Unit – Research Basics and the Saints Project

Lesson – Gathering Data

Audience – Grades 5 and 6

Library Media Objectives:

The student will be able to:

• develop a list of keywords to use when searching for information on a particular Saint.
• evaluate two websites which contain information about Saints, using a prepared evaluation form.

Religion Objectives:

The student will be able to:

• describe the life of a Saint.
• explain how the Saint’s life influenced or changed the lives of many people.

Materials

• Middle School computer lab computers (1/student)
• Web evaluation forms
• Cereal box containing dog food

Procedure

Motivation:

Shaking the cereal box, ask, “What do you think is in here? It certainly looks like it would contain cereal, and sounds like it is cereal, but how do you really know what is in here? You have to open it up and find out, right?” Pour the dog food out onto a Kleenex so that all students can see it.

“This cereal box is like the information on the Internet. The information may look good and sound good, but until you really analyze it, you may actually be working with something as useless as dog food.”

1. Hand out website evaluation forms.
2. Have students brainstorm keywords that could be used to find information about Saints on the Internet.
3. Remind students of the questions they developed last week.
4. Allow them to search the websites prescreened (Websites for Saints file) for information about the Saint they have chosen to research.
5. Each student is responsible for evaluating two websites.

Evaluation

Teacher observation of students searching and evaluating websites.

Each student should complete the evaluation form for at least two websites.

Extension Activity

Once a student has completed two evaluations, they may help others who are not finished, affording them an opportunity to practice leadership skills.