A NEW FACE FOR MT. RUSHMORE
Introduction:
Based
on a recommendation by the President to improve the national park system,
Congress has voted to add a new “face” to historic Mount Rushmore. You, as part of a specially assembled
Congressional Nominating Committee, have been given the task of narrowing down
the list of the thirty-nine available presidents who can be honored by having
their image immortalized in stone to four worthy candidates. Your job is not an easy one, but both
Congress and the President have great faith in your ability to make the right
choice.
Task:
Half of your job has been completed, now comes the “fun” part. Your committee has settled on a final list of four presidents on which the honor of being carved into Mt. Rushmore will be given. Now your committee must research and determine which of these presidents truly deserves this great honor. You must gather extensive information about all four in order to present a compelling case why each man is the perfect choice. This is a great responsibility, so be sure to give it your all.
Process:
Your committee has several steps to complete before you can deliver to Congress and the President the final choice for Rushmore’s new “face.”
[First]: Break your committee (all the students in the class) into four roughly equal groups.
[Second]: Each group must choose which president they will be responsible for researching and presenting the case for. The four finalists can be found in the links below:
[Third]: After your group chooses its president of choice, your next step entails an extensive search into the professional lives and accomplishments of the president to discover his qualifications for being placed on Mt. Rushmore. Your group will need to take a detailed look at each of the sites provided in the links to the four presidents listed above to answer the following questions. Your link to the questions is listed below.
Presidential Research Questions
[Fourth]: After answering the following questions about your president of choice, your group needs to state its case for choosing their president over the others. Make a list of the FIVE most important qualifications and/or significant accomplishments of your president that would make him ideal fifth “face” on Mt. Rushmore. Write a short one to two page paper defending your president’s “right” to be carved into stone for prosperity.
[Final Step]: Now, your group has to turn in the completed Research Questions and the paper listing his 5 Most Important Qualifications to Congress and the President (Your teacher) and await their FINAL SAY.
Evaluation:
Your
answers to the Research Questions and the 5 Accomplishments paper will be
graded using the following scoring rubric listed on the link below:
Conclusion:
Now
that each group has completed their research on their president and presented
the case to the President and Congress on who belongs on Mount Rushmore, you
can clearly see that these four presidents have contributed greatly to the
history of America. Fortunately, these
four aren’t the only presidents who accomplished notable things in office. You can easily use this activity to search
for information on the many other great men who have led this country. In turn, you may also learn an interesting
fact or two about the U.S. too.
Credits:
The
clip art used in this Web Quest came from the Microsoft site: http://office.microsoft.com