Journey Down the Mississippi

A WebQuest for 5th Grade Social Studies

Introduction

How would you like to take a trip down the Mississippi River? Would you know which states to stop at along the way? How would you decide which states to stop at? What would you do once you stopped at a state?All of these questions could be answered if you had a guide book to the states along the Mississippi River.

Task

As a class, we will be creating a travel guide to lead people through the states that border the Mississippi River. You will be divided into teams of three or four, and each group will be assigned to a state. Your team will need to create an interesting and attractive page, featuring your state and the cities you choose to research from that state. You will need to describe the important features of the land, wild life, and history of those places. After creating your portion of the guide, you will present it to the class, and a book will be made of all ten states that are on the Mississippi River.

Process

Mississippi River       Wisconsin        Minnesota         Iowa          Illinois         Missouri
1 2 3 4 5 6 7       1 2 3             1 2 3            1 2 3        1 2             1 2

Kentucky                  Arkansas          Tennessee       Louisiana   Mississippi
1 2                          1 2                   1 2                  1 2            1 2

Explore the links provided about the Mississippi River to get a general idea of what the guide will be about.
The class will be split up into groups of three and each group will be assigned a state.
As a group, find out which towns and cities of your state are located along the Mississippi River and choose three to focus on.
One person in each group is responsible for sketching an outline of their state, and add in physical (where the Mississippi River is located, other rivers, mountains, etc.) and political (cities) features. Be sure to add in the cities along the river that your group is doing further research on.
One person in each group is to find out what cities are along the river banks of their state, and find three things that can be done while in those cities. Also, report on the common wild life and plant life of the area around your town.
One person in each group is to research the history of the three chosen towns, and how the Mississippi River is connected with the history and lifestyle of the people that live in that town. Also include some information about the people in the town.
Make sure you share all of the information you have found with each other and that everyone in the group agrees with the information. Be sure to help each other to get all of the components of your state completed.
Put your map and all of your information on two pieces of 8.5 x 11 paper, along with illustrations and the name of your state. Neatness counts, as you want to convince people to come to the cities in your state.
Groups will present their state to the rest of the class, and then the completed pages will be compiled into a class book.

Evaluation

You will be evaluated on your portion of the group work as a whole group, and as an individual. Below is the scoring rubric that will be use to evaluate the group work. Your individual score will be based on the two scores that the group gets for the components of your section (ex: if your job is to create the map, you will be given the score the group receives on the sections of 'Physical Components of Map' and 'Political Components of Map.'

	Beginning 1	Developing 3	Exemplary 5
Creativity of Guide Page	Identifies state and points with little color or excitement.	Includes some sketches and some color, but still lacks some appeal.	Has rich color and/or detailed drawings with borders or other elements that add appeal.
Neatness & Accuracy	Legiblility, spelling and grammatical errors causes some difficulty to the reader.	Legibility is fairly neat, but still includes a few spelling and grammatical errors.	Legibility adds to the page. No spelling or grammatical errors.
Physical Components of Map	Includes an outline of the state map and the Mississippi River may be included.	Includes a sketch of the map with the Mississippi River, and one or two physical features labeled.	Includes a detailed drawing of the state map and includes the Mississippi River, and at least 3 physical features.
Political Components of Map	Less then 3 cities are labeled on the map.	Three cities are labeled on the map and bordering states are labeled.	Includes at least 3 cities, including the capital city, bordering states, a key and a compass rose.
Cities	Cities that fall on the Mississippi River are listed.	Less than three cities that fall on the Mississippi River are listed and described with 2 details each.	At least three cities that fall on the Mississippi River are listed and described with more than 3 facts each, and include how the Mississippi is important to that city.
Wildlife/ Plant life	There are less than two species listed for each category.	Three to four species in each category are listed, and described.	At least five species in each category are listed, described and drawn.
History	Less than two historical facts are given about your state.	Three to five historical facts are given about your state, and include the dates.	More than five historical facts are given about your state, and include the dates. Famous people from your state are also included.
Lifestyle	Few facts are given about the towns and no connection is made between the town and Mississippi River.	At least 2 facts are given about the people that live in each town, but little or no connection is made between the town and the Mississippi River.	At least two ways in which the town is connected to the Mississippi River are stated, and at least 3 facts about the people who live in each town.

Conclusion

This webquest has guided you through a research project as a class, and together, you have compiled a guide to places along the Mississippi River. You have learned how important the Mississippi River is to these cities and states, and how greatly all of these places vary, but are tied together by this famous river.

There are other famous rivers in the United States and around the world. How do people use and depend on these rivers? How would the lives of these people change or be different if these rivers flooded? Dried up? Or did not exist at all? Take a look at some of these links, and see if these rivers share any of the same characteristics with the people and places along the Mississippi River.

Columbia River Colorado River Amazon River Nile River

Credits & References

Picture Credits

Mississippi River Challenge

Design Credits

We all benefit by being generous with our work. Permission is hereby granted for other educators to copy this WebQuest, update or otherwise modify it, and post it elsewhere provided that the original author's name is retained along with a link back to the original URL of this WebQuest. On the line after the original author's name, you may add Modified by (your name) on (date). If you do modify it, please let me know and provide the new URL.

Based on a template from The WebQuest Page

Modified by Noelani Gurske on 12/11/05.