This week, the 5th grade is visiting the American Museum of Natural History to learn about the Silk Road. We're doing a Google Earth research projects to complement the study. This project melds social studies, writing, geography and students personal interests. Here is a site outlining the project. I enjoy creating sites for project management. Day one involved going over the outline for the expectations in the project, specifically discussing the rubric so the student know how they will be evaluated. Take a look at the site I created simply to outline the scope and sequence of the project.
http://sites.google.com/a/theschool.columbia.edu/silk-road-project/
To prep for the Google Earth work, I've had the children researching and writing so that they are prepared with the contents for their GE tour. I'm often a victim of my own excitement about technology tools, and I overlook the small steps to scaffold students. In this project, I feel well paced. Over the last few weeks, I've been using the Google Search Curriculum published by Lucy Gray, Cheryl Davis and Kathleen Ferenz. With the tools outlined in these lessons, students are more capable of understanding how search works, and how to find the data they need to be successful researchers.
http://www.google.com/educators/p_websearch.html
I'll add more posts to describe the best (and worst) elements of this project.
