Lesson 3

I looked up the armadillo in SIRS Discoverer and was pretty impressed with the icons showing what the reading level of the articles is as well as whether the article contains pictures/graphics.  The first article I clicked on was the one titled, "BOINNGG! HERE COME THE ARMADILLOS" which was taken from an issue of "Ranger Rick" magazine.  The article itself does not display any graphics but has a footnote stating, "Pictures referred to in this article are not available in this format but can be found in the original publication."  Not seeing the pictures in the actual article was a bit disappointing.

I again chose the country of Myanmar when looking at "Country Facts."  There is quite a wealth of information in this article which could be very useful for students doing reports, etc.  It would be a nice addition or alternative to World Book information.

The "Maps of the World" are a nice feature in that they are printable PDFs so could be used in reports.

I looked at the "Activities" in the "Database Features."  There are a lot of really cool ideas for experiments, puzzles, projects, etc.  These could be used in schools, home-school activities, or just done for fun.  In addition, the "Current Events" link gives kid-friendly articles about current world events.  These articles are tagged with icons to show reading levels, graphics, etc.

There is a wide variety of topics to choose from in the SIRS Researcher, and the Pros/Cons and Essential Questions give food for thought about the issues.  Helpful articles are linked below.  These would be helpful resources for someone doing a report or perhaps a persuasive speech.  Under the Curriculum Pathfinders, I chose "English as a Second Language" and found some very useful tools, quizzes, activities, etc. for students  learning English.  There are several languages available on the activities, and these are also quizzes that would be helpful for English speakers who are trying to learn vocabulary of another language.