3.+Research+and+Information+Fluency

**Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.**
(Please list resources directly below the corresponding objective using a bulleted list.)

a. plan strategies to guide inquiry.

 * Scale Factor - Students analyze the relationship of a printed product to an original product by determining the scale factor relationship. First, students will choose a large structure, such as a sky scraper or roller coaster, to research on the Internet. Their research must include the height of the structure. Next, students download a picture from the Internet of their structure, put it into Google Docs presentation, and print the picture. Finally, students measure the paper copy of their structure and figure the scale factor of the structure inrelationship to the height of the original structure. Visit the lesson plan and teaching video for more information.
 * Publishing Our History - Fifth and sixth grade students at Neosho Rapids Elementary became published authors when they ventured out into their communities and interviewed local business owners and elders. They published a book chronicling their history on http://lulu.com. You can find the lesson plan, student sample book pages and teaching rubrics her e. You can find a video summarizing their work here.
 * [|Kagan Structures & Text Features] - Students in Angie Carter's 5th grade at Clark Elementary reviewed the Kagan Structures and text features they had been using in their classrooms to create useful activities for their schoolmates. Using images they selected from a variety of sources around the school, students created Kagan activities and compiled them together to make a book for the teachers to use in their classrooms as a way to review text features with their students. As a follow up activity and a great assessment review, students went to those classroom teachers' classes to complete a Kagan activity with their class. Mrs. Carter effectively reviewed both Kagan structures and text features with her students while the students were able to help deepen their understanding and teach other students as well. [|A student sample, teacher lesson plan and assessment rubric can be seen here.]
 * **Inman USD 5th grade students along with their teachers, Tamara Padfield and Linley Voboril and their TRC facilitator Bentley Richert developed a "Got Canvas" recycling project where students surveyed the community using [|Google Forms] to determine recycling habits and then strategized the best way to disseminate information to help increase the green practices of their area **. **[|Create-a-Graph]** **from the National Center for Education Statistics** **could serve as a helpful data analysis tool. In addition, here are some [|step-by-step instructions]for creating a Google Form/survey and here is a [|sample survey] and a link to the generated [|sample data]**
 * Candy Circle Graphs. Identify how many of each color are in the mystery bag of M&Ms. Google Docs (Spreadsheets). //Author (s): CIESE Math//

b. locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.

 * **Bill of Rights - Students in Todd Murdock's 8th grade history class explored their constitutional rights as students and compared them to those rights that they would have as adults. Tools such as LiveBinders, Wordle and Tagxedo were used for research and analysis. Here is their LiveBinder. Students then created videos to exemplify a constitutional right of their choice and those videos were put into a Promethean flipchart to teach other students. You can find Todd's lesson plan, students samples, select teaching materials and rubrics by clicking here. You can find a video of him explaining this lesson here.**
 * __States Matter: A Cross-Disciplinary Project__ - 8th grade students in Burlington participated in a project about the United States. Each of the four TRC teachers integrated this theme into their standards. Deb Reed's science class had the students exploring climate and using Animoto to create music videos, Chuck Schuster had his students analyzing population growth in Microsoft Excel, students with special needs in Wendy Smith's class created promotional videos in Glogster, and Melissa Stiffler's language arts students used persuasive techniques to create brochures in Microsoft Publisher. Each student also authored a website to highlight their work in this unit. Click on each teacher's name to view their lesson plans, rubrics, student samples, handouts, and instructional videos.
 * [|Animal Biomes] - Students in Jennifer Webster's third grade class created zoo exhibits and presented them to the zoo board for possible inclusion in the hypothetical Winfield Zoo. Click on the following hyperlinks to find the teacher [|lesson plan], [|fur.ly] link to [|biome simulation sites,][|graphic organizers and a link to a PowerPoint] by Jennifer with all resource links embedded within. She also designed a [|Google Custom Search] specifically for [|habitats and biomes] to help keep student investigations safe and educational!
 * [|Huskie Travel Agency] - Students in Heather Swarts' 6th grade class had to use math, language arts and geography persuasively as they became travel agents and sales people who designed attractive travel packages for potential customers. Students compared their preliminary packages to those of their peers and then designed commercials to sell the merits of their package. [|Click here to locate the teacher lesson plan and assessment rubrics.]
 * Famous Kansas Magazine Cover: Students research famous people from Kansas. They have free choice, which allows them to chose someone they would be interested in. They must evaluate the information they find then pick the important facts about their person. They then have to organize it into a magazine cover using [|Big Huge Labs].
 * Google Web site search lessons help students understand search engines, search techniques and strategies, and special features of the Google search engine.
 * Stacy Smith, facilitator at Winfield USD uses [|Google Custom Search] to provide students with a list of approved sites when they do a Google search. Here is a [|demo for use in the classroom]Google custom search.
 * Research and gather information to write essays about the Transcontinental Railroad at the [|Central Pacific Railroad Pahotographic History Museum].

c. evaluate and select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.

