Last year in the blog entry, Oil Spills and WebQuests, I suggested that Oil Spills could be the subject of a good topic to investigate as an Ecological topic as a WebQuest. And they still are!

As a result of the recent NZ oil spill and an article "Oil spill captain appears in court" Oct.12 2011, a WebQuest could be developed on the maritime law around these events. "The charge under section 65 of the Maritime Act carries a maximum penalty of $10,000 fine or 12 months' prison." "Is this seen as reasonable?" could be the big question!

Jindabyne Dam release brings silted Snowy back to life is a wonderful stimulus article for an Introduction to a WebQuest! The roles could be:

1. An indigenous Australian from the local Ngarigo language group;
2. Aquatic Ecologist
3. A Farmer
4. A Government official from NSW
5. A Government official from the Commonwealth.

Jessica Watson, the youngest Australian to circumnavigate the world, has inspired Australian teenagers and others! She has been awarded Young Australian of the Year!

Her parents were given a lot of criticism about their approval of Jessica being alone on her yacht, Pink Lady.

"JESSICA Watson's father Roger says it would be worse to deny his daughter permission to sail solo around the world than to lose her in the attempt." (Source: news.com.au)

This statement would make for an excellent statement to start an ethical WebQuest!

Recently I assessed a group of WebQuests that were created by students from the Australian Catholic University (Canberra Campus) and the following 9 were considered outstanding!

Joelle Arguta - "Little Works"

Valen Dyson - "Should children with lymphoedema attend special needs preschools over mainstream preschools?"

Ann Jenvey - Dysgraphia and NAPLAN

Chris Nairn - Food for Thought: How far should a child-care centre go to cater for the needs of one child? 

Lauren Parker - Can a Nurse with Narcolepsy function safely at work? 

Elizabeth Wilson - ABIlity to Play ...the Journey beyond RehABIlitation 

Tanya de Gier  - Disabilities or Differences?

Amanda Rombouts - Tourette Syndrome - Can't you just stop!? 

Melanie Lee  - I am not like the other kids. I have cerebral palsy... 

At the moment, I'm working on discovering WebQuests for students in middle School (Years 5 - 8) that are about the following careers - for On the Job

Work around the House:

*Architect
*Electrician
*Painter

Community & Health
*Veterinarian
*Fire Fighter
*Garbage Collector
*Parking Inspector
*Paramedic
*Real Estate Agent 
*Postal Worker
*Police Worker
*Physiotherapist 
*Teacher
*Dentist
*Chaplain
*Social Worker
*Nurse

Retail & Hospitality
*Butcher
*Jeweller
*Waiter
*Florist
*Hairdresser
*Sales Person
*Chef
*Pharmacist
*Green Grocer
*Video Store Attendant
*Beautician
*Newsagent
*Baker

Transport & Travel
*Mechanic
*Taxi Driver
*Auto Electrician
*Truck Driver
*Travel Agent
*Flight Attendant

Environments
*Builder
*Farmer
*Gardener 
*Zoo Keeper
*Construction Worker

Leisure & Entertainment
*Artist
*Aerobics Instructor
*Journalist 
*Dancer
*Fitness Instructor
*Photographer
*Coach
*Karate Instructor
*Director
*Fisherman

Office & Administration
*Secretary/PA 
*Judge
*Accountant 
*IT Professional
*Management Consultant 
*Corporate Trainer 

Research & Development
*Archaeologist
*Mathematician
*Scientist 

ANY HELP WOULD BE GRATEFULLY RECEIVED!
Do you know of any real WebQuests around these careers or related careers?

Killer cholera begins where other diseases end and Choleric waters still run deep with disease by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (ABC Science), are two articles describing the history of this disease and the number of people who are infected with Cholera each year as a result of lack of clean water! War plays a significant role in the development of oral rehydration therapy (ORT)!

Cholera's prevention preferable to its cure could be a perfect WebQuest to develop especially for University and upper high school students studying International Development Studies; Economics or Biology.

I heard a great program today coming to work on Florence Nightingale (Rear Vision, 11th August 2010).

Florence Nightingale circa 1850: Photo - H. Lenthall, London (Wikimedia Commons)

This program was celebrating her life on the centenary of her death. What was interesting was the different ideas about what Florence Nightingale had achieved.

