Supplies needed:

Active and willing student participants

Computers with Internet connections

Description:

This little variation on a scavenger hunt demonstrates the importance of using specific keywords when searching the Internet.

Use this exercise in addition to a larger module on searching ‘the web’.  Have students work in pairs.  Tell them they are on an Internet hunt.  Their goal is to conduct a search in Google and try to come up with NO results (zero).  Students must use two words in their search.  This is harder than it seems.  It teaches them that the Internet can be a vast wasteland of useless information and that they must use very specific vocabulary to retrieve good results.  The pair that is the first to “fail”, meaning they find no results, wins a special prize of your choice.

For example, even the search “neutrino and Guam” retrieves over 300 hits in Google.

Time needed in class:  10 -15 minutes

Learning Outcomes:  addresses Information Literacy Standard # 2