SIRS Discover and Researcher

I found the results were fairly accurate in SIRS Discover. Of the twenty articles it found, fourteen actually mentioned Shaun White. Five of the seven magazines were about him also. However, if you are looking for photos of a person, don't try to use a phrase search unless you enter: "shaun white" or "white shaun". Although, that probably only affects librarians. I doubt the kids would try that. It was nice to see lexile numbers. Since the database covers such a wide age range, K-6, it is easier to figure out whether or not the student using the information would be able to understand it. The articles I found were geared toward higher reading levels.

The country facts presented were nicely featured. I liked the formatting and the information presented better that what I find in the CIA Factbook which is where I normall direct students. The maps under maps of the world printed well. I especially liked the pathfinders. I had not seen them before and most of the students I help need to narrow down their research topics. The subject headings could help them with that as well as providing new synonyms to search under.

SIRS Researcher would be great for debaters in addition to homework. It provides a nice overview, presents the pros and cons, and has links for further research. I especially like that if provides the terms to know with an explanation of concepts in the overview.

For my search in the curriculum pathfinders, I chose health as my topic. It had a fun interactive quiz on portion distorion which led to further information such as finding your BMI (body mass index) rating. Otherwise, it provided as list of topics that went to articles on the subject or if it was a leading issue, it would linked to the topic overview. The topics provided were all subejcts that would be easy to find research outside of SIRS as well if print resources were needed.