Experience California

A History WebQuest for 4th Grade (Social Studies)

Designed by

Marina Martinez
mmartinez1528@yahoo.com

                                

 

Introduction

You are a travel agent and your job is to get people from all over the World to come to California.  During these rough economic times business need your help.  In the past an ad on the travel agency website seemed to be enough but bookings have been low lately.  Your boss thought it would be a great idea to create a brochure highlighting California’s must see sites, restaurants and historical landmarks.

What do you think should be included in the brochure?

 

Question/Task

What do you think should be included in the brochure?

Your task is to create a brochure that will bring people to California. You will use historical sites (i.e. Yosemite, Travis Air Museum…), restaurants, and hotels as categories to highlight why California is interesting and people should visit. Each category should offer description about the places historical past.

 

Your final product will be a beautiful brochure about the state of California that will be distributed in airports, train and bus stations, hotels and other possible places.  You will be using Microsoft publisher to create your brochure this will allow you to type text and insert images or pictures from the web.

Process/Guidance

1.    You will start by searching the web for the criteria required (listed below).

2.    Once you have gathered all the information go to Microsoft Publisher.  Click on publications for print in the side window then choose brochures.  Select a design that you would like to use.  Then you will follow the prompts.  You will be provided a computer lab training and a worksheet to help you navigate through this project.

3.     Write up your introduction and descriptions for each category.  This should be done in word first so that you can make corrections and have a clean final draft.  Then you can cut and paste this into word.

4.    Then you can insert images or pictures and start formatting your brochure. 

 

 

 

Text Box: Figure 1 Exploratorium The following is required criteria for your brochure:

 

·         Introduction - Why people should visit California

·         Two historical landmarks with a description

·         Two must see sites with at least one that is older than 50 years with a description

·         Two Hotels with at least one that is older than 50 years with a description

·         Two restaurants with one that is older than 20 years with a description

·         At least one image for each of the above (i.e. one historical landmark, site, restaurant, and hotel.)

 

 

 

The following Weblinks are to sites that will help with historical research and information for your brochure. 

Text Box: Figure 2 Yosemite Bridal Veil Falls These are two history sights that will give you some background on the historical landmarks, sites, and hotels.

California History                                                      

 

CERES California Historical Resources

These two sites look at what there is to do in California today and includes historical landmarks and sites.

Visit California

California past and present

California Beautiful

 

 

Assessment

The rubric below outlines how the brochure will be graded on a scale of 1 – 5.  1 is the lowest and a 4 is the highest possible score for each category.

 

1

2

3

4

5

Score

 

Brochure includes 4 historical landmarks and description

 

There were less than 4 historical landmarks and no descriptions.

There were 4 historical landmarks but no descriptions.

There were 4 historical landmarks and less than 4 descriptions.

There were 4 historical landmarks with descriptions.

There were 4 historical landmarks with well written descriptions.

 

Two sites, restaurants, and hotels were included with one (for each category) at least  50\20+ yrs

 

 

There were less than two sites, restaurants, and hotels none met the year requirement.

There were two sites, restaurants, and hotels but none met the year requirement.

There were two sites, restaurants, and hotels and 50% met the year requirement.

There were two sites, restaurants, and hotels and all met the year requirement.

There were two sites, restaurants, and hotels and all met the year requirement with well written descriptions.

 

Each section contained a graphic or picture

 

 

There were no graphics or pictures.

There were graphics or pictures in 25% of the brochure related the descriptions.

There were graphics or pictures in 50% of the brochure related the descriptions.

There were graphics or pictures in 75% of the brochure related the descriptions.

There were graphics or pictures in 100% of the brochure related the descriptions.

 

Brochure was organized in tri fold format and brochure was free of spelling and grammatical errors

 

The brochure was not organized in tri fold format and there were more than 20 spelling errors.

The brochure was organized in tri fold format but sections did not correspond to each other and there were 11 – 19 spelling errors.

The brochure was organized in tri fold format and sections corresponded with each other and there were less than 10 spelling errors.

The brochure was well organized in tri fold format and all sections flowed well and there were less than 5 spelling errors.

The brochure was well organized in tri fold format and all sections flowed well and there were no spelling errors.

 

 

 

Conclusion

In the end you will have a beautiful brochure that will make people want to visit California.  You will also have learned about California’s history and when some of the things you see today were established.  We all live in California and you may not know that there are exciting places to visit not to far from your home.  I encourage you to see in person one of the historical landmarks you put in your brochure or research one that is closer (possible to visit) if the others are far away.