This Web Quest was designed for the Health and Science 8th grade curriculum.

Goals & Objectives:

Students will explore and investigate MRSA using the Internet.

1. Students will gather evidence as to how MRSA has entered their school community and where MRSA lurks.

2. Students will list preventive measures for stomping out MRSA.

3. Students will develop an awareness of MRSA, its impact on the community, and the health issues it causes.

4. Students will become aware of their personal responsibilities concerning the prevention and spread of MRSA.

5. Students will meet, after all individual task information is collected, and produce a poster and presentation that will share accurate and important information about this common, but preventable infection.

NJ Core Curriculum Standards

Bloom's Taxonomy:

Bloom's Taxonomy is truly one of the most useful tools for moving students, especially slower learners, to higher levels of thinking. Our Web Quest addresses Bloom's Taxonomy is the following ways:

1. KNOWLEDGE = students will define MRSA; recall MRSA is a bacterium; list facts and myths about MRSA.

2. COMPREHENSION = students will explain their individual roles, they will explain how MRSA is contracted, spread, and how it can be prevented. Through their research and discussion with fellow team members, the students will be able to distinguish between MRSA's facts and MRSA's myths.

3. APPLICATION = students will apply the information they have obtained through their research and answer the specific questions of their roles, create an informative poster, and execute a presentation of their choice.

4. ANALYSIS = students will analyze their collected data, contrast MRSA's facts and myths, and therefore be able to identify MRSA's facts as well as MRSA's myths.

5. SYNTHESIS = students will design a poster and compose a presentation.

6. EVALUATION = students will be able to defend their research. They will summarize their findings through their poster and presentations.

Learning Styles:

• CONCRETE RANDOM = independent; exploring and investigating. Answering questions pertaining to their specific role; creating a poster and doing a presentation. The brainstorming for solutions and investigation in this webquest appealed to this learner.
• CONCRETE SEQUENTIAL = hands on learning. Computer ultilization-web searching; step-by-step directions; data gathering; realistic situation.
• ABSTRACT RANDOM= imaginative; interpretative. Working in a group; peer teaching; poster with illustrations; able to present their findings and perform either through a music presentation or short skit.
• ABSTRACT SEQUENTIAL = analytical; critical. Linking of web sources for information-independent research; report facts and myths; given an opportunity to be a certain role; rubric.

Multiple Intelligences:

• VERBAL/LINGUISTIC = oral presentation; use memory/recall to complete the poster and presentation; listen to information gathered by other students.
• LOGICAL/MATHEMATICAL = deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning to participate; critical thinking and problem solving skills to evaluate the information they have received and use it to construct a poster and presentation.
• VISUAL/SPATIAL = clip art photos; webquest; poster, presentation.
• BODILY/KINESTHETIC = hands on learning; using fine motor skills to make poster; gross motor skills for presentation; computer manipulation.
• MUSICAL = music presentation; singing the "ABCs" or "Happy Birthday" as an extension activity for washing hands.
• INTERPERSONAL = working cooperatively within a group; working together to select roles, share and collect information and then create a cooperative group poster and presentation.
• INTRAPERSONAL = higher order thinking as related to Bloom's Taxonomy; student doing his or her own research; ability to have an independent product and know and understand MRSA.

Sense and Meaning

New information will be stored into long-term memory, and thus learned, more readily if it has sense and has meaning to the individual. To assure that the information makes sense to the learner, we have chosen age-appropriate and reading-level appropriate websites from which the students will obtain the information. We have designed this webquest so that the students must work together and be able to teach one another the information, which helps the individual make sense of the information.

The information will have meaning to the students because it is present in their school. We are not asking them to learn about something that "happens to someone else"; it has happened to someone they know. It also has meaning because they are being asked by the principal to help the school community.

Rehearsal and Closure

Rehearsal refers to the repetition and processing of information. In this webquest we have the students utilize the information they have acquired as per our outline. We require them to answer the specific questions of their respective roles. The students will then incorporate the information into creative posters that will be displayed throughout the school, along with a presentation to be performed at a school assembly. By completing these learning tasks, the students obtain closure because the rehearsal process is completed, sense and meaning is attached, and the new information is transferred into long-term memory.

On to the Credits