ScienceQuest: Phase 4 - How to do it

Goals [top]

In this phase, teams organize the information they learned from their investigations and present it on a web site, Power Point presentation, or Word document. By publishing their research, team members have an opportunity to contribute to the scientific community by sharing their knowledge with the world.

Timeline [top]

For a simple web site, ScienceQuest teams will need at least three sessions. Teams should use their notes from Phases 1, 2, and 3 as content for the web site.

Sample Activities [top]

Technology Workshop

Coaches will be invited to attend a technology workshop organized by CTC coordinators or ScienceQuest staff. This training is extremely important since it will provide the nuts and bolts for how your team will build a web site. Additional support materials are available on the ScienceQuest web site.

At the Technology training, distribute and discuss the Web Site Building Guide. The guide provides tips for designing Web sites, setting up Homestead accounts, and step-by-step tutorials on building Web pages. Download Web Site Building Guide (PDF).

Choose Appropriate Technology for your ScienceQuest team.

Confused about choosing a web site building software that's right for your team? Wondering where you should host your team's web site? Check out the new guide on choosing appropriate technology for ScienceQuest teams. Guideline policies will go into effect on September 1, 2002. If you have questions, please email us at sciencequest@edc.org.

Talk About Technology

Here are some general topics that coaches may want to brainstorm with their teams:

Overall structure of the Internet. Key concepts to address are URL addresses, web sites, web pages, and search engines
Find examples of good and bad web pages
Discuss elements of a good web page. The following resources may help you do this: YouthLearn guide, Berkley guide
Parts of a web site (home page, navigation (or "table of contents"), secondary pages, headings, links, text, graphics, etc.)

If you need assistance teaching technology to kids, YouthLearn's Surfing Safari activity provides a good discussion guide, and resources for explaining various elements of the Internet.

View Checklist for Team Web Sites

With your team, review the web site checklist so that everyone knows what information to include on the site. (You'll review the checklist again when your team is ready to announce your web site.)

Organize Team's Research Notes

Collect and gather all of the team's notes
Organize notes into various sections. Your team may organize their notes in a number of different ways -- by subject area, team members, or phases of investigation (Research Question, Plan, and Investigation activities)
Discuss how your team's notes might be organized on a web site
Making Meaning Strategies may help your team members organize information in different categories.
Determine who will be responsible for creating various pages on the team web site
Set a schedule for when the web pages will be completed

Show Team Members How To Build Web Site

We recommend that coaches work with a small group of team members (3 - 5 kids). Each team member should learn the following web site building skills:

Creating a folder to save files
Setting a background color or picture
Adding content
Adding images
Creating links to outside pages
Saving web pages
Previewing web pages
Creating a link to other pages on the site

You will find support materials for the above skills in the Web Site Building Guide.

Announce Your Web Site!

Announce your web site by completing the checklist and providing ScienceQuest staff with information about your site! Once you've announced your site, we will feature it on the ScienceQuest web site.

Questions to ask the Team members [top]

How can we show people what we are learning?
How can we help them learn what we learned?
What do we think is a good web site?
A great web site? What did we learn? What do we want to learn more about?

Resources for Phase 4 [top]

Web Site Building Guide (PDF)
Guide for choosing appropriate technology for building web sites.
Read about a sample day in Phase 4: Build a Web Site
Stories from past coaches
Q&A on common challenges
Making Meaning Strategies for helping team members organize their notes.
Review the web site checklist and announce your site!

Discussing elements of good web sites

Sample lesson guide for teaching technology

Surfing Safari activity

Tips on working with youth

Checklist for Phase 4: Build a Web Site

Your team has completed a ScienceQuest investigation when it has completed the following:

	Created one of the following: A multi-page web site A PDF (from a Word document) A Power Point presentation
	Developed a web site/Word document/Power Point presentation that includes the following: Information about the team and its members Team's question Team's plan for answering the question Research your team gathered from each of the Read, Ask, Watch, and Do categories What team learned from its research (including observations, questions, ideas, and pictures) Original content and style Graphic elements (photographs and pictures) Working link
	Double check web site / Word document / Power Point presentation for no typos and misspellings
	Upload web site to Homestead server.
	Review the web site checklist and announce your site!
	Celebrate! (For details, see ScienceQuest Wrap Up)

Download Acrobat Reader for free.