Finding Information on the Internet

Teacher Section

• Description
• Learning Information
• Introduction
• Lesson Steps
• Support Materials
• Tools and Resources

Description

This lesson guides students through

• Collecting information on the Internet for their treehouse (building step #4).
• Getting information for composing their treehouse (planning step #3). \

Learning Information

• ToL Learner Level
  • Beginner; Intermediate
• Student Grade Level
  • Grades 4 and up. If students have little prior experience looking for information on the Internet then you may want to focus on students searching pre-selected Internet sites.
• Objective
• Students will:
  • Find one quality Internet site on their own and explore it.
  • Search other pre-selected sites.
  • Gather information about the organism(s) featured in their Treehouse from these sites.
  • Add information, their thoughts and analysis of information they have found to their Treehouse.
• Time Frame
  • Students will need at least 45 minutes.
• Curricular Areas
  • Science, Technology, Language Arts
• State Education Standards: Not yet available
• National Education Standards: Not yet available
• Homework
  • Students continue working on finding information on the Internet. See Learner Tasks below.

Lesson Steps

Time Frame

Students will need at least 45 minutes

Introduction ~ 5-10 minutes

1. Guide students to this page.
2. Choose one of the links from the Information on the Internet Section and instruct students to do the same.
3. Ask the students to tell you why you selected the site as a good source of information (you can go over What is a quality Internet site?).
4. Ask the students to tell you how to search for information on that site (point out key words to look for).

Searching and Sharing ~ 20 minutes

If you have longer than 45 minutes extend this section to 25 minutes or more and let students search and share for a longer period of time.

1. Ask students to search for information on their topic using either a pre-selected site or by searching on their own using a search engine like Google or Yahoo. Tell them that once they find information on a site that they think is good, they should write down the information in steps 1-3 as instructed in the learner tasks. If you would like, you can ask students to search for a particular type of information, such as a information on habitat or lifecycle. However, you should pre-select sites for this information to save time.
2. If students want to copy a lot of information without reading it due to time constraints, ask them to copy and paste information into a word processing document or to print the information out so they can read it later.
3. After five minutes has passed ask students to stand and share problems they are having and strategies for finding information they are using.
4. After 10 minutes has passed ask students to share what they have found out with the class for five minutes.

Writing and Sharing ~ 15 minutes

If you have longer than 45 minutes extend this section to 20 minutes or more and let students write and share for a longer period of time.

1. Briefly go over Ways to use Information on the Internet for about five minutes. Coming soon: a lesson on this topic.
2. Make sure students have written down the URL, name of site and a brief description on the site. Ask students to write down what they are learning from the site for 5 minutes. Students can stand and share what they are learning as they write.
3. Then ask students to write what they think about what they have learned for five minutes. This aspect of their writing should become richer if the students have a chance to collect information from more than one site.

Extension to activity or Homework:

If you complete the learner tasks above you can continue with the following:

• Continue looking for information on the Internet and repeat the learner tasks listed above for more Internet sites.
• Add all of the Internet sites that you used into the Information on the Internet Section. To do this go to Step #4 of the Treehouse Editor, and choose to add spaces for as many Internet links as you will need to add.

Support Materials

What is a quality Internet site?

There are a few things to consider when deciding whether the Internet site you have found is a quality site.

• Ask yourself or discuss with your partner whether the information is interesting and worthwhile.
• Think about who produced the site and authored the information.
• Look to see whether the site is regularly updated.
• Determine whether it is a commercial site. Often commercial sites include lots of advertisements that make gathering good information tricky. 

Ways to use information from the Internet:

• Link to the information while you are discussing it.
• Quote the information that you found and provide a citation.
• Paraphrase (write in your own words) the information you found and provide a citation.