SUBJECT: Science/Language Arts
GRADE: 4
TECHNOLOGY: Internet/Search Engine
BY: Arabella Pettit

What’s the Weather ?

GRADE: 4 - heterogeneous grouping

RELEVANCE: The students have been using search engines in their computer class to research topics and should be able to transfer that knowledge to this assignment for finding the weather in various locations in a given state. This assignment is part of a science unit studying weather and will also be a part of a language arts assignment where the students are researching and creating a brochure on a given state.

OBJECTIVES: Each student will demonstrate an understanding of and ability to use the search engines on the internet to locate information on the weather in a given city on a given day using the classroom computer or school computer lab by finding weather information for three cities in their research state and by presenting the information to the class through an oral weather report

MATERIALS: paper, pencil, computer with internet access

LESSON DESCRIPTION:
The students will work on completing this assignment before school, after lunch, during recess and in computer class.
As a class, we will brainstorm ways that we might use search engines to find weather reports for various locations. Students will come up with key words or phrases and will also share sites they might already know to be helpful. Then, each student will choose three different locations within the state they are researching for language arts. These will be the cities or locations whose weather the students will work to find. Since most weather sites have five day forecasts, we will choose a day that everyone will gather information for so that we can place the temperatures and information on a map and observe the different types of weather over the United States on a given day. I will make a list of students to use the computer in our classroom and will limit their time to 15 minutes. If a student does not finish, he or she will be moved to the end of the list. The students will not be allowed to work on this at home because I want to observe that they are doing the work and are not being assisted by parents or older siblings. Students will also be responsible for writing down the address of the site where they found their information.

ASSESSMENT:
Students will be informally assessed as they work on their assignment in terms of whether or not they work efficiently and independently.
Students will be formally assessed according to the material they present regarding the weather conditions in their chosen locations. Students must turn in a written description of the weather conditions, the temperature, and the address of the web site. They will also be assessed in terms of their oral presentation of the weather report. (Have they practiced? Do they speak loudly and slowly so everyone can understand?)