The Idea:
Throughout the school year, second graders at Richards Elementary School study many different topics in social studies. Some of the topics have included community, government, maps, landmarks, and change. In order to share what they have learned, students have created a hand drawn tour of Whitefish Bay where their school is located.

Planning:
As a class, students brainstormed a list of landmarks and points of interest located here in Whitefish Bay. Next each person chose one landmark or point of interest from the list that they wanted to learn more about. The challenge was to research at least three interesting facts about their topic and to fill in the information page assigned for social studies homework.

Researching:
Students chose interesting research strategies, including visiting the landmark or place of interest, interviewing people who own or work at the landmark or place of interest, visiting the library to find documents which give information on the history of the landmark or place of interest, and interviewing adults, such as parents and grandparents, to learn what they know or remember about the landmarks or places of interest.

Writing:
Back at school, the teacher discussed the elements of a well-written report, such as a short but descriptive title, an interesting beginning sentence to catch the reader's interest, accurate details in the body of the report, and an interesting closing sentence. Later students took their research notes to the iMac Lab and used AppleWorks to write their reports.

Illustrating:
A few days later, students used pencils, crayons, colored pencils, and markers to create detailed drawings of the local landmarks and places of interest to illustrate their reports. Back in the iMac Lab, students scanned and saved their drawings as jpeg files.

Publishing:
The teacher combined students' text files and graphic files to create web pages to complete the Tour of the Bay project. Students proofread the final copy then the Tour was ready to publish on the 2K web page. 2K would like to share their project with you.