Week #4-Gale Virtual Reference Library

1. In the Gale Virtual Reference Library I clicked on Endangered Species because this is something that I have my children do a research project on each year in third grade. This will be a great resource for them to use to find some well know and some unique endangered species. I chose the Matschie's Tree Kangaroo as my endangered species because it was an animal that I have never heard of before; I would hope that my students would also take this list and find an unknown species to learn more about. What a great way to expand their knowledge of endangered species. The article I looked at gave great information on the animals: history, the conservation measures that have been taken to save the animal, their habitat, current distribution, description of the animal and the biology of the animal. Their was also information about its classification and pictures of the animal. I can see using this site in conjunction with the World Book Kids sites that I currently have been using.

2. As I searched for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the basic search, I found 4 books with information on this topic, but there was also related information on the left side of the page that you could use. This information gave overviews of the book as well as historical information at the time the book was written. It gave insight into where Mark Twain came up with his characters, settings and plots for the book.

I used the read aloud feature to read the whole article. I thought it would be pretty neat for our visually impaired students, but also for our students who need to work on fluency or that are struggling readers. When I tried to just have it read one section, it would only accept 600 characters at a time. This may have some limitations in the classroom, but still would be a great tool.