The People Of Utah A WebQuest for UEN Created by Kim Colton December, 2006

Introduction The Social Studies curriculum states that students will learn about immigration. They need to be able to identify and understand different cultures and groups of people all over the world as well as those living in Utah. The purpose of this WebQuest is to provide one instructional method teachers can use to help students meet these goals. Students will use the Internet as a research tool. They will be highly encouraged to involve relatives by asking questions and gathering information about their family traditions and their own personal heritage. The final project will be a class presentation sharing information about their family culture, heritage, and traditions.

Task 1 View the power point “The People Of Utah”. It tells a story about a 13 year old pioneer girl. After reading about her, begin keeping a record of the things you learn by writing a one page reflection on how this story made you feel. Key words will come up like ‘Immigration’. Write down your explanation of what immigration means. Keep track of these important words in your journal throughout this unit.

Task 2 Every surname (last name) has a meaning and an origin (place where it comes from). Your task is to find the meaning of your last name and the country of origin your name came from as well as any other information you can collect. Be thinking about how you want to share what you find with the class. Everyone will be doing a presentation. Collect the kinds of information that will be useful for your presentation.

Task 3 Create your family tree – you will need to collect your name, your father’s name, mother’s name, your father’s mother and dad and your mother’s mother and dad. If you want to do more than three generations you will need the names of your four great grandparents. Decide how you want to display the names – are you going to use a picture of an actual tree, or are you going to use the line chart? When you decide find a software program that will print out this information for you – there are free programs available.

Task 4 After you have determined the country of origin for your last name, use the Internet to find information about traditions, food, clothing styles, life styles, dances, beliefs, etc. Record these in your journal. Talk to your family members, find out how many of these things your family still does today and think about which ones you can share in your presentation.

Task 5 Prepare your final presentation by assembling all the information and materials you have collected while researching your family name. Be creative, you can use any kind of media for your presentation and you are highly encourged to bring guests in to help tell your family story and share your traditions, and even favorite family foods and recipes.

Process Students should have access to a computer and to the Internet. Students will record everything in a written journal. Daily journal entries will be points towards their final grade. Students are not to ‘put off’ writing in their journals until the end – writing is a big part of this learning process. Professional Researchers do a lot of writing and students are expected to practice writing along the way by recording the information they find doing this research. Processes may vary among your students depending on which way they choose to complete these tasks. I will not list a step by step process here as every student will have an individualized plan.

Evaluation My grading system is usually a point system. For the entire WebQuest completion of all tasks and an excellent presentation will give the student so many points toward their overall course grade. You can use a rubric or whatever method you feel comfortable with. As long as the student completes the daily journal entries and all assigned tasks along with their class presentation they should get full credit. Remember, it isn’t too difficult to make something look pretty – it is the content that should matter and the student’s demonstration of their understanding of the curriculum standards.

Conclusion Who Am I - One essential question this WebQuest has been created to answer. After completion students will have a deeper understanding of their own personal heritage and family traditions. They will hopefully gain a long lasting knowledge and respect of the diversity of mankind and an understanding that Utah is made up of people from many lands. Every person in every culture of every country in our world has something to share - we are all different and gaining an understanding of why we are different helps to make people more acceptable of each other. Modifications can be made to meet most middle school social studies settings. It requires higher order thinking skills, collaboration skills, and presentation skills.

Credits / Resources

Teacher Page This WebQuest can be short or long depending on how you choose to use it in your classroom. There are aspects of it that can be used throughout other areas of the Social Studies curriculum. For example, you can choose to focus on the countries of origin of the students surnames for Geography studies. The nice part about this WebQuest is that you can tweak it to make it meet your own instructional needs.

Introduction The Social Studies curriculum states that students will learn about immigration. They need to be able to identify and understand different cultures and groups of people all over the world as well as those living in Utah. The purpose of this WebQuest is to provide one instructional method teachers can use to help students meet these goals. Students will use the Internet as a research tool. They will be highly encouraged to involve relatives by asking questions and gathering information about their family traditions and their own personal heritage. The final project will be a class presentation sharing information about their family culture, heritage, and traditions.

Learners This WebQuest is created specifically for Utah Studies which is taught in both 4th grade and 7th grade. The research piece may be too difficult for younger students so the focus should probably be on the middle school level. This WebQuest can be easily modified to meet other state standards.

Social Studies Standards STANDARD 5 Students will understand the diverse nature of Utah’s peoples and culture. OBJECTIVE 1 Students will assess the cultural diversity of Utah. INDICATOR(S) Explore the role of immigration in changing Utah’s society. Explain issues immigrants encountered in adapting to life in Utah. Recognize the unique lifestyles of various cultural or ethnic groups in the local community. Research ways people maintain and preserve cultural identity, e.g., language, customs, holidays, traditions.

Process There is no specific step by step learning process as explained in the student section. Unless you want to create one, the process in which they complete the tasks is basically up to the students. Once you have introduced them to this WebQuest they are on their own as to how they choose to proceed. As long as they come up with a class presentation at the end they can either request your assistance or not. They may need help using the Internet otherwise they are given time in class to work.

Credits / Resources