WEBQUEST REVIEWS

Name of site: The Lost Food Pyramid   (click on title to see the actual page!)

Date Created/Updated: Thursday April 6, 2006

Rubric Score: 20

Brief Discussion: This is a very neat WebQuest. The purpose of this one is to have children understand the different parts of the food pyramid and why they are so important. It allows children to have fun learning about and discussing a subject that they may not be that interested in if it were just a small lecture in the classroom setting, so using it for that reason would probably be helpful. However, it may not be all that clear, as I was slightly confused at first glance. I think there are too many links on the homepage. It might help the younger students if the links to all the different food groups were on a separate page, maybe labeled links, rather than on the home page. This WebQuest allows them to gain knowledge about using the internet to gather needed information as well.

Name of the site: Red Health Habits  (click on title to see the actual page!)

Date Created/Updated: November, 2005

Rubric Score: 17

Brief Discussion: Although this is a good idea, I think it could possibly be confusing for students at first, and maybe throughout the entire project. There is a question/task they are supposed to be doing, however, it is a very general one: to make a presentation about how to stay healthy. I think it may need to be narrowed down slightly or the children may feel overwhelmed. Kids also need to be excited to do activities in school and I don't think this WebQuest tries to get them to be excited to learn. Some of the links are also extremely detailed. There are a lot of things to read and do on them which may also make a child feel overwhelmed. So, it is a good idea because prevention of illnesses is something that everyone needs to learn about, I just think that it needs a little work to make the kids more interested in what they are doing: if they aren't interested, they probably won't remember much of it! If it were made a little more "fun" for the children, I would say it could be used in an elementary classroom for to obvious reason it was made: to learn about ways to prevent illness and stay healthy.

Name of site: Body Tune Up!  (Click on title to see the actual page!)

Date Created: No date given

Rubric Score: 21

Brief Discussion: I think this is a very good WebQuest for younger children, other than it's lack of a conclusion! It is worded so a fourth grader will be able to easily understand what it is they are supposed to do and why. I really liked the names of the different roles in this project...I think they would be very appealing to a child! The task is for the children to make a radio program about what foods you should eat, what exercises you should be doing and how to stay safe. Kids could get really creative with this! I would include it in my classroom as a health lesson because it includes more than one subject on health in it. Therefore, you could cover more information in a shorter period of time since health is sometimes a hard subject to fit into the curriculum. I also really like that there is a menu and that each separate part of the WebQuest is through a different link; I think it makes for less confusion. It also has a Notes to the Teacher section, which listed the skills the students would need, the resources that would need to be obtained, and the goals and objectives. However, this is in the main menu list in between the Task, Roles, Process and Resources and Evaluation sections. It probably should have been put somewhere else just so the children do not get confused about it and think it is something they need to be focusing on! The colors kind of clash in a bad way as well: purple writing on a purple background: If I would have made it, I would have changed that part.