Yes, I am doing the lessons out of order. Today we (grandson Barrett and I) looked at the titles of the Gale Reference Library. In the section on Environment we came upon the three volume set of Endangered Species and chose to look in the volume on mammals to research the black rhinoceros. We found out that they are endangered because people want their horns to grind up and use as powder which they think will be good medicine. But maybe not really a medicine. We also discovered that they are found in Africa and have two horns. This information needed an adult assist to discover. Putting black rhinoceros in the basic search box led us to the same volume and then one other book called The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. In that book we found out that black rhinos are actually dark brown. In the first book it said that it was actually gray. This confused us! Maybe we need a third source.
Listening to the article in the book was fun because it actually pronounced all the hard words and helped us to know what the words were. We found out how much the rhino weighs and that it has three toes on each foot which makes 12 toes (Barrett figured that out with his 2nd grade math skills!)
We looked at three other blogs and found their research interesting. They all went in completely different directions than we did and looked at different titles.
This would be a great resource for older students looking for information on a specific topic. I wish I had known more about this one a few months ago when I was helping someone do research on elder abuse. I liked the links to other websites and other resources as well as the timely information in the Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine vol. 2.
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1 comment:
Hi, Diane & Barrett, he of the good math skills! Thanks for your report, especially on the black rhinos. Have you seen the black rhinos at Great Plains Zoo? If you see them in person, you can decide whether they are gray or brown. We think GVRL is easy to use, with a powerful basic search. Do beware of copyright dates, however. The State Library purchased these titles several years ago and has been unable to purchase newer editions since. I do hope you'll remember to use this with patrons when it's appropriate.
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