Black History Month

     In this lesson, fourth grade students will conduct research on the Internet and in the library, on African American inventors, scholars  and literary figures, in celebration of Black History Month.  Students use kid-safe search engines and gather useful information from printed sources in the library. 

Objectives:  

• to learn about notable African-Americans and their accomplishments

• to learn how to conduct research via the Internet

• to learn specific search techniques for more productive results

• to learn how to use note cards to gather important information from a document

• to learn how to take short phrases and turn them into paragraph form

• to create a web page using MS FrontPage

• to download images from the Internet and insert them into a web page

• to learn how to document library, Internet sources and images

Requirements:

• a list of notable African American

• computers or computer lab, equipped with the Internet and Microsoft FrontPage or some other web authoring software

• note cards

• list of kid-safe search engines

• Teacher proficient in FrontPage or other web authoring software

Grade Level: 3rd and up

Interdisciplinary Subjects: Social Studies/Library/Language Arts/Computer

Step-by-Step Procedures:

I.  The Research

1. Students work in groups of 2 or 3.  They will pick from a jar, the name of the person they will research.  Suggested web sites:

   • Top Ten African American Inventors

   • Enchanted Learning: African American Inventors

   • Black Inventors and Engineers

   • Infoplease: Scholars and Educators

   • Infoplease: Literary Figures

2. Bookmark on the computer, a list of kid-friendly web sites where they can search. ex, Onekey, Yahooligans,  Education World, KidsClick!, TrackStar.  Give search techniques to narrow search results.  For more information on how to narrow searches, click here and read number 3.

3. Tell students what they will be looking for in the research.   Each topic will be on a different note card: 

   1. Card 1: Basic information. (name of person, title, DOB, when died if applicable

   2. Card 2: Educational Information (schools attended, certificates or degrees earned)

   3. Card 3: Early Years (where did they live, siblings, inspirations/turning points)

   4. Card 4: Major Accomplishments (What did they do...ex: Hit the most homeruns in league baseball)

   5. Card 5: Special Awards/Recognitions (example:  Inducted into the Baseball Hall of fame)

   6. Card 6: Bibliography

4. Have students begin taking notes on Index Cards:  Click here for instructions

5. If a printed document is to be used, the URL must be listed on the bibliography page. 

II.  The Web Page

1. This final product is done using Microsoft FrontPage. 

2. Students are to type their information from the note cards into paragraph form, such as is done using any word processor. 

3. A picture of the person they are researching is to be inserted into their document.

III.  Bibliography

1. The bibliography page can be created using the Citation Machine: http://landmark-project.com/citation_machine.   Students simply plug in their information and the citation is generated.  All sources used, including sites for pictures must be cited.  Once the citation has been generated, it can be copied and pasted to a separate web page created for the Bibliography.  Credit must also be given to the Citation Machine web site.   Depending on the grade level, the Yahooligans site can also be used for citing Internet sources: http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/tg/23.html