ICT and Geography - Web Quest

This is my web quest that I have done for a Lower KS2 class. Unfortunately because I originally did this is word the format and the pictures have not been successfully transferred to the Blog (but this gives you the ideas and my opinions of this type of task at the end)


A Leaflet for an Alien

There have been recent rumours that funny looking little green men are on their way to Southampton.
We have reports that they are very nice, but they get lost very easily.

NASA in America, who has been monitoring their progress, has asked this class to create a detailed leaflet about Southampton, so that the aliens can know all about us and don’t get lost.

Use the web links and the questions below to answer the questions. You can then use these answers and any good pictures you find to create your leaflet for the funny looking green men.
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Can you describe where Southampton is?
http://www.dyslexia-england.co.uk/map-england.gif
Think of things like, what country and what county is Southampton in? Is Southampton in the north, south east or west of the country? What other towns and cities are close by?

Can you describe what Southampton is like to the Alien?
Use this web site to help, but don’t forget you live here too so you can tell the alien a bit about what you see when you look around in Southampton.
http://www.southampton.gov.uk/tabs/visitors
You can also describe things like the weather and transport in the city and the different types of jobs.

Could you tell the aliens why we have some really old ruins right in the centre of our city?
http://www.ecastles.co.uk/southampton.html
Because an alien may think this is a little strange.

There are plans to build a new IKEA shop in the centre of Southampton.
What do local people think about this?
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/video/display.var.1119193.0.0.php
Can you tell the aliens how you think a big shop like this will affect you and the other people in the city? (questions that you might like to think about: Will it block up the roads or will it make more money for the people living in the city?)


NC KS2 1a,d,e / 2a,d,f / 3 a,c,d,e / 6 a,

This is for a KS2 Geography lesson. Probable for a year 4 or 5 class but can be easily adapted for year 3s and with a little more simplification it could possibly be used for KS1 year 2s.

I thought that creating a web quest is a really good idea as I have seen so many children told to go and research something with very little direction, or a list of web address with the children spend most of the lesson attempting to type them in correctly. Here all the children have to do is click on them and they are away. I think that this information could be used either at the beginning of a topic in order to spark the children’s imagination, or it could be used half way through a topic as it does as the children to use the information but to also reflect on their own knowledge and understanding of the city in which they live. I feel that this activity should be done in either pairs or groups of three of mixed ability, so that the children can share their prior knowledge and understanding and children with lower literacy levels can help the others. This is a great tool but the links must be checked by the teacher the night before the children are to take on the task because the Internet is forever changing and incorrect or removed links are likely to demotivate the children.