For Teachers
Welcome to my webquest on fracking.
This webquest was created in fulfillment of a class assignment for teaching literacy in content area classes. It is intended for middle-school science.
My aim was to create a guided investigation of a controversial issue in as neutral a way as possible. I have tried to include a balanced number of resources on both sides of the issue, and I have tried to be consistent in the guiding questions to avoid any personal influence on students' developing conclusions.
This webquest has two main goals:
The eight student pages in this webquest guide students through a series of web pages, with instructions or questions before and after each reading task. The "before" instructions are intended as pre-reading tasks, to help stimulate interest or curiosity or activate prior knowledge. The "after" questions are intended to help students check their comprehension of the text.
The guiding questions could be used in several ways:
Click here for formative and summative student assessment.
Only the summative assessment rubric is provided for student viewing on the Assessment page.
To get the students started, send them to: http://fracking--a-webquest.weebly.com/getting-started.html
If you need to get back to this teacher page (not linked from any of the student pages), just delete anything after .com in the URL. That should take you back to this home page.
I hope you find this webquest useful, and I welcome feedback.
You can contact me at: [email protected]
October, 2012.
This webquest was created in fulfillment of a class assignment for teaching literacy in content area classes. It is intended for middle-school science.
My aim was to create a guided investigation of a controversial issue in as neutral a way as possible. I have tried to include a balanced number of resources on both sides of the issue, and I have tried to be consistent in the guiding questions to avoid any personal influence on students' developing conclusions.
This webquest has two main goals:
- To help students investigate an aspect of natural gas as one of several energy sources. This is intended to be one lesson (perhaps spanning several days) in a unit of study on energy. It helps fulfill 8th grade science objectives in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. It is presumed that some study about energy has already taken place, including an overview of different energy sources. My hope is that the controversial nature of this topic will engage students' interest and help provide some motivation for their study.
- To support students' developing skills in technological literacy -- both reading comprehension skills using online texts, and media-consumption skills, guiding students through the process of evaluating the trustworthiness of websites. It will be helpful to have at least a short discussion beforehand about bias, and what it means for information to be biased vs. balanced. It is presumed that students have had some instruction on how to use web pages, including how to open browser windows and tabs, and specifically, how to "right-click" to open a page in a new tab, so that they can toggle back and forth among open pages.
The eight student pages in this webquest guide students through a series of web pages, with instructions or questions before and after each reading task. The "before" instructions are intended as pre-reading tasks, to help stimulate interest or curiosity or activate prior knowledge. The "after" questions are intended to help students check their comprehension of the text.
The guiding questions could be used in several ways:
- Students could write brief answers, using a science notebook or a worksheet for the webquest.
- Students could work in small groups and discuss the questions verbally.
- Students could respond to the questions verbally, either in groups or individually, and record their answers using a digital recorder (or smart phone). Their responses could then be used as a starting point for a written report, talking points for a debate, or some other form of assignment to demonstrate their understanding.
Click here for formative and summative student assessment.
Only the summative assessment rubric is provided for student viewing on the Assessment page.
To get the students started, send them to: http://fracking--a-webquest.weebly.com/getting-started.html
If you need to get back to this teacher page (not linked from any of the student pages), just delete anything after .com in the URL. That should take you back to this home page.
I hope you find this webquest useful, and I welcome feedback.
You can contact me at: [email protected]
October, 2012.
