by Paula Kaplan, St. Mary, Star Of The Sea School
Students in teams of 4 will explore an historic journey of St. Paul as if they were following his route in today's world, with the goal of determining a route, transportation, and destinations suitable for a tour company to provide to customers. They will collect quotes from scripture and create or collect photographs, illustrations, maps, and other materials in order to give a report to the tour company (the class) in the form of a final promotion product suitable for promoting the tour: a multimedia presentation, a brochure, or a Web page. The tour company will select the best tours to add to its schedule.
Teacher Introduction
The idea for this WebQuest sprang from my desire to develop a unit of study which would incorporate not only religion curriculum, but also language arts, social studies, and technology. In the process I also discovered ways to include concepts from the travel and tourism industry.
Although religion is a key component of the curriculum in Catholic schools, many times it is taught in isolation using traditional lecture and workbook formats. I felt that students might become more actively engaged with the study of religion, especially Bible study, through a WebQuest which applies a Constructivist approach and makes connections between the Bible and modern, real world experience.
I chose the journeys of St. Paul because of the inherent possibilities for incorporating history and geography, and because I recall a project I had to do when I was in high school. That project involved making a relief map of the journeys of St. Paul using homemade flour-and-water clay, but I thought today’s students would be far more likely to respond positively to a project involving today’s technology: computers and the Internet. Consequently, I turned to the Internet and QuestGarden to create a WebQuest.
I hope you find this WebQuest useful and enjoyable for your students.