Objective(s)

While working in cooperative groups, students will become aware of the serious environmental problem of acid rain.

Summary

Acid rain is responsible for many of the serious environmental problems facing us today. At Our Lady of Peace School, in a suburb of Montreal, Gerald Robillard created a webquest for his students to help them understand the problem. The task involved a local citizen's group hiring the students as researchers to investigate acid rain. On each team, students took on the role of chemist, ecologist, health scientist and economist. Working within their teams, students created websites that identified the problems and made recommendations on how to combat this serious issue.

National Standards

Check your own state and districts standards.

Technology and/or Materials Needed

Computers with Internet access

Implementation Time Frame

6 weeks

Activities

Visit the Acid Rain Webquest: http://olp.swlauriersb.qc.ca/webquest/rainwq.htm The page includes all the resources you will need to complete this webquest.

Also, you may want to visit (& maybe participate) in the Acid Rain Watch site to learn more about an acid rain watch program with schools all across the world: http://www.qesn.meq.gouv.qc.ca/cc/acidrain/index.html

Assessment

While there is an evaluation rubric included in the webquest, you may wish to create your own assessment rubric at Rubistar (http://rubistar.4teachers.org/) and select "Multimedia Project" or "Research Project" or any of the other categories that best meets your needs for assessment. (Rubistar is a site that enables you to make quick and easy rubrics with pre-set criteria). You can then select the criteria and edit criteria that best serves your students' needs and abilities.

Resources and Links

Check out Netfiles' Net-igration for this month for links.