It’s time for another WebQuest at Morgan County Middle School! After being introduced to the WebQuest with one designed by their teachers about the Gulf Oil Spill, current 8thgrade students are excited about the prospect of working on another. Now is the time to use this novel technological strategy, first developed by Bernie Dodge, to master the Georgia Performance Standard (GPS) that “simple machines make work easier”!
WebQuests help to expand the academic vocabularies of English Language Learners (ELLs) and to assist them with the organization of new words and concepts in meaningful ways with visual images. However, all students can benefit from WebQuests, especially those who tend to be visual learners.
8thgrade science students are currently completing a WebQuest that focuses on simple machines. Like all well-developed WebQuests, it characterizes the middle school model of curriculum integration. It includes an introduction, an open-ended question, and an explanation of an authentic project to motivate students’ investigation of the question. It identifies Internet sources, includes instructions of how to complete the project with a partner, and a conclusion. It includes a rubric for the final product and is closely aligned to the GPS.
Most people are under the misconception that they do less work when they use simple machines. In reality, when people use machines they do more work than they would have done without using them. The machine just makes the work easier to do.
At the beginning of the WebQuest, each student must develop an original device to help him or her to always remember that simple machines make work easier. This is called a mnemonic device. Later, each student must identify an everyday task that is difficult to do. The final project consists of the design, development, and demonstration of a simple machine which will make the everyday task easier to do.
Physical science students have built simple machines for many years, but their teachers were not sure that they understood that the purpose of using machines is to make work easier. Indeed, as the years went by, students became more and more inclined to build trendy machines such as catapults, which are not appropriate for everyday use, or to hook machines together in the style of Rube Goldberg. The WebQuest was designed to verify that students were indeed mastering the standard by understanding the purpose of simple machines.
Students will demonstrate their machines for their teachers and classmates sometime in May.
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