Oceanography

I. Briefly review the project form. Discuss the project theme, outline and time line; review the project and curriculum objectives.

Project Theme: To develop an Intranet that will give students an opportunity to practice internet searching skills and to collect information that will meet the objectives required in the oceanography unit of the Grade 9 science program.

Project Outline and Time line:

1. To identify the objectives of the oceanography unit of study.
2. To locate the appropriate sites on the Internet that will address these objectives.
3. To grab the appropriate sites and download them to a school based server (Intranet)
4. To provide students a paper resource on which they will record the responses to the objectives.
5. Have students use a search engine to search the sites downloaded to find appropriate information.
6. Place the resource package on G. C. Rowe School home page so that students and others interested in oceanography can search for information from home computers (this will allow students who do not complete package in school in the time frame provided to complete at home).
7. Have copies of downloaded information saved on CD so that other schools can have easy access to all information for their own servers (sharing resources).

Project Objectives and Curriculum - The objective(s) for student learning for this project are:

1. Have students use a search engine to search the sites downloaded to find appropriate information.
2. Have students sift through variety of sites as identified by search engines to find appropriate information.
3. Have students, in groups, communicate their findings in order to identify the best resource for the objective.
4. Have students use a paper resource to record the responses to the objectives.

The curriculum outcomes support all objectives for a Grade 9 oceanography unit as outlined by Newfoundland and Labrador's Department of Education. Information supporting these objectives is not found in any of the resources provided by the Department of Education. Herein lies the potential value of this resource to teachers and students.

II. Show the audience the outcome of the project proposal.

Results and a tour of the project can be seen at: http://www.k12.nf.ca/gcrowe/miscell.html

III. Briefly comment on any successes or problems that were encountered throughout the life of the project.

Successes - the information, which met the objectives of an entire unit of study, was located on the Internet and downloaded to an Intranet. This allowed students to search as they would an Internet to find appropriate sites that would answer the objectives. Up to this point, no one source of information was available to meet all of these objectives. Information has been transferred to CD so that other schools can participate with their own Intranet.

Problems - it was difficult to find sites on the Internet that would address all of the objectives. Setting up an index server that would provide appropriate summaries of sites was also difficult.

IV. Comment on any aspects of the project that you would do differently.

Upgrade the Index Server that was used as our network's search engine so that better summaries can be available for students to preview. This would allow students to easily zero in on sites that best meet the objectives under study.

V. Comment on if and how the project can be expanded next year.

This project is a complete unit of study in the Grade 9 science program. There will be no expansion since the unit is complete. However, as new and better sites are identified, they may be downloaded and added to our Intranet.