Mini Safaris

These short research quizzes are designed to get kids online looking for answers to ten quick questions using a range of research tools such as translators, currency and time converters as well as general search engines. You can make them a timed event, have a competition, work in groups or use them however you like. Wherever possible, especially when marking answers, look at serendipitous teaching moments to identify key teaching points about finding information online. This will usually evolve from the answers the students provide to the various questions. Each quiz is on a word document so you can either hand them out to students to write on or have students complete them electronically. As they are a word document you can amend them as required to suit your needs.

The aim of the safaris is to get students using a range of search engines / tools to locate specific information. The questions are varied, will require use of different sources (e.g. currency converters etc.), and will have different answers depending on the day they are researched.
This is all part of the purpose of showing students a range of key concepts about information:

Some information is constantly changing
Some websites generate information based on data that is provided by the user (time differences, translators etc.)
Answers may vary depending on the source and it is up to the reader to decide which is the most likely authoritative source of information
Different search engines will generate different search results.
Search results will depend on the search terms entered into the search field

Once you get started, and if the students enjoy these, you might like to get students to take turns in creating their own Mini Safaris based around topics you are researching. If you do, send them in and I will post them attributing the class and school they came from.

Click on the stopwatch to download a PPT timer which runds for 10 minutes. Start the timer by pressing PLAY. See how many questions you can get answers in that time.