Tour the United States via HyperStudio Stacks

Students will combine classroom, library time, and computer lab time to research and construct knowledge about 49 U.S. states. (Students will not research their home state.) Students will use their new research knowledge and the resources provided to construct a HyperStudio stack on their assigned state.

A lesson plan for grade 3 Social Studies

By Karl Schaefer

Learn more

• Copyright in an Electronic Environment This site from the NC Department of Public Instruction explains the general and specific guidelines for appropriately citing online materials.

Related pages

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• Comparing governments - International: This lesson focuses on comparing and contrasting national governments in North America and/or Central America. It is the second in a sequence, the first being "Comparing Governments - Local, State, and National" by Tami Weaver and Wendy Pineda, also on the Learn NC website. This plan could be easily adapted for eighth grade or high school ESL students.

Related topics

• Learn more about Hyperstudio, United States, community, maps, social studies, and technology skills.

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Learning outcomes

This can be a highly integrated unit using the talents of the media specialist/librarian and classroom teachers in the instructional and information gathering aspects. In the computer lab, the focused instruction is in how to use, design, and demonstrate their knowledge of their state by creating a non-linear multimedia presentation. This is a wonderful vehicle for including information literacy skills as well. When the students are done with the stack, they will know HyperStudio, possess essential knowledge about their state, and have practiced mining Internet sites as well as print sources for their information.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

3-4 months

Materials/resources

• You will need to have encyclopedias and other resource books for children to use. Your media specialist/librarian is an essential component of this lesson as they can help located the best information for the students to use.
• Student Checklist in Word Format

OR

• Student Checklist in Rich Text Format

Technology resources

• Computer Lab with Internet Connection
• HyperStudio 3.1 or higher. If you own 3.1, there are free upgrades available at www.hyperstudio.com
• The HyperStudio stack can either be downloaded or viewed online if you have the HyperStudio Plug In installed in your browsers Plug In Folder. The .htm file will open in your browser and can also be downloaded and used on your computer, network or web site.
• I found it best to save to the server although you can save to the Hard Drive, but I would suggest backing up the files in some way so you do not loose the work in the event of a Hard Drive failure. The stacks will get large so saving to floppy disks will only work for awhile. In time, the files will become too large to fit on a single floppy. Sound and other multimedia assets can inflate the files’ size very quickly so be aware as you incorporate these items.

Pre-activities

Students will need to have some instruction on HyperStudio just prior to starting this project. I usually start with a small My Family stack to introduce them to the various tools, colors, buttons, clip art, graphic items, text tool, and text object. I keep this to about 3 - 4 weeks at most and have the students make a title card, a card that shows their family members, a card that shows family pets or other important family items, and finally a credits page. Students create all family images using the drawing tools. For the pets, they can begin to use clip art or graphic items. This stack is just an introductory type so completion is dependent on time available. I train the students to “Prepare their Palette” which means they should open their stack and drag down the Tools and Colors on the left side of the screen. Next they use the Extras menu to highlight the Shortcuts and Navigation windows.

Activities

1. The activities are done in conjunction with the media specialist/librarian, classroom teachers, and the computer teacher (if there is one). Coordination is key to the success of this project so frequent or ongoing meetings should be expected and desired. The meetings between computer teacher and media specialist/librarian will need to happen more often than classroom teachers.
2. Classroom teachers introduce the students to the states and begin the exploration of learning about the various regions culminating with assigning the states. This is done in conjunction with the media specialist/librarian prior to the start of HyperStudio instruction in the lab.
3. During the time the students are beginning to research their states, the students work on their family stacks (from the Pre-Activity) in the computer lab. Once the students have completed their family stack, the students can start building their states stack using the checklists provided.
4. Using the checklist, students construct their stacks using the file naming structure of ncstack.stk. The .stk is important and must be used so the stack can be used on any operating system or for web viewing. I have the students create a state folder in their server folder where everything related to their state will be stored or downloaded into during the entire project. This organization is crucial so the students will know where the images are located once they downloaded them from their state’s web site. I have the students download the image by holding the mouse down on the image until the window opens and allows them to choose the method and location to save.
5. Students will use the checklist and web site to build their stack. When downloading images from the internet, please have them record the address and the date they downloaded it so they can cite it later. (See the Learn More section in the sidebar for information on copyright).
6. The HyperStudio skills are taught as the cards are constructed so students build their skills through continued use of the many tools.

Assessment

Please see the attached rubrics:
Rubric (.doc)
Rubric (.rtf)

There is also a HyperStudio Rubric stack attached which could be useful to show students in class. HyperStudio Rubric

An extension of the assessment would be for the students to use their new state knowledge to design a new state license plate or quarter. This extension would let the teacher know if the students internalized the information learned rather then just copied and pasted without having it stick. Teachers would need to create a rubric for this sort of extension to guage the level of knowledge needed as well as the creativity involved. This extension could be added to the stack as a new card.

Supplemental information

I have included a sample stack that we did last year as we learned HyperStudio and followed the checklist in the lab. Get the sample stack

I have attached the web page I built that contains many wonderful links. They all worked the last time I used it in May of 2001. I like the Postcards from America and the National Parks sites very much as they offer many great resources in conjunction with the state’s web site.

Comments

This is a great project if you can manage the time and have the equipment to do it. We have used Alpha Smarts to do some of the word processing in the classrooms so it was not taking lab time to word process. Our library also has 8 Macintosh computers connected to the lab server so students could access their stack and information when in library class.