Smithsonian Biodiversity Science in the Classroom

Navigating website with students

Recognizing the importance of a “student centered focus” to reduce teacher preparation time, background materials for this project are written for a student audience, and lesson plans and worksheets are prepared so that students and teachers can use them “off the shelf.” Each lesson also includes guidelines and helpful hints for teachers, and includes extension ideas should the class choose to go deeper into the subject.

These web-based lessons are written for students to work independently or in small teams, led by a teacher in a computer lab or other classroom equipped with multiple computer stations.

Students in the upper elementary school grades (3rd-6th) are at the cusp of understanding how to navigate web pages.

If you do not have access to multiple computer stations, or if your students have not yet learned computer navigational skills, these lesson and activities can be downloaded as PDF files, and conducted without using the web-based instructions for classroom instruction.

Credits

This project has been supported by the Lemelson Education Initiative.

Outdoor lessons and activities were developed through a partnership between the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. and Front Royal, Virginia and the Smithsonian's Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland, together with teacher advisors from Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

• Teacher Advisors