Brief Description Objectives Materials and Resources Activity Description Internet Resources

• Grade Level: Elementary, Middle School, High School

• Subject Area: Social Studies, Math

Brief Description

    Based on the data they gathered during their clean-up activities, students develop a questionnaire to distribute to other schools. Surveys may take the form of an e-mail questionnaire or a set of Web page forms that visitors fill out.
Objectives

    Students will:

• Collect, organize, analyze, and describe data.

Materials and Resources

    In developing our lessons and activities, we made some assumptions about the hardware and software that would be available in the classroom for teachers who visit the LETSNet Website. We assume that teachers using our Internet-based lessons or activities have a computer with the necessary hardware components (mouse, keyboard, and monitor) as well as a World Wide Web browser. In the section below, we specify any "special" hardware or software requirements for a lesson or activity (in addition to those described above) and the level of Internet access required to do the activity.

1. Special hardware requirements: None.
2. Special software requirements: None.
3. Internet access: Any speed connection will be sufficient if you choose to send out the surveys via e-mail. If you would like to do the survey using a Web page then either a medium-speed (28,000 BPS via modem) or high-speed (greater than 1 MBPS via network) is preferable..

Activity Description

• Ask students to reflect on the data that they gathered and the process of gathering it.
• Students brainstorm the types of questions that they would want to ask of other students.
  Examples of questions might include:
  • Name of school
  • Grade
  • Description of community
  • Where did you find large concentrations of garbage?
  • Go over tally categories from the tally sheet, be sure to see if there are other areas that students think should be included.

• Record students ideas for the questionnaire. Discuss the merits of the questions and reduce the list to a reasonable number.

• Organize a group of several students to work together in a team to draft the final questionnaire.

• Distribute the questionnaire via e-mail or a Web page.
  • E-mail: You may choose to e-mail the survey to other teachers and classrooms you already work with. If you are in need of e-mail contacts, consult our lists of Internet Resources below for places that will help you get in touch with other classrooms interested in Internet projects. Be sure to let the classrooms you contact know why the class has started this survey project and what they intend to do with the data.
  • Web page: If students are advanced enough in their knowledge of HTML programming you might want to consider conducting the survey thorough the use of HTML forms on a Web page. See our Professional Development module, "Advanced HTML module, HTML Forms and CGI" on developing forms for Web pages for information on how to create forms for Web pages.

• When the pages have been finished and placed on a server, publicize the survey via e-mail and thorough electronic forums. (See our list of Internet Resources below for a list of locations to contact.)

Internet Resources

    Resources for learning about Netscape forms

• Insert link to PD module "Advanced HTML module, HTML Forms and CGI"

    Places to go to publicize your survey

• EdWeb's List of Listservs
  [http://k12.cnidr.org:90/lists.html]
  A listing of e-mail lists that you can join to publicize your Earth Day Trash Survey. Some of the lists that are appropriate are ELED-L, a list concerning elementary education, INCLASS, a list for people using the Internet in classroom teaching, and SUPERK12, a list for teachers using the Internet and computers in K-12 classrooms.