Put the Title of the

Acid Rain:

A WebQuest

A WebQuest for 5th Grade Science and Social Studies

Heath Horton, Jenny Pierce, Lisa Vaughn, Mary Thomas
hhorton1@kent.edu, jmpierc1@kent.edu, lmvaughn@kent.edu, mathoma3@kent.edu

The Earth From Space

Knowing that Earth sustains our needs and wants, it is important to maintain our planet. However, due to pollution, lack of conservation, and not being informed on environmental issues, Earth may not be able to sustain us in the twenty-first century and beyond. Therefore, this webquest was created to help you, as a citizen of Earth, become informed about the issues effecting Earth and what we can do to protect Earth. Specifically, this webquest will be focusing on acid rain and how it affects Earth’s renewable resources such as wildlife, plants, and water. As concerned citizens of Earth, your job is to find ways we could maintain Earth’s renewable resources from acid rain. Remember, if we do not find ways to maintain Earth’s renewable resources such as air and water, the consequences will affect all of us. The knowledge that you gain from this webquest combined with what you have been studying in science, social studies, math and language arts will provide you with the background you need to develop ways to maintain Earth’s renewable resources.

The content standards for this webquest are:

Science:

Explore ways Earth’s renewable resources such as fresh water, air, wildlife and trees can be maintained.

Social Studies:

Get information from a variety of print and electronic sources and judge its reliability, including how accurate the facts are and the expertise of the person or group providing the information.

Task

The task that you will be performing will help you to learn more about acid rain and how it affects our environment. Each group will use the Internet to conduct research to learn about acid rain and develop ways to inform others about the problem, and what can be done.

Upon completion of this task, each group will have created an informational pamphlet. This pamphlet will explain what acid rain is, and the effects that it has had on our environment. The pamphlet will also explain what everyone can do to help. Students will also be responsible for writing a reflection about what they have learned. They will also include a plan for how they will bring awareness of acid rain to others. This can be done by creating a bulletin board, writing a skit and performing it for other classes, making posters, etc. The ideas are endless!

Your groups will be using the Internet to conduct research. A list of resources has been provided for you in the Process section. You are encouraged to look through every site; however you are not required to use all of them.

Process

In this section you will find a description of what you will be working for this WebQuest. These activities will take five days to complete.

Day 1: You will be placed into five groups of four students. Each group will have four roles to carry out. Once you are in your groups, you can discuss who is going to take what role. The roles are: Biologist, Medical Expert, Chemist and Architect. A Group Roles page has been created for you. This page lists questions next to each role. You will be responsible for researching the answers to the questions next to your assigned group role. As soon as the group roles have been assigned, you will begin to use the Internet to conduct research. If you click on the resources link, it will take you to a list of websites that you may use for your research. All of the sites are easy to understand, and will help you to find the information that you are looking for.

Resources

Day 2: You will continue researching. Your group will begin to compile their information.

Day 3: You will work with your groups to create an informational pamphlet. This pamphlet will explain what acid rain is, and what causes it. The pamphlet should include what effects it has on people and things. (This is where the information associated with your role will come into play!) You need to mention what effects acid rain has on people, man-made structures, (such as buildings and roads) and plant life. It is important to make sure that information pertaining to each role is represented. Acid rain effects EVERYTHIING! Be sure to write detailed descriptions! The last part of the pamphlet should include ways that people can help to minimize the effects of acid rain. Try to focus on the things that people can do that will not cause major disruptions in their life. For example, you may find out that car exhaust is one of the major causes of acid rain. However, it would not be very practical to tell people that they need to stop driving. Your pamphlets should be colorful and easy to read. Each group will create only one pamphlet. If your group has not finished the pamphlet, there will be more time to work on it on Day 4.

Day 4: Groups that need more time will complete their informational pamphlets. Once your group has completed the pamphlet, you will write a reflection about what you have learned. Each student will write a reflection of his or her own. The reflection should be at about one page in length. It should include new information that you did not know previous to doing this WebQuest. You should also include a way that you would try to raise awareness about acid rain. One example of a way that you might do this is by making posters and placing them around your school. There are many ways that you could raise awareness. Be creative!

Day 5: Each group will present their informational pamphlets to the class. Xerox copies of the pamphlets will be made and distributed to all students. After these presentations we will discuss the ideas for awareness that you created in your reflections. The class will vote on the three best ideas. We will devise plans to carry out these three awareness strategies during the next few months. The class may opt to break into committees to organize what needs to be done. It is up to you, the students, to decide how these plans should be carried out. The power is yours!

Evaluation

Although this is a group project, students will receive individual grades based on their research, group participation and reflection.

	Beginning 1	Developing 2	Accomplished 3	Exemplary 4	Score
Research	Does not collect any information that relates to the topic.	Collects very little information--some relates to the topic.	Collects some basic information--most relates to the topic	Collects a great deal of information--all relates to the topic.
Group Contribution	Does not contribute information to the group	Rarely contributes information to group	Normally contributes information to group	Always contributes information to group; takes an active role in the group process
Pamphlet	One or fewer roles were represented in the pamphlet	Two roles were represented in the pamphlet	Three or four roles were represented in the pamphlet	All four roles were represented in the pamphlet; group displayed high level of creativity
Reflection	Reflection lacks a plan	Reflection is vague and plan lacks detail	Reflection is thorough but lacks specific details; plan is descriptive	Reflection is thorough and detailed; plan is realistic and descriptive

Conclusion

Upon completing this webquest, you should have a better understanding of what acid rain is, what type of resources (renewable and nonrenewable) it effects and what you could do to help maintain our environment. One of the goals of this webquest was for you to understand that in order for you to protect Earth from acid rain, and other things that may harm, it requires you to become informed and then take action. Through designing informational pamphlets and your reflections, hopefully, you have become more aware of how serious acid rain is.

Although this webquest served as an introduction to the topic of acid rain, there are a variety of ways you could continue to learn about acid rain. One of the best ways to learn more about acid rain is to visit your school or local library. There should be plenty of information available on this topic. Another great resource is the Internet. The internet contains a surplus of information on acid rain and you can retrieve it with the click of a mouse! It is important to keep in mind not only the information you learned from this webquest, but also those questions that were not answered during your initial research. Remember…the more you know about acid rain the better prepared you are to educate others and take action.

Credits and References

Pictures used in this webquest were taken from the following websites:

http://www.edu-source.com/RCEE/lessons/clip%20art%20for%20lessons/images/rain%20cloud.gif

http://www.wwf.it/summit/images/19061_germany%2520Acid%2520rain.jpg

http://www.acalanes.k12.ca.us/ahs/images/raindrops.gif

http://wvlightning.com/johnamos/rain.jpg

http://www.maltaweather.info/Acid_Rain.gif

We would like to thank the faculty and staff of Kent State University’s Middle Childhood Education program for providing this webquest template.

Teacher Page

Original template created by Tom Ely and modified for this class.