Introduction
The
activities described here were set up for a whole class.
Children were grouped according to ability.
There are four separate activities all giving pupils the opportunity to
access the Internet, locate information and then use that information to
create a presentation. Initially, the research was presented as a wall
display. However, a presentation involving all pupils explaining what they
had done and what they found out was also made to each other within the
classroom, and an invited audience of parents and governors.
Photographs from the presentation can be seen by clicking HERE.
Many thanks to the staff and pupils of Bedlington Station First
School for their help with this project.
Working in pairs, the children used Yahoo weather pages to find details of the weather in two cities in the UK on agreed dates. Each pair had a 'buddy' from Group 4 (a more able group). This information was recorded using 'My World' weather screen. They entered the names of the cities, placed the names in the correct position on the My World map. They added appropriate symbols based on the information they found on the Internet. The temperature was also included.
Consequently, Group 1 were be able to present weather information from eight cities. They were also able to make comparisons across these eight cities.
Working in pairs, the children in this group also used Yahoo Weather. Their research required them to find the temperature in three cities across the world. They all shared their information (e.g. 5 pairs of children will collate temperatures from 15 cities).
The information was entered into 'First Workshop' and presented as a graph. The children were all asked to present their information in a different graph format.
Children in this group were responsible for researching information about each city used by Group 1. (During the preparation phase it was important to select cities for group 1 that it would be possible for this group to find information about.) There were opportunities for discussion amongst the pupils concerning the sort of information that would of interest and use. The available information was copied and could be edited on a separate PC or as a hard copy before altering on a PC. Pictures were also saved from the relevant website to insert in the pupils final DTP presentation. 'Pages' was used for the presentation.
Using the BBC weather site, children in this group looked at the radar pictures of weather in the UK. These pictures are updated every 3 hours during the day. Changes in weather could be seen almost as they happened. The pictures can be printed out and compared. The task for the children was to predict what the weather would be for the next 24 hours. The radar pictures for that 24 hour period could then be printed out to see how accurate the children were.
Summary
All research could be presented as hard copies for a wall
display. The presentation to their peers, parents and governors requires
them to explain what they had done, how they had done it and what the
results were. Through doing so, their understanding of the activities and
skills and content is furthered.
Weblinks page: To help pupils link
directly to the pages they needed for their research, a page was set which
included brief summaries of the work they had to do and the relevant
hyperlinks. This can be found at:
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/images/worldweather/weblinks.htm
The addresses
of the separate websites used are as follows:
Group 1: http://weather.yahoo.com/regional/Europe/United_Kingdom.html
Group 2: http://weather.yahoo.com/
Group 3: http://www.britannia.com/travel/city
Group4: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ukweather/radar.shtml
Click on the picture opposite
to download .pdf version of the information.
Copying from the Internet: An information sheet was also made available to the children to guide them them through the process of copying pictures and text from the web pages they accessed. Click on the picture opposite to download this.
