Introduction

Write your web-based lesson with the student as the intended audience. Write a short paragraph here to introduce the activity or lesson to the students. If there is a role or scenario involved (e.g., "You are a scientists from another planetary system trying to describe and analyze phenomena on the Planet Earth.") then here is where you'll set the stage. If there's no motivational intro like that, use this section to provide a short advance organizer or overview. Remember that the purpose of this section is to both prepare and hook the reader.

You should also include in this section the following

Objectives (write one-to-three key objectives or goals in student language)

• Objective 1
• Objective 2
• Objective 3

Materials (list the materials the students will need to complete the activities)

• Material you will need:

Describe how the student will be "initiated" into the lesson. The invitation is the element in the lesson plan where students' prior knowledge, ideas and beliefs about the concepts in the your lesson sequence are brought into play. You might use any one of the following:

• a provocative question
• a demonstration or EEEP
• discrepant event
• interesting challenge
• a web site for the student to examine and do some kind of analysis
• an interesting scenario, e.g. " Imagine swooping into The Solar System in a space ship traveling at warp speed headed toward what your astronomers have called the BLUE PLANET. They are very interested in having your team study the planet remotely. Your team is also required not to do any harm to the Blue Planet and its inhabitants, and to be sure that you are not observed by the "intelligent" species inhabiting the planet."

In the Exploration stage, students study phenomena through focused activity. You should describe very carefully the "activities" that students will complete to assist them in exploring the concepts, phenomena, ideas of your lesson. For example, "Your team is going to remotely investigate Impact Craters, and one of the other Phenomena including earthquakes, El Nino and Na Nina, volcanoes, and hurricanes."

The activities can include:

• a hands on inquiry
• data collection at the school site followed by posting of the data on the Internet
• Internet project
• Analysis of web-based data (raw data from the Net, e.g. Hurricane Database)

Describe and number the activities clearly as shown in the example below:

"1. You will find the materials to set up an Impact Crater Research Site in your space ship. Use the materials and instructions located there to find how these features are formed on the BLUE Planet and its major satellite, THE MOON. Do this research first. Make sure that you make at least one digital photograph of your investigation, and load it onto your work station computer. Seek help if you are not sure how to do this, as well as copy images from the Internet. Write a brief summary of your research and post it on the project bulletin board.

2. Select one other Phenomenon from the Chart to investigate after completing your Impact Crater Research. Use the resources and database to provide the answers to the questions that the Prime Scientific Society wants answered."

Include Websites within the lesson and be sure each is linked to the Web-site as shown in the examples below:

Project Databases

Crater Impact Sites on the World Wide Web

Crater Impact Sites on the Blue Planet

Craters: When to Expect Meteor Showers

Hurricane Database

Hurricane Movie

Earthquake Information Center for the Blue Planet

Volcano World on the Blue Planet

Terra Server: Satellites Images all over the Blue Planet

The Explanation stage should help the students discuss and reflect on their findings, data, and analyses. They should have the opportunity to see what others found, to compare their ideas to other students' and experts on the topic. They might be involved in activities in which they "Discuss their findings among members of your sub-team." Students should be encouraged to "summarize their findings and prepare for a report. Their reports might be set up as follows, and be prepared either on the Internet, or on posters for class discussions.

Task:_________________________________________________________________________

Key Questions	Findings

Other types of activities in this stage might include:

• Internet chats
• Contributing to the project bulletin board, e.g. responding to questions, summarizing their findings and interpretations
• Internet log writing
• Participating in a video conference
• Constructing a model and sharing the model with classmates, as will as over the Internet (digital photography)

In this stage, students should be involved in an activity that will assist them in taking personal and/or social responsibility for the concepts and ideas they researched. This stage provokes the student to ask, "what did I learn, and how can I use this knowledge to solve a problem."

Students might be involved in a number of activities, including:

• the development of a web page that shares their findings and conclusions with others
• making posters (both digital and of the poster type)
• construction of a model
• problem or mystery to be solved;
• position to be formulated and defended;
• product to be designed;
• complexity to be analyzed;
• personal insight to be articulated;
• summary to be created;
• persuasive message or journalistic account to be crafted;
• a creative work, or
• anything that requires the learners to process and transform the information they've gathered.

Put a couple of sentences here that summarize what they will have accomplished or learned by completing this activity or lesson. You might also include some rhetorical questions or additional links to encourage them to extend their thinking into other content. For example, "Hopefully you have learned some new things about the BLUE Planet. You might continue your research by checking data bases gathered by an earlier team that visited the BLUE Planet and actually landed in Roswell, New Mexico."