Social Studies Sharathon - Latin America

Latin America Big Book Project

Project Overview:
This project is designed to allow you to explore several aspects of Latin America's diverse culture as well as incorporate technology into your individual project.

Items you need to include on your board: capital, language, area, elevation,
population, chief products, flag(hand drawn-can be traced), government, culture, climate, economy, 3 maps (one map a political showing bordering countries, another hand drawn with the country's area placed on it, and a third map can be showing elevation, chief products, population distribution, or climate map. Here are some places you could find information: Internet, library, text books, CD-Rom encyclopedias, National Geographic Magazines, Readers Guides, and encyclopedias. Any other sources you can think of that has quality information relating to the topic! Students will need to site 3 of the following sources: internet, book, magazine, or encyclopedia.

Once you have researched your topics you will need to start organizing them into many short typed pieces. Each piece will need to contain at least one paragraph. You will need to be specific and to the point. We will discuss the layout of your board and font choices in class. Research using the internet will be done in school. Students were given the opportunity to check out books from the library yesterday. I am looking in to the possibility of a class trip to the public library. I will keep you posted on this. Students may schedule time with me to use the computers before, after school, and at noon time. Keep in mind that all of the writing will need to be done in your own words! Simply coping parts of your research will not be acceptable. You will need to decide what is important to write your summaries. You will peer edit. Along with your research you will need to include pictures that correspond to your research. The pictures can be taken from a variety of sources. We(Mr. Padgett and I)will help you process them using scanners, digital cameras, CD-Roms and copying from web sites. The pictures and text allow the viewer to better understand the cultural concepts you are trying to convey.

At the bottom of each summary and each picture you will need to make a footnote about where you found that information(for example, News Week Magazine, February 7,1997.) When using the internet you must site the location of where you obtained the graphic or text(for example, http://www.nationalgeographicmaps.com ) A bibliography will also need to be completed. As always think quality in every aspect of what you do.

Your board will need to have a colorful background and borders around the perimeter. The borders need to be made by you and not the commercial variety. Also, the borders can be varied from one part of the book to the next. The borders need to be related to your country.

Remember, do your best quality work! Take pride in what you do. You are University Park sixth graders and I want you to learn and have fun!

LATIN AMERICA'S BOOK CHECKLIST

_____ Research was complete, accurate, and from a variety of sources(3).

_____ Information was typed in student's own words, at least one paragraph long, and grammatically correct.

_____ Layout of board is visually pleasing.

_____ Students helped in the peer editing process.

_____ Pictures are present, and come from a variety of sources.

_____ All work contains footnotes.

_____ Bibliography is complete and accurate.

_____ Quality work is shown throughout the project.

STUDENT PERFORMANCE STANDARDS OUTCOMES
Language Arts:
Comprehend reading selections and inform others through oral and written communication.
Revise and edit Communication, focusing on organization.
Select and gather information using a variety of appropriate resources.
Identify and use a various technologies to communicate ideas to a specific audience.

Social Studies:
Recognize cultural differences and their impact on how Western Hemisphere countries interact.
Demonstrate knowledge of the major political and economic systems within the Western Hemisphere.

Sites useful for this project

Latin America
http://www.planeta.com/

http://www2.planeta.com/mader/ecotravel/center/center.html

http://lanic.utexas.edu/

http://www.interknowledge.com/indx05.htm

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/

http://www.maxwell.af.mil/own/country/c_a-las.html

http://www.uark.edu/libinfo/subject/latam/comp.html

http://www.wlu.edu/~vstanley/newhist/latina.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shaman/

http://www.danenet.wicip.org/lms/themes/latinamerica.html

http://www.folksonline.com/folks/hh/tours/1998/latinam.htm