Lesson 3 Revisited: SIRS Discoverer and Researcher

I looked up armadillos and many articles came up for the search.  Although when I looked through them, many on them were not about armadillos, but things related to armadillos.  They were on broader topics.  Some articles only mentioned armadillos 1 time.  The first article "Awesome Armadillos" was the best article for researching or writing information from.  I read this article and learned a few things myself about armadillos.  I was not aware of how versatile this animals is.   I was not aware they could swim or that they would sink to the bottom of the water and run along the ground.  A lot of new information can be found in this article.  The other articles could be used to enhance your research, but I would not use them as the basis for a paper or research.   A few of the articles had pictures, and most of them were rather lengthy.  They would be more for students in upper middle school and high school reading levels.

I then chose Germany for the Country facts.  I was impressed by how current the statistics were, they were from 2010.  This helps gives students an accurate pictrure of what each country is really like.  I also liked the Teacher resources pages.  This would help when you are telling facts for students to organize their information and their thoughts.  Sometimes facts tend to be boring and students are confused as to what they are hearing. 

I also chose a Map of Germany from the Maps section.  I was impressed by how detailed the maps are.  This map included the primary and secondary roads. It also included the railroad paths.  This is something most maps do not include.

I also chose to look at the Biographies section of the Database Features.  I chose Dr. Suess, as his birthday is fast approaching.  I was impressed by the amount of information, as well as the links to resources teachers can easily use in the classroom.  I also liked how the article was linked to other sources and how it included one his more famous quotes.  This could be a valuable resource when students are writing reports about famous people.

From the SIRS Issue Researcher, I chose to look at the Leading issue of Banned Books.  I like how they show both sides of the issue for students to read and considers.  There were quite a few research tools to enhance the research;  I especially like the timeline tool.  It was interesting to see how long books have been banned (since the 1600's). 

I chose Social Studies from the Curriculum Pathfinders.   It was nice the way it showed all the different courses that are under the Social Studies Umbrella.  I also like the many different resources you can use to do research.  The Diaries were interesting.  Some were even interactive, which makes it more interesting for students.

Thank you for your help Julie and Jane!