Life On Earth

A WebQuest for Years 5 & 6

hill.rosemary.l@edumail.vic.gov.au

Introduction

Your task is to design a virtual exhibit about how Life on Earth began.

Task

Your task is to make a PowerPoint show or use Inspiration to teach others about one of the following:

Charles Darwin and why he is important.

Process

Explore the web links below, and find the most useful ones for your topic.

Ask your team to help you work out some rules for choosing items for your exhibit. What would others like to learn? What will interest your audience? How many exhibits will you need?

Now search for items that fit your rules. Take notes about the items and record the URL. Add explanations in kid-friendly language if necessary.

Show your team and decide together as a team on a final set of exhibits.

Prepare your exhibit using either PowerPoint or Inspiration, with web links to the items you chose.

Describe and show your exhibit to your audience.

Fossils	What is a fossil? How are they formed? Where were Trilobites found in Victoria? View some cartoons that show how fossils form: Layers of the Past How do scientists work out what the fossil is? Pick A Bone Video animation of creatures of the Cambrian period. Video: How did whales lose their legs?
Prehistoric Reptiles	The Australian Dinosaur Story Aussie dinosaurs Lost Kingdoms - have a look at some Aussie dinosaurs in the Cretaceous era (146-65 million years ago)
Prehistoric Mammals	Aussie megafauna: Find out about the giant creatures that used to roam Australia. Which was the largest marsupial? Which was the largest monotreme? Which ones were carnivores? How big was the giant goanna? Lost Kingdoms - have a look at some Aussie prehistoric mammals in the Pliocene era(5-1.6 million years ago) What happened to the megafauna? The Big Debate
Prehistoric People	Life in the Stone Age Cavemen facts A Picture Sequence of Evolution Timeline of Human Evolution Another Timeline of Human Evolution Human Evolution - A Science Odyssey Simple tools & more tools
Charles Darwin	Darwin's Diary

Assessment

This rubric shows how your work will be assessed.

	1 Not finished, not satisfactory or not enough work done to tell.	2 Ok, but some improvement needed to achieve the expected standard.	3 Very good, achieving the standard expected	4 Outstanding, well above the standard expected
Group skills	Your group had lots of problems and needed a lot of teacher help to sort them out.	You needed teacher help to sort out a problem.	You had some problems but you fixed them yourself.	Your group worked well together all the time.
Work skills	Some people didn't do any work at all.	Some of you did a fair share of the work.	Most of you did a fair share of the work.	Everyone did a fair share of the work all the time.
Navigation skills	You didn't try, you couldn't do it, or you didn't finish looking.	You needed help to navigate most of the web pages.	You needed help to navigate some of the web pages.	You navigated the web pages by yourselves.
Note taking skills	You didn't take any notes or you cut and pasted ideas from the website. (Plagiarism)	You took a few notes & recorded a few of the URLs of the websites you used.	You took notes & recorded most of the URLs of the websites you used.	You took detailed notes & recorded the URL of all the websites you used.
Knowledge	You don't understand the topic, or there's not enough work done to tell.	You showed you understand your topic quite well and explained it reasonably clearly.	Your work shows that you understand your topic quite well and explained it reasonably clearly.	Your work shows that you understand your topic thoroughly and explained it very clearly.
Creativity	The design for your virtual exhibit has no original ideas.	The design for your virtual exhibit has a few original ideas.	The design for your virtual exhibit has some original ideas.	The design for your virtual exhibit has many original ideas.
Computer skills	You couldn't do it, you didn't try or you didn't get enough work done to tell.	You needed a lot of help to use PowerPoint or Inspiration to prepare the virtual exhibit.	You needed some help to use PowerPoint or Inspiration to prepare the virtual exhibit.	You used PowerPoint or Inspiration to prepare the virtual exhibit all by yourself.
Presentation skills	Your presentation is very untidy and disorganised.	Your presentation is a bit untidy and disorganised.	Your presentation is neat, and organised.	Your presentation is neat, visually attractive and very well organised.
English expression	There are many spelling, punctuation or sentence construction errors.	There are some spelling, punctuation or sentence construction errors.	There are a few spelling, punctuation or sentence construction errors.	There are no spelling, punctuation or sentence construction errors.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have become an 'expert' about Life on Earth and can teach other students about your topic.

Extra stuff to explore at home...

Thanks to Museum Victoria Online, the Australian Museum Online, PBS Arlington, Virginia, US Geological Survey, UK Museum of Antiquities, BBC Online, Wilderdom, the Hunterian Museum Glasgow, and the Australian Heritage Directory.

This WebQuest is based on a template from The WebQuest Page. See the Design Patterns page for other useful templates.

Thanks to Yahoo Geocities for hosting the LisaHillSchoolStuff site.

Teaching is a collegiate profession. We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this WebQuest, update or otherwise modify it, and use it in any way to further student understanding of science.