General Information Project Overview Curriculum Connections Resource Connections Evaluation

  General Information

  Project Overview

The grade six classes of Goulds Elementary will use informational skills and research strategies to communicate information pertaining to their home province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the ongoing 500th Cabot Anniversary Celebrations to ot her schools around the world. Students will write paragraphs containing informational clues related to events in our 500 year history. Other schools around the world are challenged to use the clues and their own resources to solve the puzzles. The answer will then be e-mailed to Goulds Elementary. Using a map of the world and incorporating map and globe skills, students will track their responses and post it on their home page and on a map in their classrooms.

  Curriculum Connections

There are many curriculum connections within this particular project:

- The most obvious connection is to the grade six social studies programme, in particular, chapter 3: Adventurers Along the Atlantic, this will include the use of map and globe skills.

- Language arts will play a large role in the communication aspect of this project both in composing the paragraphs containing the clues to events in our history and in reporting the information on the homepage and presenting it in class.

- As well, there are connections to problem solving strategies related to mathematics.

Intended Learning Outcomes

• understand a sense of time and chronology in Newfoundland's history
• understand the concept of location (position on the earth's surface)
• understand locational competencies (map and globe skills)
• understand the historical factors that have influenced the development of the Atlantic Region with emphasis on Newfoundland and Labrador.
• appreciate that sources of information are often incomplete
• know why sea routes were preferred to land routes
• appreciate how the main geographical features of the Atlantic Region affected the people in the past and the present
• will write for a variety of audiences and recognize the variety of information required by various audiences
• understand and use the language of writing eg. drafting, revising, description.
• seek out feedback from teachers and peers about their own writing
• design a plan by collecting and organizing data
• supply necessary information for solving a problem

  Resource Connections

The success of this project will be directly linked to student access to computers and the Internet. Through the STELLAR Schools Internet connection, students will be able to post information on a home page, track responses from their audiences and us e the Internet to gain information and knowledge about their project. As stated in the Department of Education 's document on learning outcomes for Technology Education, elementary students should be able to use communications technologies to collaborate with students, teachers and others at a distance in order to develop and implement solutions to problems. Students will also use word processing software within the school to type and print their results.

  Evaluation

At the conclusion of this project students will be required to collect all data and post the results on the homepage. Students will be expected to analyze the results and use their map and globe skills to locate the source of the audience responses. Students will choose one of the locations for a research project based on the comparison of geographical and historical information.