ThinkQuest Internet Challenge is an opportunity for young webmasters (from grades three through twelve) to show off their skills by developing an educational Web site. With over 325 entries in this year's USA competition, the following sites were among those that earned the highest national honors. For a complete list of this year's winners, visit ThinkQuest USA 2002.
Created by fourth and fifth graders from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, this site encouraging multi-cultural understanding won a Platinum Award in their grade-level division. Breaking Down the Walls suggests excellent questions and topics for classroom or dinner table discussion, and concrete ways to overcome prejudice. Best interactive activities include the Crossword Puzzle and Spin Around the World.
I was struck by the depth of information at this Gold-winning site from Tennessee elementary-school students. The site can be navigated either by the links on the left-hand side or via the nifty drop-down menu across the bottom of each page. But to get a better picture of the whole site, use the Site Maps found under Extra Information in the bottom menu. My favorite clicks were the related crafts (such as a Trojan Horse constructed from boxes and paper mache), recipes (anyone for Egyptian fig cakes?) and interactive activities (quizzes, jigsaws, crosswords, flash cards and interactive timelines.)
Click to accept your mission as a secret agent investigating the events surrounding World War II. After "spying" on each European country listed on the left-hand menu, take the country quiz. Upon completion of your mission, take the Final Quiz (perhaps an oblique reference to Hitler's "final solution?") and receive your Certificate of Recognition. Mission Europe Hostilities won a Platinum in the high-school division, but is sprinkled with a few typos and grammatical errors.
Personal Best, another Platinum winner in the high-school division, is not only an informational resource about running but also a tool to keep track of your running performance. To use the tracking application, create a free account as either an athlete or a coach, and then login to enter details about your runs. After entering your stats, you can view a graph of your performance over time with just four clicks of the mouse.
"The purpose of our ThinkQuest website is to try to lessen the amount of hate and prejudice in our world by developing an awareness of America's attitude towards Asian Americans during World War II and towards American Muslims after the terrorists' attack on September 11." To research their topic, the authors (from a middle school in Hawaii) visited surviving members of World War II's 442nd Regimental Combat Team (which was comprised of Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the mainland.) Their excellent work earned them a ThinkQuest Platinum award for grades six through eight.
The following links are either new discoveries or sites that didn't make it into my newspaper column because of space constraints. Enjoy!
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