Assign students a topic and give them a handout with questions. Give them specific sites to use within their search or tell them to use their favorite internet search engines: Google, Ask Jeeves, etc. I especially like using the internet field trip approach when I am introducing a novel. It is important to give students historical perspective about the books they read in class. Before teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, I like to review Jim Crow laws. Before teaching Night by Elie Wiesel, we discuss World War II and Nazi Germany. The Library of Congress has a great website with historical pictures and primary documents.
I have used the internet field trip in two basic ways, depending on the time I have to prepare the lesson. The simplest way is to give students a worksheet with questions that can be answered on any number of websites, a handout about the Holocaust for example. Have students use the internet to define terms like genocide, SS, Hitler, Dr. Mengele, etc. Also ask students to look for images from the time period and respond to them on their worksheets. Make sure they give you the site they used to complete this assignment. Also be sure to monitor them as they work because students often find their ways around the blocks put on by your district.
Another way to implement this assignment is to find several websites you want the students to become familiar with and then search the site yourself as you make a handout with questions from various places on the site. This one can be useful with students who are just becoming familiar with the internet or computers; they'll learn there is much more to an individual site than what first meets the eye. Either way you do it, an internet field trip is a great way to tour the virtual world at our fingertips.
