Introduction
A new natural
history museum has opened in your area. You have been commissioned to create a
multi-media presentation of one of the biomes of the world to be shown to tour
groups.
Task
You will create a PowerPoint multi-media
presentation of one of the five biomes of the world and use it to make an oral
presentation to the class.
Process
-
Choose
one of the five world biomes to research.
-
Use the
Big 6 research method or the Scientific Method to help in this project.
-
Brainstorm (write down) a list of questions you need to answer about your
chosen biome in order to create your presentation. (i.e. animals, plants,
average temperature, average rainfall, climate, location in the world, etc.)
-
Brainstorm (write down) a list of all possible sources where you could find
these answers.
-
Brainstorm (write down) a list of keywords to use in searching indexes, table
of contents, OPAC, and the Internet.
-
In the
library, look for these sources:
--in the reference section in regular and science
encyclopedias
--in the nonfiction science section
--on the OPAC
-
On the
Internet, use these suggested web sites:
The World’s Biomes
World Biomes.com
Major Biomes of the World
Biomes of the World
Major Biomes of the World—Fact Monster
OR try one of these online encyclopedias
on:
IHS
Library web page
-
READ the information from the book or the online site and make notes
of answers to questions you previously wrote.
-
Using
PowerPoint, design a 17-slide presentation to include: title slide, map of the
biome location slide, climate description slide, average temperature slide,
average rainfall slide, 5 animal slides, 5 plant slides, conclusion slide, and
sources slide.
-
Go to
the
Italy High School Library web page, under Multimedia, search for a
specific photo of a plant or animal under AltaVista Images or PicSearch.
-
Use the
custom animations feature to add transitions to your slide show.
-
Considering your intended audience at the museum, add appropriate sound
effects to your slide presentation using the sounds provided in PowerPoint or
one of the following web sites:
Find Sounds—use this site to search for a specific sound to download
Midi Database—use this site to search for background music to download
-
Minimal
text information should be included on each slide. When presenting to the
class, you must expound on the minimal text to accompany slides.
-
Using
the video projector, present your PowerPoint presentation with oral commentary
to the class.
-
Burn a
copy of the PowerPoint onto a CD to turn in to your teacher. Be sure to copy
the PowerPoint and all downloaded sounds onto the CD.
-
Submit
a handwritten self-evaluation for the project on a separate sheet of paper.
Include answers to the following questions:
--what I did that was really well done
--how would I do it differently next time
--what sources were the most useful
--what sources did I need to do a better job that I
didn’t have this time
Evaluation
You will receive 2 test grades for the project based
on the “museum” quality of your presentation, your use of PowerPoint transitions
and sounds, and your oral presentation.
Conclusion
At the end of this project you will become an expert
on one of the major biomes and have a better understanding of the part it plays
in the world.
Credits
Polar bears photo courtesy of
WebShots.
revised 18 October 2005
