Introduction
This Web Quest is designed for grades 6-8 and is going to focus on three activities that focus on three main questions. The first question asks, "What are the five themes of geography and how do they impact people's lives?" The second question is "Why should historical events and people be important to me?" and the third question is "What is economics and why should I care?" Each activity has a specific purpose, rationale, the values and knowledge the activity conveys, and a implementation process. You are to complete the webquest and write a paragraph for each of the questions listed above.
Task
You and your group of 4-5 students will work collaboratively to create a powerpoint presentation of the geography of Ancient Egypt, historical events and why they are important today, as well as the economy of Egypt and how it differs from today. You must discuss the importance of economy and why people should care about it.
Process
First things first, you and your group need to find out what the five themes of geography are and how each of them impacts people’s lives. If you are observant, you will notice the answer is located on the page, if not, here are some links to help you understand further. Be sure to gather as many notes as possible as this is just the beginning of the assignment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIqC79WrpKg
Now that you have successfully figured out what the themes are, you need to know how they impact people’s lives. Click on the link below and read.
http://www.gearyschools.org/vimages/shared/vnews/stories/52e28b3c87082/PART%202.pdf
Now that you have an understanding of geography and the impact it has on the people of the world, you are ready to begin creating a presentation of Egypt and what makes it unique to the rest of the continent.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/11-things-you-may-not-know-about-ancient-egypt
You must include in your presentation a map of where the civilization was located, and how the ancient civilization of Egypt is important to you. What contributions did the Egyptians make to society that we still use today?
http://www.crystalinks.com/calendaregypt.html
http://www.love-egypt.com/egypt-civilization.html
It is also very important to discuss the economy of Ancient Egypt.
http://looklex.com/e.o/egypt.ancient.economy.htm
Although Egyptians did not use money like we do today, why would it have been important for people to trade? Be sure to include all of this information in your presentation.
Evaluation
Assessment Rubric
| CATEGORY | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Presentation | Well-rehearsed with smooth delivery that holds audience attention. | Rehearsed with fairly smooth delivery that holds audience attention most of the time. | Delivery not smooth, but able to maintain interest of the audience most of the time. | Delivery not smooth and audience attention often lost. |
| Content | Covers topic in-depth with details and examples. Subject knowledge is excellent. | Includes essential knowledge about the topic. Subject knowledge appears to be good. | Includes essential information about the topic but there are 1-2 factual errors. | Content is minimal OR there are several factual errors. |
| Organization | Content is well organized using headings or bulleted lists to group related material. | Uses headings or bulleted lists to organize, but the overall organization of topics appears flawed. | Content is logically organized for the most part. | There was no clear or logical organizational structure, just lots of facts. |
| Requirements | All requirements are met and exceeded. | All requirements are met. | One requirement was not completely met. | More than one requirement was not completely met. |
| Workload | The workload is divided and shared equally by all team members. | The workload is divided and shared fairly by all team members, though workloads may vary from person to person. | The workload was divided, but one person in the group is viewed as not doing his/her fair share of the work. | The workload was not divided OR several people in the group are viewed as not doing their fair share of the work. |
Conclusion
You and your group will present your powerpoint presentations to the class, explaining each and every step of the required tasks.
Teacher Page
This webquest was designed in order to assist students in learning and understanding the five themes of geography and how those themes impact lives of the people in the world. Students were asked to complete three activities that addressed the following questions: 1) What are the five themes of geography and how do they impact people's lives? 2) Why should historical events and people be important to me? and 3) What is economics and why should I care?
In order to help students understand the themes of geography and how they impact people's lives, the students were given links to other websites, maps, songs, and videos to help them define and understand the relationships. Using the information they found during their investigation, students were asked to answer the question of how lives were impacted. The students were asked to take the physical environment/ geography of ancient Egypt and explain why it was unique from the rest of the continent. The students' answers may vary but will most likely stem from the fact that although it was a desert, the Nile river provided many gifts to sustain life.
The students were then asked to describe some of the contributions the Egyptians made that are still around today. They begin to see that so much of what we have today is based on the findings and hard work of those who lived before us. Without their contributions to society and their wealth of knowledge, we would not be where we are today.
The last activity the students were to complete was to investigate economics. Even though the Egyptians did not use money like we do today, they had ways of getting what they needed. The students had to include in their presentations that the Egyptians traded in order to get the goods they needed to survive. The students had to include in their presentations what economics is and why they should care.
The importance of these activities is to understand geography, the importance of learning from history, as well as the importance of the economy and how it affects the world around us. The values that are incorporated into the lesson are citizenship, hard work, patience, responsibility, as well as working together. This is a great project to complete as a group as everyone will have something to contribute after reading through all the links and sources provided.