Thing #12 (Week 5)

Oh Rollyo, a great idea without the best execution. I made my first searchroll early this week just to play around. I looked for kid-friendly sites about ladybugs, since my first graders will be watching their lifecycle unfold firsthand in our classroom this spring. As some of our classmates noted, it was VERY slow, no matter which web browser I used, but otherwise quite simple to use. Sadly, after I finished my entire searchroll, the site went down and I lost everything! That was quite frustrating, to say the least, especially after the SECOND time it happened!!


I made my searchroll for this project around the Chesapeake Bay. My school has been a "green school" for several years, and is up for re-certification this year. There are numerous steps our students take in order to earn and maintain this status, so I thought this could be a helpful resource for the project. I have always had an interest in the preservation of the Bay, and met my husband while sailing and teaching aboard the skipjack Martha Lewis. Our organization's mission included preservation, education, and maintaining the heritage of the Bay's tradition of working watermen.

I have included kid-friendly sites and a few teacher resources that will provide more background information and links to educators. The links geared toward students are interactive - offering games, virtual experiments, and even a web quest from another school in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Topics include the landforms of the bay, water type, watershed, pollution, invasive species, native species, habitats, history, restoration programs, and much more. I think the Living Bay Online site is one of the best, since it is full of photographs, kid-friendly facts, links to information, and quizzes and games where children can apply their new knowledge. I had lots of fun playing around on the site, and I didn't get through even half of what was available!

Here's the link at long last:
http://rollyo.com/bdoodles/chesapeake_bay/

(You can see the 12 websites I selected for this search roll by clicking the "list of sites" below the search bar.)