Lesson Plan: 2nd Grade Researching Dinosaurs with Credible and Non-Credible Sites

Objective

• To introduce students to researching on the internet and to distinguish between credible and non-credible sites through exploring the topic of dinosaurs
  

Materials

• Computer with internet access
• White board (for brainstorming)
  
• Worksheets with questions
• Handout with credible and non-credible websites
  

Outline:

• Create a worksheet with questions asking about different facts on dinosaurs (What are dinosaurs? What are plant eating dinosaurs called? What are meat eating dinosaurs called? When did dinosaurs exist? Did humans and dinosaurs live together? How did dinosaurs communicate? etc.)
  
• Write the questions from the worksheet on the white board and have students respond to what they believe are the answers.
• Then hand out the worksheets and explain to the students that they are going to use the internet to research the questions and find the correct answers.
  
• Use the computer (internet) to explain to the students how to type in websites and look up facts about certain topics (in this case, dinosaurs).
• Show the students the difference between a credible and non-credible site by showing them examples and having them share their ideas about the differences. Write these ideas on the board so they can see the differences and tell them to use this as a guideline when researching for their assignment. Also share with them the actual facts about credible websites, such as: having a professional publisher, having links to other references and sources, having good grammar and no spelling mistakes, etc.
  
• Give them a handout of sites (both credible and non-credible) to use but do not let them know which ones are which:
  

Credible

• http://www.kidskonnect.com/content/view/20/27/
• http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/allabout/
• http://www.fieldmuseum.org/sue/index.html
• http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dinosaurs/
• http://www.search4dinosaurs.com/index.html
• http://www.billybear4kids.com/dinosaurs/long-long-ago.html
  

Non-Credible

• http://the-office.com/bedtime-story/dinosaurs.htm
• http://www.webmasternow.com/humor/dinosaurs.html
• http://www.storyplace.org/eel/activities/dinosrock.asp?themeid=17
• http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/matt1999/alien/dino.html

• Partner up the students and let them explore these different sites in order to find the answers to the questions on the worksheet but also have them mark which sites they think are credible and which ones they think are non-credible.
• Come together in the end and go over the answers to the worksheet and also to the credible and non-credible sites exercise.
• Let them share their feedback about what they thought was challenging, interesting, fun, etc.