Christopher Columbus

Each year we celebrate Columbus Day on October 12th.  Columbus Day began in 1792 to honor the life of Christopher Columbus and the 300th anniversary of his landing in America.

Do you know who is Christopher Columbus? 

Why do we celebrate the life of Christopher Columbus?  What were his accomplishments?  How did he accomplish them?

The Task

Your assignment, as class reporter, is to find and record facts about Christopher Columbus's life.  As a team you will work together to create a front page for the local newspaper. 

The Process
 

Activity # 1  Working within your group, visit the web sites in the resource page and find the answers to the following questions:  1.  When and where was Christopher Columbus born? 2.  What was Christopher's father's occupation? 3.  Who sponsored his voyage? 4.  What was the purpose of his voyage? 5.  Name the three ships he sailed on his famous voyage. 6.  What land did Christopher Columbus discover?

Activity # 2  Using the answers from activity # 1 complete the front page of the newspaper. 1.  Open up Microsoft Word template. 2.  Read and complete each sentence on the front page.

Activity # 3  Find two pictures, using the web sites in the resource section.  Both pictures must relate to the life of Columbus. 1.  Choose a picture. 2.  Right click on the picture. 3.  Scroll down to copy and left click. 4.  Open up Microsoft Word template. 5.  Click in an empty picture box. 6.  Right click and scroll down to paste. 7.  Move picture to desired location. 8.  Type a caption to describe picture. 9.  Repeat steps 1 through 7 for second picture.

Activity # 4  Create a headline (title) for your newspaper and identify the team reporters. 1.  Open Microsoft Word template. 2.  Left click on the top box and type in your headline for your team's paper. 3.  Left click in the reporters' box and type in each team members name.

Activity # 5  Save and print your team's newspaper. 1.  Left click on file and scroll down to save. 2.  Click on save. 3.  Type the name of your paper in the file name box. 4.  Click on save. 5.  Click on the printer icon.

Evaluation

Each team member will be evaluated on how well they perform the assigned activities with in their team.

The main things you will be evaluated on are...

1.  How well you participated in your group.
2.  How much did you contribute to your group.
3.  How well you cooperated in your group.
 

	Beginning 1	Developing 2	Accomplished 3	Exemplary 4	Score
Participation	Never participates.	Seldom participates.	Usually participates.	Always participates.
Contribution	Makes no contribution to assignment.	Makes little contribution to assignment.	Usually makes contributions to assignment.	Contributes to all parts of assignment.
Cooperation	Never cooperates.	Seldom cooperates.	Usually cooperates.	Always cooperates.
Appearance of Newspaper	Insufficient information.	Not all picture and text boxes are complete.	Picture and text boxes are adequate.	Picture and text boxes are compete.
Factual Accuracy	Facts are incorrect.	Most facts are incorrect.	Most facts are correct.	All facts are correct.

Conclusion

Each year we celebrate Columbus Day to honor Christopher Columbus.  Through this webquest we hope that you have "discovered" the importance of this holiday.

Credits & References

We would like to thank Melanie Honeycutt for her technical support and John Spagnolo for his the opportunity to learn about and create a WebQuest.