Journey Down the Mississippi River

A WebQuest for 5th Grade Social Studies

Introduction

This lesson was developed to fulfill part of the Hillsboro School District's content standards of geography and social studies.

This lesson is intended to get students to work together in groups and, essentially, as a whole class to complete this project. Groups will research a state that borders the Mississippi River and create a page describing key features for their state that will be compiled into a guide book.

Learners

This lesson in intended for a fifth grade social studies unit on the fifty states, waterways, and/or people of different regions in the United States. This lesson can be modified for students in 4th or 6th grade as well.

The students should have an understanding of what a state is, and some knowledge of the Mississippi River. Student should also be able to skim information to find key details that they are looking for. Experience and knowledge of how to use the internet is also a key skill that students should have prior to this lesson.

By the end of this lesson, students will demonstrate their understanding of the uses of technology for doing research by completing the components of a guidebook after doing research on the internet.

Curriculum Standards

Writing Standards Addressed

Communicate supported ideas across the subject areas, including relevant examples, facts and details appropriate to audience and purpose that engage reader interest.
Write/compose short phrases, lists, and simple sentences.

Social Studies Standards Addressed

Know and use basic map elements to answer geographic questions or display geographic information
Use other visual representations to locate, identify, and distinguish physical and human features of places and regions.
Identify the names of the fifty states and their location relative to other states.
Identify and locate major landforms, bodies of waterm vegetation, and climate found in regions of the United States.
Identify the type of economic activity, population distribution, and cities found in regions of the United States.
Understand how the physical environment presents opportunities for economic and recreational activity.
Understand how history can be organized using themes, geography, or chronology

Career-Related Learning Standards Addressed

Locate, process, and convey information using traditional and technological tools.
Demonstates skills that improve team effectiveness.

Technology Standards Addressed

Demonstrate proficiency in the use of technological tools and devices.
Access, organize, and analyze information to make informed decisions, using one or more technologies.

Process

Explore the links provided about the Mississippi River to get a general idea of what the guide will be about. (See below in the "Resources Needed' section)
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.

This lesson may require more than one class period to complete, as students will need time to do research, and then compile their information to create their pages. This project could be completed within 3 or 4 class periods of 40-50 minutes each.

To split students into groups, I might let them choose, but emphasize that they need to be with people that they know they will be able to get their work done, and not get distracted.

Students may not be able to find sufficient information within the websites listed, therefore, you may want to allow students to search the web for further resources, but warn them that some websites may not be accurate or helpful.

Time may also be an issue, so providing ample time to complete this project is important. Also, providing an example of a complete page may be beneficial so that students do not get too caught up with the design, although the design element is part of the uniqueness of the assignment.

A teacher with any level of teaching experience could utilze this lesson, however knowledge of internet use is important.

Variations

This lesson could be modified for an in-class assignment, where the research is done out of books and other resources besides the internet. Also, this lesson could be adapted to other states, countries, or regions, for example.

Resources Needed

Describe what's needed to implement this lesson. Some of the possibilities:

computers for each student, or at least, each group of students.
computer accounts for each student, if required
Reference materials on the states and Mississippi River in the classroom
Paper, Pens, Markers, Crayons, Glue, Scissors, Rulers

Here are some resources that the students will be looking at:

These are sites that provide information about all or most of the states that are along the Mississippi River, and provide information about the river itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mississippi_river (this website gives information about the river)

www.mrcusa.com (click on your state, and click on additional links for your state)

http://www.mississippiriverinfo.com/educationfacts.htm (at the bottom of the page, drop down to your state, and explore the markers of the cities along the river)

www.riverroads.com (this provides information about states along the river, but only for a few states)

http://gatewayno.com/history/mississippi.html (this website gives some history and information about the river)

Individual State Websites

Wisconsin
www.almawisconsin.com
www.trempealeau.net
www.travelwisconsin.com/activity/virtualwisconsin.htm

Minnesota
www.dnr.state.mn.us/nr/index.html
www.exploreminnesota.com/attractions/7999.html
www.hastingsmn.org

Iowa
www.nps.gov/efmo/
www.traveliowa.com/iowafacts/index.html?strnav=travelnav.html

Illinois
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/quincy%2c_illinois

Missouri
www.visitmo.com

Kentucky
www.parks.ky.gov/stateparks/cb/index.htm
http://www.kycourts.net/countries/fulton.asp?county=fulton#countryinfo

Arkansas
www.byways.org/browse/byways/2152
www.deltabyways.com

Tennessee
www.state.tn.us/environment/wpc/publications/riv/misisipi.php
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561000/tennessee.html

Mississippi
http://ms.water.usgs.gov/ms_proj/eric/
www.visitmmississippi.org

Louisiana
www.lacoast.gov/geography/mr/index.asp
www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/louisiana/preserves/art6867.html

Evaluation

This lesson will be a success if the class, as a whole, creates a completed guidebook. If students provide all of the required elements on their pages in an appealing way, this lesson will be deemed as successful, and it will be apparent that the students have met all of the standards due to the presentation of their final product.

Students will be evaluated on their 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. Individual scores will be based on the two scores that the group gets for the components of that student's section (ex: if their job is to create the map, they 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 students through a research project as a class, and together, they have compiled a guide to places along the Mississippi River. Students should 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. The links below can be used as an extension to this activity, and for further research on rivers around the world. Have students 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.

Last updated on 12/10/05. Based on a template from The WebQuest Page