Egypt Research Project

I am excited to report that Jeanne and I are working on a collaborative project! Nothing better than having a great Media Specialist that I can turn to!

I have always done a research project on Ancient Egypt because it is high interest for the students and to get them researching right away at the beginning of the year. This year I have decided to change the project and "ramp it up" quite a bit to align better with National History Day.

Jeanne and I both know the challenges students have faced in the past with History Day, so we were able to come up with some areas that kids need to focus on: citing sources, note taking, searching databases. Rather than focus on all parts of the research process, we decided to focus on these areas.

I used a lot of the worksheets available from the Research Project Calculator to create an informative packet for the kids. the first half of the packet will be yellow and will be all about the research process. The second part of the packet will be blue and it will deal with how to present the information. I think having this color-coded for 8th graders will work well.

I also plan on using the Wed Search Strategies in Plain English on Common Craft.

Additionally, I made a very quick powerpoint comparing a google search to a database. I am providing the students with the analogy that if you need to drive in a nail you use a hammer (database) not the ENTIRE hardware store (google). Like Jeanne said, we will still have kids wandering up and down every aisle in the hardware store, but if just a few kids catch on to the idea our job will be that much easier.

I am excited about all the planning that is going into this project and look forward to seeing the results over the next couple of weeks.