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1. Description of Our Community
Eisenberg Elementary School is located in New Castle, Delaware and is part of the Colonial. School District. New Castle is rich in history. William Penn landed in New Castle in 1682. The area known as “Historic New Castle” is filled with old brick homes and cobble stone streets.
New Castle is located in the New Castle County, which covers the northern part of Delaware. New Castle County is the most populated county in the state, but only covers about 1/3 of the area of the state. The lower portion of the state is mostly farmland and homes.
For being such a small state, Delaware has plenty of natural beauty, which can be seen throughout the state. From beautiful state parks to sunny beaches, Delaware seems to have it all.
2. Summary of Our Project
Delaware is the second smallest state in America. Even though Delaware is rich in history, much of it’s past is unknown to most American’s. Some people have a difficult time locating the Delaware on a map. Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution, giving it the title, “The First State”.
Our focus on local leaders led us to wonder if there were any famous Delawareans. We narrowed our search to actors, athletes and artists. Our initial discovery showed us that there are several celebrities that Delaware can call their own. The number of famous Delawareans, many of whom are world-famous, amazed us.
As we learned more, we focused on five celebrities: Cab Calloway, Estelle Taylor, Randy White, Ryan Phillippe, and Elisabeth Shue. Each student in the project studied one person and wrote a report on their findings.
As we looked to the future, we wondered how our students could possible become famous Delawareans. Students wrote a short report on how he or she planned on becoming famous and why they would like to be famous.
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:21-50%
B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:2-3
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
None
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
The biggest barrier for our students to overcome was the amount of time we had to meet each week. Our meeting time was limited to only 30 minutes per week on Friday afternoons. That time was further reduced due to inclement weather and other duties that Mr. Walters is involved with. Students did much of the research and writing at home on their own time. We met as a group, mainly to discuss the next step in the process and type our reports using the school’s computer lab.
Another barrier was the lack of information about specific celebrities. Much of our information was gathered from Wikipedia, which is a user generated online encyclopedia. Since the information on the site is written by the generally public, we had to check to make sure that the information we found was accurate
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Because of our research for the CyberFair, my students have become more aware of the opportunities that are available to them. They have high goals and they know that they need to work hard to obtain them.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
An important part of our project was researching our famous Delawareans. Our students learned to use the Internet to search for information. They also learned that some sources of information cannot always be trusted.
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