Professor Andrew Lambert, King's College, London, said: "I think like all eminent Victorians, to go back to Lytton Strachey's great debunking book of the 1920s, her reputation has gone from being absolutely iconic in the late Victorian-Edwardian era; at the time of her death she was one of the most famous people in the world. She was then viciously and systematically debunked and by the 1980s people were saying that she was just a power-crazed harridan who made the lives of everybody trying to do a job out there miserable, and in the interests of her own agenda. And we're now swinging back towards a more balanced position. But somebody like Florence Nightingale is always going to be of interest, and there will always be a debate: did she do good things? Did she achieve what she said she achieved? Indeed, did she achieve half the things that the newspapers claimed for her, or was she just somebody who happened to be in the right place at the right time? And I think that debate will go on because the results of her work in the Crimea are not absolutely clear-cut, it's not absolutely certain that she made a major difference. And the evidence of her own writings is that she was deeply dissatisfied with the consequences of her work in the Crimea, and pressed on for the rest of her life working in many ways to try and improve on that situation.
  
So was she the latter-day saint of late Victorian hagiography? No, certainly not. We have to see these people in the round. She was by no means perfect but she was one of the few people of that age who really did make a difference."

What a great WebQuest to create on this important historical figure!

If you want to explore the issues around Nursing in the Australian context, read up about Lucy Osburn (1835 - 1891) - this story also would make for a great WebQuest

Back in May, A terrible year for Oil Spills (ABC, The Law Report) was covered. This is a great article as stimulus material for a WebQuest! The Law Report states "It has been a shocking 12 months for oil spills: the Gulf of Mexico and, much closer to home, the Great Barrier Reef, the Timor Sea and the coast off southern Queensland. When disaster strikes how well do American and Australian legal and regulatory systems respond?"

What an incisive big question!!!

Resources:

Videos of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico 2010.

Timeline: Gulf of Mexico oil spill

National Geographic: Daily News

2010 Great Barrier Reef oil spill

Oil Spill 2010: Disaster Recovery Plan Needed

I built the "My Business Rules" WebQuest for the Aboriginal Employment Strategy (AES @ Moree) a few years ago for their Youth Entrepreneurial Program. The WebQuest was used at Moree to encourage students to create and develop their own businesses - some of which are still going!!!

"The Youth Entrepreneurial Program provides Aborignals school student in years 7-9 with first hand experience of how to set up and run a small business. Held during school time or after school, it encourages Aboriginal youth to gain small business management skills through work based experience and other practical means. Our highly successful youth program is structured to deliver the following activites;

Business name
Business product
Research market activities and trends
Developing business plans
Financial record keeping
Develop, manage and conduct meetings
Develop marketing strategies
Establish an alumni group" (Source: website)

The AES using our WebQuest as the vehicle for this program.

Here are some pictures of the first year the WebQuest operated at Moree with the students selling their products at the markets:

Robert Bradshaw, the YEP (Youth Entrepreneurial Program) Officer at AES Blacktown, contacted me a couple of months ago to see if their group of Indigenous youth could use the WebQuest. "Of course" I said, "It is FREE for all teachers to use and has a focus on Indigenous students from Years 7 - 8 encouraging them to create their own businesses".

The WebQuest has been used by the AES at Blacktown NSW during the past 12 weeks with great success!

Robert used the WebQuest and here are the results: "The Youth Entrepreneurial program for our kids from Chifley College Bidwell graduated on Monday 17th May and achieved an outstanding result within the 10 week time frame set out. Here is a picture of the sports bag with the Kooris Come In All Colours logo. The business name itself says it all KCIAC".

Anyone wishing to assist this group of Indigenous enterprising young people - KCIAC - with the sale of their product - this great bag costing only $30, please contact
Sky at the AES Blacktown office:
Ph: (02) 9852 2700  
Fx: (02) 9852 2710
89 Main Street, Blacktown NSW 2148

So when you give a group of teenagers 15 hours and a bunch of pens and paper, the last thing you'd expect is for them to write and compose their own opera.

About 80 teenagers in regional Victoria were given exactly that task, staging their own modern classic.

In this report: Murray Dahm, Project director of Wot Opera, Opera Australia" explains the project!

"WotOpera is an opera education initiative that provides secondary students from participating schools with the opportunity of creating an original opera and being involved in all aspects of its creation from conception through to performance. In 2010 the program will expand to include Bendigo, Sydney and Launceston. Twenty students from each school will participate in; character development, plot creation, writing the libretto, composing the music, casting, painting the backdrop, and performance." (Source: website)

What a great WebQuest this could be!!! And yes students can based their Opera on a TV Soap Opera but to date with this program, students have come up with interesting, varied and real life scenarios!

Teachers - don't leave it up to Opera Australia - have a go at creating a WebQuest based on the premise of Wot Opera and send it into Opera Australia! They would love a quality educational resource!  This will also expand the program to include your students and school instead of leaving it to the select few!!!

Resources:

Introduce children and teenagers to Opera - this link contains a big listing of different Operas to introduce students to through DVDs.