Welcome to My Country

A Web Quest/Brochure Assignment for 6^th & 7th Grade Model United Nations

Designed by

Mr. Ed Moroney
emoroney@henrystreetschool.org OR emoroney@nycboe.net

Jump to: Introduction | Task | Process | Evaluation | Conclusion | References | Credits

Introduction

As an enthusiastic HSSIS Middle School student, you have been assigned a country from the Model United Nations (MUN) Country Packets. You are now privileged to be the official HSSIS-MUN Public Relations Ambassador of your assigned country. Other people in the world may not know much about your country. You are going to be the specialist, the well-informed spokesperson, the person anyone can go to for answers to their questions or concerns about your country. You are going to be the presenter of your country. People will want to go to your country because of how well you have presented it. You heard the call and are responding to the big question:

MY COUNTRY IS…? 

The Task

Your assignment for your term of service includes the following:

- To inform people as to where your country is and some important things about it;

- To present your country in a positive way (even when the facts may not be so positive); You may be creative but not dishonest. For example, if your country has a large desert area, you might say, “There are large portions of the country which enjoy plenty of sunshine and warm, dry days so one rarely needs rain gear.”

- To encourage people of the world to visit.

You will do this in the form of a brochure (printed) or a Web Quest (also printed hard copy but saved to disk and accessible on the HSSIS web page). You will be given a 3.5” floppy disc. It will be kept in your folder and signed out when you use it. You will have your country packet in the folder also. You may keep all information you gather in the folder. The folder will not be taken from the classroom.

At the end of your task, you will have so informed and persuaded the viewers/readers, that they will no longer be ignorant about your country; they will be attracted to and consider visiting your country; they will want to support your country in its needs and concerns.

You must take what some consider to be dry, boring facts and present them in such a way as to make them exciting, interesting, useful, and attractive.

The Process

1. You have been assigned a country packet. You will need to become familiar with the information contained within it (a copy will be kept in the folder in class).
2. You have already completed a rubric about some qualities a country brochure should have (recall, TO BE A HIT, it should be attractive, neat, informative, organized, etc.) and you will use this as the guiding principle for the quality and content of your brochure/quest.
3. You will access the Henry Street School website MUN Students and begin the process of going to the websites listed there.
4. You will determine exactly what specific information is going to be presented. It can be in any order but you must include at least the following:

         - An Introduction which includes the brochure content is needed.

     - Location of country. (A map or image showing neighbors, etc. would be helpful and there are many on the sites listed below.)

     - Images of the country – people or sites; festivals, etc. Some pictorial           information which will help us understand your country better (see the Reference section with Images found below).

      - Information about the climate and terrain – how should we prepare for going there? What clothes might we need? What things might we be able to do? Connect pictures with your persuasive words.

     - Some facts made interesting. For example, your country may have a large portion of the population under 15 years of age. How can you make that known and catch our attention? It may have many natural resources (or few), what might that mean for the country?

     - A Reference section is necessary. It tells people where we got our information (so that they can go and get the information if they need it). If you use a travel brochure or a book, a website or even a person, you should reference them – give the credit to them.  

5. You may have help doing this project (not someone doing it for you but assisting you).
6. You must have an evaluator (at least one). This person must be an adult and not a classmate. They will be told of the requirements and asked for an evaluation of your efforts. Ask the person to grade it according to the rubric below.
7. 703 will submit this to Mr. Moroney on 5/23; 701 & 702 on 5/26 and 601 on 5/27. It will be turned in on a disk and a hard copy. 
8. You will present your brochure to the class the following week.

Always remember that the purpose of this is a creation of a brochure that will inform people; give them knowledge of where your country is and many important things about it. They must be attracted to your country by your skillful presentation. There are helpful travel brochures available in Rm. 428 and in the computer lab.

You will determine exactly what the brochure will look like but you may not exceed ten pages (8.5 x 11) including all the pictures etc.

UUU CHECKLIST UUU

The following is a check list you should use to monitor what is required and how you are doing in completing it.

  Made outline of important things you want to include in the brochure (location; climate and terrain; some interesting things; reference section, etc.).

  Wrote an introduction which includes the outline.

  Looked through travel brochures to get some ideas of presentation.

  Asked the questions (how, where, when, what, etc.) needed to think through all the elements required.

  Searched for and found good maps, pictures, or things you want to include (many can be found on the sites found below under Resources – saving what you find to the disk for later use).

  Asked the assistance of an adult who will be the one to evaluate your work according to the rubric developed. Included his or her name and the relationship to you along with a signature line in the credits section.

  Saved all work on disk and made a copy to turn in.

  Begun preparing for the class presentation – it will be limited to four minutes – you will need to decide if you will just be speaking and showing the brochure or if you will be using some other means to inform us.

  Got help and answers from Mr. Moroney and others regarding the project?

Evaluation

Your brochure will be evaluated on the rubric of quality of presentation and content that you developed.

Conclusion

When you have completed this project, you will have learned several things: you will have learned a great deal about one particular country; how to organize details in a pleasing manner to inform and influence others; how to use the resources on the internet; how to hyperlink different sources in a presentation; and how you can involve others in your learning so that they can constructively help and support you.

References

History and Interesting Facts

InfoPlease | www.infoplease.com/atlas
Need information on people, money, flags, maps? More? This site covers a lot!

Lonely Planet Destinations | www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations
This is a website to help people plan vacations, but it is a good place to read about your country's history and interesting facts.

GeoHive | www.geohive.com
Welcome to GeoHive, a site with lots of information on population of regions, countries, provinces and cities.

Rulers of the World | http://rulers.org
Who is the head government official in your country? This site, with a little digging, will tell you lots about who's in charge.

Largest Cities in the World | www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/habitat/profiles/index.asp
Do you think your country has one of the largest cities in the world? Check out this website!

AskJeeves Student Edition | www.ajkids.com
Still need more information? Type your question on this site and see what the Internet can find for you.
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Maps, Data and Charts

National Geographic Student Atlas | http://pebble.nationalgeographic.com/studentatlas
The National Geographic Society is still busy building this interactive atlas for you, but for now, find your continent, zoom down to find your country, and click on the links for photos, facts and National Geographic stories about your country.

GESource Web Guide | www.gesource.ac.uk/worldguide
They have compiled a series of guides for over 270 countries and territories, including articles, features, demographics, geography data, interactive world maps, satellite photos, scrollable city images, and links to other resources. You can even compare data between countries.

InfoNation | http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/infonation3/basic.asp
Compare your country to another. Or see what trends are happening in your country. This website will allow you to create charts for your brochure.

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Images

Google Image Search | http://www.google.com/img
Do you want to add a little color to your brochure? Search for pictures and other images by entering the name of your country in the search field.

Pictures of Places | http://www.picturesofplaces.com
Click on the world region to find links to pictures of the country you are researching.

World Heritage Tour | http://www.world-heritage-tour.org
World Heritage Sites are some of the most historically important places on earth. Does your country have a World Heritage Site? Click on the first letter of your country to view pictures in your region and read about its interesting history.

World Photos | www.worldphotos.com
Explore this site to find photos to match the current news stories in your country.

Yahooligans | http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/Around_the_World
Use this search engine to find links to sites that have pictures of your country.

Credits

Asia Society has developed much of the Henry Street School Website – and put together most of the web references found on the site for our class.

http://www.henrystreetschool.org/students-modelUN.htm

http://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi&q=

Model United Nations Program (MUN) – Education UNA-USA Country Packets

http://www.answers.com

Last updated on August 15, 1999. Based on a template from The Web Quest Page