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It's all about teamwork!
We began with a team of three New Jersey team members who have known each
other since kindergarten [6 years]. We are all best friends and are
used to working together. [Sometimes we get tired of each other but
we still like to work together!]
We found our New York team members through the E.P.A.
[Environmental Protection Agency]. Someone there told us that a
class was studying the Croton water system that gives New York City its
water. Our coach contacted the teacher who was doing it and she
found two really nice team members for us. We called them and met
them online on meeting days. Those two members knew each other in
kindergarten--just as long as we did!
What did we do?
Our coach decided
that we should do the ThinkQuest website competition backwards.  We
made a practice web and learned to make a website before we actually began
the competition. She said that we could concentrate on the
information for the website if we didn't have to slow ourselves down by
learning to make the site at the same time. All team members
wrote reports on assigned topics, edited the pages that were written, took
pictures and notes on trips, and selected the theme. Our New
York members [on the left] came in after that had been done.
Some team members did different things. [Made-up
names.]
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Carole--Visited
and wrote about watersheds, worked with Samantha on aqueducts, and
wrote articles.
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Elizabeth--Made
hyperlinks for the site, looked up words for the site dictionary,
searched the Internet for water games, puzzles, and activities, drew
the aquifer and pump pictures, made the online survey, and did the
in-school blind water test.
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Katie--Made
all the tables on the site, worked with the navigation menu, edited
graphics, selected pictures for the site, looked up words for the
site dictionary, made an online survey, made graphs, searched the
Internet for water games, puzzles, and activities, and did the
in-school blind water test, and edited pictures, and made the main
graphic, and did the water filter and page.
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Monica--Made
all of the pages and inserted the theme and shared borders, made
bottom graphic, and did the in-school blind water test.
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Samantha--Visited
and wrote about watersheds, took notes, worked a lot on aqueducts,
wrote articles, and took digital pictures.
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What did the coach do?
Our coach taught us
how to make a web site. She walked us through the steps when we made
our practice web. We learned even more when we worked on the
ThinkQuest site because we had to include things that we hadn't done
before. Our coach taught us how to use the programs we needed to
use. She collected our sources for us and made photocopies of what
we needed so that we could organize ourselves better. Each page had
a folder and she printed out the web pages when we were done so that we
could edit them. She organized lots of trips for us and made sure
that we had cameras and notebooks. Our coach typed our reports and
taught us how to go in and edit them. The site was our idea and she
helped us make it happen.
When did we meet?
We met once a week
after school from October to June. We met from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. once
a week during the summer. We didn't start the ThinkQuest site until
the guidelines came out and we had been signed up. Before that we
did a practice web that was nowhere as big as this one.
How was the site made?
We did the
following:
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Brainstormed ideas based on the
ThinkQuest competition guidelines. This took a week or two
to figure out.
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Got information and began to do
research. We found out that most information was for adults
and we had a hard time understanding most of it. We decided
that we needed a different kind of help.
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We looked for adult partners to
help us get the information we needed. Our local water
department, a larger town water department, and a state water
authority agreed to give us tours and info. As our site got
bigger, we got help from a dowser and a bottled water
company. We finally got information in a way we could
understand!
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We picked a theme for the site,
a title, and set up the pages with tables, menus, and graphics.
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Aqueducts were a real problem
but we found one in New York. Since this was too far away
for us to go, we found two team members from New York City who
were closer.
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We wrote the pages and edited
them lots of times.
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We made the navigation menu and
took pictures for the site. Some team members made graphics
for the site.
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The coach uploaded the site.
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