SIRS

I use SIRS often with my students.  The lexile sort for the articles is helpful with students and teachers.  I began my search like a student and used the science tile (764 articles) and then astronomy and space (197 articles) from the right side bar.  After that I sorted by the lexile.  This was still a lot of articles to look through.

I then went back to the homepage to conduct the advanced search.  I used the search term solar system and selected easy for the reading level.  The result was 45 articles. However there was a huge range in lexile (510 to 1290). The then searched solar system and put in a range of 400 to 700, which resulted in 4 articles.  I am not sure what the parameters are for considering if an article is easy, moderate or challenging.  I guess I would need to be aware if the student would be able to handle material above their grade level.

 

In searching volcanoes, I did a basic search and found 141 results in the graphics tab.  However many of these results were pictures, charts and diagrams of volcanoes.  I had to go farther into the pages of the results to find maps with volcanoes.  The diagrams will be of particular to my 8^th grade science teachers.  As I went through the pages of results I did find a couple of maps.  One was of the active volcanoes in Hawaii.  There was a map of Indonesia but when I took a closer look I did not see any volcanoes marked on the map.  Deciding if there was a better way I searched volcanoes: maps and 224 results with 14 of those in the graphics tab.  As I looked at the articles, I found many with the camera icon.  The few I checked did not appear under the graphics tab.

I have used SIRS Issue Researcher with both my 7^th and 8^th graders and from their responses this is their favorite database so far.  I think they enjoyed looking at currents issues and liked that I asked their opinion on the issues I had them look at for the lesson.  I would definitely prefer SIRS Issue over Google for the topic of suicide.  SIRS seeks out these articles on the issues, where as Google still has too much of a mix of information, good and bad.  The other plus for SIRS is that it is very easy to sort the articles by newspaper, magazines, viewpoints, reference, and graphics. There was also a link to matching subjects which help fill out the results.  I understand you can search Google more effectively but I have found very few adults know how to do this focused search.

When searching the last topic, I used the quick topic list on the left and went down to water.  The essential question for this issue was, “Should mandatory restrictions be implemented to conserve water?”  As I looked at the numerous articles (116 source types) listed below, I found the articles also listed related subjects links below the summary of each article.  Some of the related subject terms are: conservation of natural resources, environmentalism, water conservation, water-supply, sustainable development, global impact, ground water, hydrogeology, and runoff.  It is obvious that this issue is not unique to any one area and having multiple examples could be very useful in a civic discussion.