1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Alice Keeler is a mother of 5 and a teacher in Fresno, California. She has her B.A in Mathematics, M.S. in Educational Media Design and Technology and is currently working on a doctorate in Educational Technology with an emphasis in games and simulations. EdTech speaker, blogger, and presenter. Founder of coffeeEDU, a 1 hour conference event for educators. New Media Consortium Horizon report advisory panel member. High school math teacher for 14 years. Currently teaching pre-service teachers curriculum, instruction and technology at California State University Fresno. Teaches online for Fresno Pacific University in the Masters in Educational Technology. Passionate that kids are not failures, researches gamification in education to increase student motivation.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: English Language Arts
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.

2. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests.
© David Fortney/Corbis Motion
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests.
In 1848, when gold was discovered in the Trinity River of northern California, it’s believed that there were 2 million acres of old-growth redwood forests in the area. Today just 4 percent of that total remains, and nearly half of it is protected by the Redwood National and State Parks network. While the almost mythically large trees are still a major attraction of the parks, the smaller flora and variety of fauna demonstrate how varied the parks’ ecosystem is.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests. 1
Web Search
Do a Bing Search for advanced search techniques. Identify some new strategies that you will utilize for this activity. 2
Using Bing Search, locate a PowerPoint on Northern California forests. 3
Using Bing Search locate a news article about the Northern California forests. 4
Use Bing Search to locate Creative Commons Images about Northern California forests. Choose 2 images and cite the images. 5
Use Bing Search to identify the weather in Northern California forests today.
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests. 5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests. 1
Web Search
Do a Bing Search for advanced search techniques. Identify some new strategies that you will utilize for this activity. 2
Using Bing Search, locate a PowerPoint on Northern California forests. 3
Using Bing Search locate a news article about the Northern California forests. 4
Use Bing Search to locate Creative Commons Images about Northern California forests. Choose 2 images and cite the images. 5
Use Bing Search to identify the weather in Northern California forests today.
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests. 1
Web Search
Do a Bing Search for advanced search techniques. Identify some new strategies that you will utilize for this activity.
(Possible Search Queries: advanced search techniques, advanced search terms, search techniques, search terms, Bing Advanced Search Options, search tricks, search tricks Bing)
Sources
Microsoft:
Bing:
Bing Tricks:
Ivan Walsh:
Quotations
Placing quotations around keywords ensures that the results have the keywords in exactly that phrasing. Looking for “Bing Search” will not return results that contain “Search Bing.” It will also not return results that would say “Search for Bing.” The results would have to match exactly. This can be a great technique for narrowing search results.
near: keywords
For this advanced search technique the keywords should be in close proximity of each other. If looking for Bing Search you do not want results that have the word Bing at the top of the page and search at the bottom of the page. The words Bing and Search should be in relative proximity to each other.
the minus sign
Using the minus sign allows you to get search results that do not include a certain word. If the search term that you are using is overwhelmingly associated with a result you are looking for you can use this technique to sort out that association.
Switch keyword order
Bing search and search bing may return different results. Try conducting the same search but with the keywords in a different order.
AND
You can use AND to get search results that each include both keywords. OR
You can use OR to get search results that include either word. This might be helpful when using synonyms.

8. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests. 2
Web Search
Using Bing Search, locate a PowerPoint on Northern California forests.
(Possible Search Queries: ext:ppt northern california forests, filetype:ppt northern california forests)
Sources
Northwestern Coniferous Forest - HCS Home -
Redwood Trees -

9. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests. 3
Web Search
Using Bing Search locate a news article about the Northern California forests.
(Possible Search Queries: northern California forests, forests northern california)
Sources
ABC news -
Carson Now -
The Republic -

10. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests. 4
Web Search
Use Bing Search to locate Creative Commons Images about Northern California forests. Choose 2 images and cite the images.
(Possible Search Queries: northern california forest)
Sources

11. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests. 5
Web Search
Use Bing Search to identify the weather in Northern California forests today.
(Possible Search Queries: Weather: sequoia National Park)
At the time this presentation was created, the temperature was 53 degrees as depicted above.

12. Use Advanced Search Techniques to locate different types of sources about Northern California forests.
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question.