Lesson 4

SIRS

SIRS Discoverer

1. I looked up wolves. It was cool to be able to select the reading level of the articles. The articles also included citations so that the students would be able to copy and paste them into their own documents! (MLA style) It has magazine articles - no more spending time in microfiche!! I am certainly old!

2.

•  I chose Qatar since a young man I know was stationed the a couple of times and I really don't know anything about the area. I like how the information is in an easy to read format and that it has links to things that can give the reader more information. The timeline of major events in its history would be very beneficial to the student!  I was also pleased with the additional resources at the bottom.
• Maps help students to become curious about the world around them learn about places that they do not know about. A potential use would be for students to learn about keys and how to compute distances between two places.
• I chose the iThink Database feature. I think that I will use this feature for my fifth graders as they are beginning their final research project for the year! It is cool!!

SIRS Issues Researcher

1. The topic I chose was animal cruelty. This resource would been infinitely valuable when I was a student! It gives the issue and its definition and it also gives the pros and cons of the issue showing students that there are always two sides to an issue. The site provides various source types and these source types provide a summary for the for the researcher so that he/she will immediately know if the article will pertain to his/her needs. The research tools are tremendous - I especially liked the timeline and the global impact tools - they provided information possibilities that I would never even thought of!!

2. I chose the subject of Health and then I went into the subheading of Nutrition.
   
     Things I liked about the site:

•  There were a lot of ways to narrow your search - newspapers, magazines, etc.
•  There was a see also section for example: animal nutrition, children nutrition etc.
•  I like that you can add the articles to a list that you can access later.
•  The summaries for each article are informative and helpful