1. ENDANGERED ANIMALS A RESEARCH PROJECT
In this lesson, students will research an endangered animal and build a website including pictures, video from YouTube, and text to encourage people to protect the animal.
Before the lesson:
Post to Google Classroom:
Link to List of Endangered Species
Link to Website to evaluate for Rating Website Activity
Link to Endangered Animals Search Engine
Link to Weebly.com
Print copies for each student:
Endangered Animals Research Guide
Rating Websites Worksheet
Website Design Planning Guide

2. Research helps you explore a topic in more detail.
WHY DO WE RESEARCH?
Research helps you explore a topic in more detail.
If you want answers to questions or solutions to problems, research is the way to find those answers!
Intro...read with students

3. In this research unit, you will:
ask questions
find information
present your findings to others
Read with students

4. What can we do to protect endangered animals?
Research Focus
Endangered Animals
What can we do to protect endangered animals?
Pose this driving question to the students...optional brief discussion

5. Our Task:
Our class will create a campaign to make our community aware of endangered animals and ways that we can protect these animals from extinction.
We will create an informative website to spread the word about endangered animals and easy things that we can do to help save them.

6. GETTING READY FOR RESEARCH
How will you know if the sites you research are useful?
Let’s practice rating websites!
Rating Websites
Give each student printed copy of “Rating Websites.”
Instruct students to access the link on Google Classroom to the site to rate.

7. Choose an endangered animal
List of Endangered Species
What do you know about the endangered animal you selected?
What do you need to know about this endangered animal?
Endangered
Animals
Research
Guide
Give each student the Endangered Animals Research Guide.

8. Time to research!
Type the name of the animal you selected in the search bar.
Find useful websites in the search results to answer the questions you wrote.
Record your answers and the source (title of the website) where you found each answer.
*As you gather information, remember to also save pictures and videos for your webpage.

9. Remember these questions as you view sites for your research:
Can the author be trusted?
Will this site have the information I need?
Is this site up to date?
Is this a good research site for students your age?

10. Website Design How will you layout your page?
What kinds of information will you include?
What kinds of pictures and videos will you include?
Requirements for Webpage:
Name of animal
A picture of animal
A video of the animal
Information about the animal
Ways that you can protect the animal
Website
Design
Planning Guide
Give each student a printed copy of the “Website Design Planning Guide.”
Read through the instructions with the students. Provide assistance as necessary.

11. Building Your Webpage Step 1: Select a theme
Choose a category.
Scroll through themes and click a design that you like and closely matches your plan.
Click Start Editing.
Guide students through the process of creating their website.
Remember that students should “G+ Login” to log in with Google. They will not need to type an address or password.
They will need to Add a site to begin building their webpage.
Model as necessary and follow the steps on the next few slides.

12. Step 2: Choose your website address (URL)
Type an address for your site and click continue. If the name is already taken, you may have to try something different.

13. Scroll down to find the YouTube icon.
Step 3: Add your content
For the theme you selected,
Click in the text boxes to type your text
Click on the images to replace them with the images that you saved in your research.
To add text, images, and YouTube videos to the page...
From the toolbar on the left of the page, click and drag the icon onto your webpage and drop it in the place you want it.
Then, click in the box to add your content.
To delete parts from the theme, click the x in the top right corner of the text box or image.
Scroll down to find the YouTube icon.

14. Last step
As you add content to your site each time you log in, it will save automatically.
When you are finished adding your content, click the PUBLISH button at the top right of the screen.
Your website will now be available for people to see on the web by typing in the address (URL) that you set up when you started.

15. Teacher Page Louisiana Digital Literacy Standards:
Use age-appropriate technologies to locate, collect, and organize content from media collection activities for specific purposes, citing sources
Perform basic searches on databases (e.g. library, card catalog, encyclopedia) to locate information
Evaluate teacher- or self- selected Internet resources in terms of their usefulness for research
Use Web 2.0 tools (e.g., online discussions, blogs, and wikis) to gather and share information
Louisiana ELA Standards:
Conduct short research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.
Recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print and digital sources; take notes and categorize information, and provide a list of sources.
Draw relevant evidence from grade-appropriate literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly