How to Do It Guide

Sample day for Phase 3: Investigate!

Barbara coached a team interested in learning about buildings and earthquakes. Before taking her team to interview a building engineer, the team gathered background information by using the Internet. Barbara suggested that the team look at a site with engaging pictures that she had found earlier. As the kids watched, Barbara showed team members how to "right click" on the mouse to copy pictures from the Internet, and paste the photos into the ScienceQuest team folder. Together, the team wrote original captions for pictures and saved them.

Then Barbara had each team member explore a different web site. She asked each kid to find two photos to copy into the folder and write captions for each of them. This would be shared with the rest of the team at the end of the session. When one team member had trouble with this task, Barbara asked her to work with another kid as a team for the afternoon. Barbara walked around the room for the next hour -- helping kids navigate through web sites, identifying interesting and pertinent information, copying photos and writing captions for them. When the team had a half an hour left, Barbara gathered her team together, and asked each team member to share two new pieces of information about earthquakes and buildings. Finally, she asked each team member to write down any remaining questions. Their queries became interview questions for the construction expert.

Back to Phase 3: Investigate! guide.