Date: January 1990
Grade Levels : 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Subject(s):
How much is information worth and how valuable will the ability to find it be in the future? The faculty and staff of the school may volunteer to work on a project with the library media specialist. It should be fun, and also serve as an evaluation of student information skills taught during the year. Each staff member who volunteers will be given a set of questions and a set of information "bucks" that will be handed out to students for correctly answered questions. Students who want to participate will contact as many participating staff members as possible, answer at least one of the questions from a staff member, and earn at least one of the staff member's bucks for a correct answer. In the process, the library media specialist can evaluate how well the students learned to use selected sources during the past year. This program can be used with all levels of students who have been involved in research and reference activities during the year. That is likely to include grades three and up.
There are at least two options for developing questions. All questions must be factual or literal so that the answers can be verified in a source. The library media specialist must be sure that the questions can be answered by students from sources that have been introduced or are available.
Option One: Each staff member may select a particular subject and develop a set of questions about the topic, with help from the library media specialist. This approach gives the staff member a chance to talk about the answers with students and share a subject of personal interest. If the topic is sports, for example, a question might be at this level: "Which team won the baseball World Series in 1988?"
Option Two: Each staff member may be given sets of questions that can be answered with a particular reference source--e.g., questions related to people whose names can be found in Webster's Biographical Dictionary. Another staff member might be given questions that can be answered with the World Almanac.
Option Three: If students are especially adept, anything goes! For example, if computer networks are available, students might use the Internet and any other database. The staff member might be given a variety of questions, with the "trick" being a time limit to answer the question.
The bucks may be printed and the activity may be publicized a week or two in advance.