Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Internet Search Lesson Plan.

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Internet Search, and supports the standard of understanding and using effective research strategies to locate information and other resources online. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Pose the following scenario: You are trying to find information about a topic for a research project for school. Ask students some or all of the following questions:

  • How do you start the research process?
  • Where can you look for information on the Internet?
  • How do you generate a good search?
  • What are some strategies you use to make sure you find the information you are looking for?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the Internet Search topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding.
  • Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the following articles: “In Practice” or “In Depth”. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign the Internet Search Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about Internet searches while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.    

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce a tutorial video that teaches strategies for finding the most relevant and reliable sources when conducting online research.
  • Make-a-Map: Create a concept map that tracks the process of an online search starting from entering the search term and ending at finding the best search results. Remember: Internet searches may take multiple iterations to get the results you are looking for.
  • Creative Coding: Code a sorting game where players sort queries as either good search terms or bad search terms to determine which terms or phrases would generate the most relevant search results.

More to Explore

Digital Citizenship Unit: Continue to build understanding around digital citizenship with more BrainPOP topics. 

Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments