation for more detail.
Explore Ms. Anderson's and Miss Hamilton's involvement as an instructional specialist.