Use the following 5-day plan to help students conduct this week's Internet inquiry activity
on granting freedom to animals. Remind students to follow classroom rules when using
the Internet.
Identify Questions Discuss the lesson focus question: When might it be hard to grant freedom? Brainstorm ideas for specific inquiry questions about granting freedom to animals. For example, students might want to find out where baby chicks go after they have been hatched in a classroom, or what happens to the butterflies after a school butterfly release. Have students work individually, in pairs, or in small groups to write an inquiry question they want to answer.
Navigate/Search Teach students how to evaluate Web sites. Explain some factors to consider. Is the information current or out-of-date? Is the site easy to navigate and read? Are there spelling or grammatical errors? Are there distracting pop-up ads? Remind students to consider these factors when selecting sites to analyze.
Analyze Have students explore and analyze information from the Web sites they identified on Day 2. Tell them to scan and analyze information for credibility, reliability, and usefulness. They can print and then highlight relevant information.
Synthesize Have students synthesize information from Day 3. Remind them that when they synthesize, they pull together the relevant ideas from different sources to develop an answer to their inquiry questions.
Communicate Have students share their inquiry results. They can use a word processing program to create a short article for a school newspaper.