Science Editor in the Making

Science Newsletter editor in the making!

Topic: Evaluating websites

Decide on your goal: Students will understand the process of evaluating a website.

Define your task: The science teacher at Clearview High School has created a blog for the Form 4 Science students. She wants you to be a part of the editorial committee for a health section called “Top three websites of the month.” Your teacher has asked you to find useful three websites about the following topics: (1) Stress (2) Smoking (3) Caffeine

She has given you a rubric to assess the websites using the following criteria: •	Accuracy (Who is author (s)/what is the institution (s) responsible for creating/writing the website? What is the domain?) •	Authority (Are the qualifications/credentials of the author (s) listed?) o	Example is the Internet Public Library (www.ipl.org/div/kidspace/). The information uploaded onto the website is done so by library & information science students from a consortium of universities and colleges are responsible for maintaining the website. •	Objectivity (What is the goal of the website? Is there an underlying agenda/bias, e.g. is it to advertise a product/service? Is it to provide more than one perspective? Is it objective?) •	Currency (Does the website provide information about the date/time that it was updated or when it was created?) o	Example: If you visit the website for the National Library of Medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/) and you scroll down to the bottom right hand corner, you will see the dates for when the website was first published, as well as when it was updated.

Process: •	Use the search engine, Google™ www.google. •	Type the below-mentioned keywords into the search box: o	Stress o	Smoking o	Caffeine •	Review the first 10 search results for each keyword. •	Use the rubric to assess each of the first 10 websites.

Final web resources: You are required to compile a list of websites about smoking, stress and caffeine and write 1-2 sentences explaining your reasons for recommending/not recommend the websites to fellow students. This information would be uploaded to the blog by the student.