For the last few weeks, the 4th grade students have been investigating closely some “facts” as presented by the Snapple Real Facts (printed inside the bottle caps.) We discussed the validity of various forms of sources and discovered that what really matters is the expertise of the person\/people responsible for providing the information for these sources: be they books, online databases, blogs, organizations, websites, newspapers or magazines, etc.<\/p>\n
The following is the information gathered by Younge House students for an internal “database” residing on the School’s course management site. The 4th Grade Snapple Real Facts Buster<\/a> is a searchable, sortable, full functioning database — but only accessible for those with valid login IDs and PWs.<\/p>\n
| Real Facts #: <\/span><\/td>\n | \n 110<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Real Fact Text: <\/span><\/td>\n | \n | Frogs never drink. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Conclusion: <\/span><\/td>\n | \n | Partially True<\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Explanation of Findings: <\/span><\/td>\n | \n | \n Research shows that frogs do drink, though not directly through their mouths. Frogs absorb water through their skin. To us, drinking is swallowing a liquid. Sammy and I have checked through The American Museum of Natural History. It was simple and easy to find this information. If the people at Snapple meant that frogs don’t drink the way humans do, then they are correct, but they should make it clear that that is what they mean.<\/span><\/p>\n This is a great source because it is a museum that is for the specific purpose of teaching about the natural world.<\/span><\/p>\n We can also trust the book Smithsonian Institution Animal The Definitive Visual Guide To The World’s Wildlife because it was published which means it was checked to see if all the information was correct.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n <\/span>This fact is VERY hard to verify. We have searched countless sites.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>According to Zagat.com, there are 608 French restaurants in Paris and 286 French restaurants, in NYC. But on timeout magazine there are 4 French restaurants and 230 French restaurants in NYC. On the about us page on Zagat.com it says that it takes anybody’s contributions. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n This fact is hard to verify because they each had two different answers. For our research source we used about.com with the help of google and checked it with a bunch of others including answer.com. Wikipedia also helped us and had basically the same answer. We realized that Thomas Adams did NOT invent chewing gum, he just did experiments from the gum the Native Americans created from sap, and made it better.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n <\/span>I learned that steel is100% recyclable. From three web sites. 2 said that steel is 100% recyclable and the other said that steel knots are 100% recyclable. So since it is 2 to 1 the 2 wins. It was easy to find the answer.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span>Euofer.org Is a good website that has info on material <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n |