1. Description of Our Community
We are some of the fourth and fifth grade GATE students of Creekside Elementary School. Mrs. Garrison and Mrs. Gillespie are our teachers and Mr. Erpelding, a Kindergarten teacher at our school, is helping, too. We have had 15 students working on this project. Our names are Blake, Jared, Vincent, Michael, Laura, Brooke, Alex, Tiffany, Chelsea, Alexander, Mark, Brandon, Brooke, Kylie, and Carmel. Our school is part of Poway Unified School District and is located in San Diego, California. We live very close to MCAS Miramar and consider them a part of our community. Many families who have a parent working on the base live in our area and attend our schools.
2. Summary of Our Project
San Diego is mostly known for attractions like the beach, the San Diego Zoo, and Sea World. Most people don't realize that we have a vast population of saiors and Marines stationed all over the San Diego area. MCAS Miramar is only a few miles from our school. At recess and lunch we see the aircraft from the base fly overhead during their practices. With the recent tragedy of 911, all of us are more aware of the incredible significance of the military and our own patriotism. The Marines and sailors at Miramar are dedicated to serving us and we wanted to show we care for them. The base intrigued us so we were determined to learn more about these dedicated men and women who serve their country and us so selflessly. We now want to share what we learned about them with all of you!!
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%
B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:more than 6
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:2-3
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
We have two dedicated T-1 lines serving our school. We have a 21-station moblie wireless laptop lab and a stationary lab with 22 PCs. Through grants written within the District. We have digital still and video cameras, a scanner, and two MAC computers with iMovie for editing our videos.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Our biggest obstacle was time. Working on the project while maintaining a full classroom schedule was challenging. We also had to work around the differences between the kindergarten schedule and uppper grades'.
We are fortunate that our principal encouraged the project so we were able to get coverage for our classes while we researched the project with a field trip.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
This project has given us the opportunity to learn more about an extraordinary group of men and women. We are proud to share our Marines with the world.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
Creekside’s Marines project met reading requirements by using strategies to understand the text. We used these strategies when reading about what the Marines do to help the U.S. We also thought of questions after making judgments with support from the text. Organizing and using multi-paragraphs when we wrote reports for our website helped us meet writing standards. Technology standards are gaining experience and developing skills using the Internet for research along with continuing to develop skills using digital hardware. We met these skills when we used the Internet to find information on the marines and what they do. When we took pictures with digital cameras and camcorders we developed our digital hardware skills. We also learned to input them onto our own website. History standards required using maps or globes. We used maps when finding Marine bases in San Diego. Internet research has been very effective. It was effective because it was much faster than flipping the pages of a book. It had more chances of getting information than books and had more information. It was also more recent and could be updated faster.
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