Strengthening Curriculum using the Internet

Develop an activity that will get your students searching for specific information. You might even award prizes for the first correct answer(s) found. You and your students can have fun while they are practicing critical thinking skills. You can create a question of the day, or of the week, or even of the month.

Here are some suggestions as you create your treasure hunts:

1. Clearly identify the topic/subject area. This organizational tip will help you in the future.
2. Develop higher order thinking questions. Challenge the students to do more than answer simple information gathering questions. Instead, create questions that require the students to use process thinking skills.
3. Less is better. Don't get carried away with lengthy lists of links. With young students, offer them only one or two choices for exploration. As student become older you can include more links, but try to keep your list of links to ten or less.
4. Set a definite beginning and ending time. When you assign the treasure hunt to your students, set a definite time when the treasure hunt will end.
5. Determine how students will share their information. Decide if the students will need to fill out a worksheet or create some kind of product that illustrates they understand the content.
6. Check for dead links. You should periodically check to make sure that your links are still active.

Examples of treasure hunts:

a. Black History (high school)

This is an example of a hotlist of sites with research questions added to it.

b. Museum Mania (elementary)

This webpage will take you on a mini-tour for exceptional sites to use in your classroom.

c. CyberBee Treasure Hunt (elementary)

Choose from several curriculum related examples of treasure hunts.

 

Creating your treasure hunt - a 3 step process:

1. Another integration format you can use is a treasure hunt. You can either use those links you found when researching the NETS for students or use these two webpages to find other Internet resources for your students:
   • Lesson Plan Resource Links
   • List of Search Engines
2. Create question(s) you want your students to research then list suggested Internet resources where they can find the answer(s) to the questions. Your question should begin with one of the following:
   1. Why? (Analysis: Why do things happen the way that they do?)
   2. How? (Problem Solving: How could things be made better?)
   3. Which? (Decision Making: Which do I select?)
3. Finally, download, save then edit the Word document listed below to record the sites you find. Share your resources with other teachers!

Go to the next page for tips on how to create a WebQuest.