Grade Level: 4-6

Description of Activity:
This activity impels students to become great inventors.  In groups, students choose random objects from a teacher collection and create new uses for the objects.  They then take digital photographs of their inventions being used and write a professional advertisement about their invention.  Finally, they design web pages to display their work.

Materials:
• A box of random objects like, cooking utensils, tools, and other odd items
• Digital cameras
• Computers with Netscape Navigator and Composer, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, and Internet access
• Two floppy disks per student

Process:
-Students are put into groups with 3 to 4 members
-The teacher has each group pick out an object from the box and then think about a creative way to use the object
-Students take digital photographs of their inventions in use
-Next, students adjust their photos using Adobe Photoshop, and save photos on individual disks
-Individually students use Microsoft word to write an advertisement about their invention
-Students use Netscape Navigator and Netscape Composer to design their own web page to showcase their advertisement and photographs.  They should also include their email addresses on the web page.

Teacher Feedback:
Teachers should send at least one email to each student, which gives suggestions and/or encouragement.  Teachers can also give out grades via email.

Rubric for Grading:

Requirements	0 points	1 point	2 points
Group Work	does not participate with group	helps the group out a little, but is not enthusiastic or supporting	comes up with good ideas and is very helpful and cooperative
Newspaper Advertisement + Photographs	does not have an article or photos	a poorly written article and out of focus photographs	a creative article with no grammatical errors and clear photographs
Web Page construction	does not have a web page	a web page where the links do not work correctly	An easily read web page with links that work

 

North Carolina Course of Study Competencies:
 The Modern Fashion and Invention activity encompasses many standard course of study competencies in Language Arts, Information Skills, and Computer Technology Skills.

Click herefor the Competencies:    Language Arts
                                                   Information Skills
                                                   Computer and Technology Skills

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