Here is the lesson plan for the Sustainability Webquest. This page was designed to provide teachers with an overview of the purpose, objectives, and learner characteristics associated with this WebQuest.

Purpose

This Webquest was designed to address some of the complex issues related to the topic of threat to sustainability in the IB Diploma subject guide for Economics. It was designed also to bring awareness of the complex global and national issues that the world and all nations are facing today. The design aimed to make students familiar with various international goals and local initiatives through research, and to develop students' skills in evaluating the effectiveness of their nation's government measures to address the global issue of sustainability.

Rationale

The dynamics of national economic policies and the self-interest of humans often are in conflict with the environmental goals. The webquest research aims to make students realize that the threat to sustainability is not fiction but part of our lives and we all should make a concerted effort to make a change to our environment as it affects our lives today and the wellbeing of future generations.

Learner Description

This Webquest was designed for high-school students following the IBDP Economics syllabus.

Prerequisites

Using this webquest assumes that learners know how to navigate Internet and have reasonable writing skills. It also relies on prior learning of the economic concepts of Market Failure.

Instructional Objectives

After completion of this webquest, learners will be able to:

* discuss sustainability

* support discussion with local and national examples

* analyze and evaluate different government responses to the threat of sustainability that the world is facing today

* write a formal report

* create a supportive presentation

Subject Matter Description

This WebQuest follows the model developed by Bernie Dodge and Tom March. It contains the following sections for learners:

• Introduction: An overview of the topic.
• Task: Description of the task: to research and write a formal report about sustainability in local context and prepare a supporting presentation. The report will be prepared in a word processor and the final version will be peer reviewed. The presentation will use Google docs presentation.
• Process: The list of steps to follow are provided here: synthesis of information and further research. This should help learners collect and analyse sufficient amount of data to produce the formal report and evaluation of the government's initiatives.
• Evaluation: A rubric is provided to allow learners to self-score their reports and presentations. This same rubric will be used by the instructor to assign a grade for work completed in this WebQuest.
• Conclusion: This section is used to prompt the learner to think about what they have learned during this WebQuest. How has the Sustainability Webquest made them change their use of resources in a sustainable manner?

Standards Addressed

The set of standards selected for this WebQuest are (can be found here:Programme Standards and Practices):

"Standard C2: Written curriculum: 7. The written curriculum promotes students’ awareness of individual, local, national and world issues.

Standard C3: 11. Teaching and learning incorporates a range of resources, including information technologies."

Assessment

The learners will write a formal report and create a Google doc presentation supporting their report. The report and the presentation will be assessed using the rubric located in the evaluation page.