 * Cross-Curricular Lesson on GPS- 7th and 8th grade students were presented with the question as to what do we use Global Positioning System in our technological society? Students used GPS receivers to find geocaches hidden on the school grounds. There were mini lessons in the caches that included lessons on latitude and longitude, distance and there were objects that required additional math problems in the geocache. We explored earthcaching by Skyping with the Lost River in Kentucky that has both an earthcache and two geochaches on their site. We also did earthcaching by visiting George Washington Carver Monument. Students documented their work by collaborating in small groups of 4-5 and recording their information on their own Kidblog as well as the group recorded their information on the teacher blog and using Google Documents to record movements. Visit the lesson plan, support materials, and accompanying video for this lesson.
 * Ice Cream Cone Composite - Students in Eden Barr's 7th grade math class explore composite figures by conducting research on the Internet and creating reports captured using iMovie. Students were asked to use triangles and semicircles to create the cones. They were asked to measure the area of the total shape. An extension to the project allowed students to add toppings using smaller shapes and measure the area of these as well. View the lesson plan and support materials as well as a video about the project at the Kanas TRC Web site.
 * A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - 5th grade teachers at Washington Elementary developed a writing project for students that would take them on a journey from their current 5th grade building, Washington Elementary built in 1939, to the new Jefferson Elementary that will open fall 2011. Students used different styles to research and present this project. What started as a writing assignment, quickly turned into a cross-curricular project using GlogsterEDU, Microsoft PowerPoint, ePals, and Edmodo that brought in members of the community, school administrators, construction experts, and even a field trip to support student learning. View the teaching video for this project as well as supporting lesson plans and grading rubrics on the Kansas TRC Web site.
 * Buhler Legacy - Buhler Grade School fourth and sixth grade students read the book "The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs" by Betty G. Birney. After learning how one young man discovered the "wonders" of his community, Buhler students embarked on a 2 year journey to discover and share the "wonders" of Buhler. This cross-curricular lesson taps into all of the NETS*S and uses a variety of technological tools. Through interviews, field trips, and various authoring tools (including [|Google Sketch-Up]) students uncovered a wealth of people, ideas and places that give Buhler its unique flavor. Click here to view their detailed[| teacher lesson plan,]and here to view their robust wiki, full of student products, videos and so much more!
 * Select from a variety of primary and secondary sources about the Wright Brothers first flight and synthesize the information to develop an opinion whether sources are accurate and valid.

d. process data and report results.

 * Using Temperature Probes - Students in 5th grade at Perry Lecompton Middle School learned about temperature in various ways. The use of Vernier science equipment aided throughout mulitple lessons. After various teacher-guided labs, students were put into interest groups to design their own inquiry experiment and final project. Inspiration was used to generate lab reports. Students were able to use various resources to create a final project (Avatars, PhotoStory, Flipcharts, Demonstration, etc). View lesson plan resources and companion teaching video to learn more.
 * Kansas Main Idea Search Stories Project - Students in Sheri Cook’s 4 th grade classroom at Enterprise Elementary in Wichita, KS wanted to share their learning about the state of Kansas by created Google Search Stories. After reading a picture book about the state, students brainstormed a topic list, then researched the topics to help them come up with a main idea and supporting details about the topic. They then took that information and created a Google Search Story and posted it to Mrs. Cook’s YouTube channel for the entire world to see. Visit the lesson plan for and companion teaching video for more information.
 * [|A Price to be Thankful For!] - Students in Mulvane TRCs worked collaboratively to plan a Thanksgiving meal, delineating specific ingredients and researching how much those much those ingredients cost in 1990. They then sent groups of students to a local grocery store and used [|SKYPE], cell phones and [|wall wisher.com] to compare the 1990 prices to today to figure out the total costs for each decade under study. [|Click here to see their lesson plan]. Click here to read more details in their [|facilitator's WHIRL blog post contribution]. You can also see a [|compilation movie] that they put together to commemorate this lesson plan and their overall TRC experience!
 * [|Prickly Technology: Cactus Hotel] - Third grade students in White City used the book Cactus Hotel as a spring board for a cross-curricular lesson where they experimented with various cacti and compared their results to those from students in an Arizona classroom using PowerPoint, [|Google Earth] and [|SKYPE].
 * Consumer Product Evaluation . The unit will lead to understanding of why consumer product information is important and the types of test and the methods for recording data from those test. Students will use Google Docs throughout the process including Google docs to document procedures, Google forms to collect data, Google spreadsheet to turn data into information, and Google presentation to share the results. // Author(s): Lucie deLaBruere, Peter Deslaurier //
 * Measure the diameter of Kansas sunflowers to find if the diameter that is proportional to the number of petals. [|Kids Zone Learning with NCES]