February 22, 2013
Advanced Challenge
SIRS Discoverer
1. A third grader who reads below grade level needs articles on the solar system for a school project. How would you find appropriate materials for this student, and what are your results? (Hint: Advanced Search is useful here.)

I went to the Advanced search on SIRS Discoverer and typed in Solar system.  I checked Relevance and Easy and hit search.  There was an excellent article called Our Solar System from National Geographic Young Explorer!  I had to look up Lexile Scoring and found that a 7 year old in 3rd grade reads in the 300-800 Lexile range.  Nice to know.  This article was Lexile 840.  It told about all the planets (briefly) and even included pictures and a quiz.  Very useful.  By putting in the Lexile scote lowest to highest, I could eliminate many of the more difficult articles. 

2. What are two ways you can use SIRS Discoverer to find maps/images of volcanoes? How many results did you get with each?

When I put in volcano*, I got 939 "all articles".  I found 30 WebFind Sites that had several neat spots like National Geographic: MapMaker Interactive.  Cool.
The 138 Graphics had several charts of "Types of Volcanoes" and Volcanoes, etc.  One spot was called:

Map: World's Major Volcanoes  I learned there are lots of volcanoes in the world! Then I did an advanced search: Volcano* full text and map* full text  I only got 151 All articles.  No graphics at all.  Surprising. When I put in volcano* and images I did hit 115 articles and one of the web find sites was awesome. It was: 3-D Tour of the Solar System: Geology Tour and with 3-D glasses, it was amazing!  Check it out!