Research
This is the place to post ideas about teaching research skills through fun, creative projects.
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"Celebrate the 8 Wonders" Community Research Project
Grades: 5 and up
NOTE: Information and links below come from a presentations given at the KASL District IV Workshop in Ellsworth, KS on Oct. 18, 2008, and at the SCKLS Summer Reading workshop on Feb. 26, 2009.
Learn how Sterling fifth graders created a narrated slide show that highlights the wonderful things about their community. “The Wonders of Sterling,” a collaborative project between LMS Amy Brownlee and fifth-grade social studies/language arts teacher Jill Britton, was based on the “8 Wonders of Kansas” contest sponsored by the Kansas Sampler Foundation, and inspired by the book The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty Birney. Students were challenged to discover the wonders of their own community in eight different areas: art, architecture, commerce, cuisine, customs, geography, history, and people. After researching, interviewing community members, visiting local people and places, and taking digital photos, the fifth graders created a narrated PhotoStory slide show featuring their top three “candidates” in each category. The slide show was presented to all Sterling Grade School students and staff, who were invited to vote for their favorites in each category. This session will explain the skills, process, time, materials and equipment needed to challenge your own students to discover the hidden wonders in their own community.
TECHNOLOGY LINKS:
8 WONDERS RESEARCH LINKS:
DOCUMENTS, AUDIO AND VIDEO FILES:
8 Wonders Resources.doc
§ A list of web sites, equipment and materials needed, audience and presentation notes.
8 Wonders Unit Plan.doc
§ An outline of our lesson plans for the 5 weeks we spent working with students on the project. Includes details on how the resources were used, exactly what skills were involved, when we introduced each skill or component of the project, and notes about what we would do differently next time.
Library sample email.wmv
§ A sample PhotoStory I created over the libraries of Sterling to give kids a feel for how their presentations should look with an introduction, imported PowerPoint slides, narration on every slide, background music, etc. This is NOT a finished product – it is a rough draft designed to give kids the “big picture.” (Plays in Windows Media Player)
audio minilesson.ppt
§ A PowerPoint slide with four embedded audioclips of bad narration. Kids had a ball listening to this and telling me what I did wrong on each example. It was very effective in keeping kids from making the same mistakes.
Commerce final email.wmv
§ The finished version of the project created by our fifth-grade “commerce” group. Plays in Windows Media Player. (This is one category of our entire project.)
voting ballot.ppt
§ This is a PowerPoint copy of the ballot we used with students and staff when presenting the 8 Wonders. We paused after each category to let people vote and it worked GREAT! (created by Jill Britton)
Work Ethic rubric.doc
§ I have often used this rubric on long-term projects to give kids points once or twice a week based on their work ethic shown in class each day.
rubric.doc
§ What the teacher used to grade the students. She mentioned that it looks simple, but she spent a great deal of time discussing it with students. (created by Jill Britton)
press release.doc
§ This is the article that appeared in our local newspaper and our district newsletter explaining the project and giving the results. The classroom teacher strongly felt it was best not to give specific number totals to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings if they didn’t get many votes. We felt that listing the places (1st, 2nd, 3rd) was sufficient.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or just to let me know how it goes if you adapt this project in your own community.
submitted by: Amy Brownlee, K-12 LMS
brownleea@usd376.com
Sterling USD #376
Biography Mobiles
Grades: 3-5
This is a fun way to have students work with biographies and create a cool visual project to show what they learned. This lesson is adapted from 30 Biography Book Reports by Deborah Rovin-Murphy, ISBN-13 978-0439215701, ISBN-10 0439215706. I used it with 3rd graders, and we started off using simple biography books from our library shelves, but they could also use encyclopedias, World Book Online, SIRS, etc. I pulled our biographies at a 2nd/3rd grade reading level that would be short enough for the kids to read in one sitting and let them choose their research topics from those choices. I asked each student to read a biography and take notes on the most important things about this person’s life, including what they’re famous for, and how that could be visually represented by a picture or symbol (we did an example together to model the process). I attached our planning page below, and that is what I had kids take notes on. Then we used a coat hanger to create a biography mobile featuring the person’s name and three main things about the person. The kids worked hard and did a great job visually representing the accomplishments of each famous person. We proudly displayed our mobiles by hanging them from the blinds in the library.
biography mobile planning page.pdf
submitted by: Amy Brownlee, K-12 LMS
brownleea@usd376.com
Sterling USD #376
Research Riddles
Grades: 4-8
This project is a great way to have students present biographical research in a fun, creative way that discourages plagiarism. The project easily works across the curriculum through choice of the research subject: musicians, artists, scientists, explorers, authors, etc. I’ve used it for grades 5-8 to research authors. Clues to the riddle are written in first person. For example: “I was born on August 17, 1967.” I had students write out their clues and then arrange them so that general clues are first and detailed clues more likely to give away the answer are last. I asked them to be creative and to include clues about the books, stories or poems that author has written. For Charles Dickens, for example, a clue might say, “I love to sing carols at Christmas time,” which would be a clue for the book he wrote called A Christmas Carol. Students can hand write their finished riddle on a template, or they can type it. At the bottom of their page, I had my students center the answer to the riddle. We cut out rectangular pieces of construction paper large enough to cover the answer and taped them on one side to create a “lift the flap” feature. When the riddles are displayed, people can read the riddle, then lift the flap to see the correct answer. It would also be fun to display the riddles and have a contest to see if students can correctly identify the person described. Answers could be revealed at the end of the contest. The idea for this project came from an NCTE publication called Ideas Plus , Book 17, p. 40-41, submitted by Christine Christensen.
biography riddle template.rtf
biography riddle template.pdf
submitted by: Amy Brownlee, K-12 LMS
brownleea@usd376.com
Sterling USD #376
Create a postage stamp
Grades: 5-8
This creative biography project combining research, writing, and art would work for any curricular area. After researching a famous person, students design a proposal for a postage stamp in that person's honor. They create artwork for the stamp and write a persuasive piece explaining why that person deserves to be honored with a stamp.
We used this activity to celebrate Women's History Month and asked students to choose a woman to research. We invited our local postmaster to be a guest speaker and talk about the process a proposal goes through to become a real stamp. She also brought some neat examples from her personal stamp collection as well as some posters we got to keep for the library. We had our postmaster “judge” the students' proposals and choose one to become a stamp. For a prize for first place, we scanned the student's artwork and used an online service that turns photos and artwork into a sheet of actual postage stamps. We carefully explained that the student's stamps would not be available for purchase at the post office, but that the stamps we purchased could be used to mail an actual letter.
stamp persuasive writing.pdf
submitted by: Amy Brownlee, K-12 LMS
brownleea@usd376.com
Sterling USD #376
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