Introduction

The following plan is designed to span two lessons. This is to allow the time for children to plan, research and create their team databases and then complete activities to go with them.

Begin by recapping the previous lessons with the following questions:

• What is a record? 
• What is a field? 
• What different views could we have for our database? 
• What methods can be used for searching a database?

Introduce the lesson objectives and the structure of this final project. They will plan and create a database on a topic of their choosing. They will find and add reliable and accurate data and then create questions for other to answer about their database. Finally, they will create and present a chart to explain some of the data from their database.

Children should ideally work in groups of 3 or 4 collaboratively, but on their own computers. This will involve them setting up a shared database, as we did for the class database in the last lesson. Instructions for both are provided on the lesson slides.

Set groups depending on what is most appropriate for the children in your class and the resources you have available.

 

Planning your database

Step one is for each group to discuss and agree on a topic for their database, or you can assign topics for them if you prefer. It should be something that they are interested in and that they can easily find accurate data for.

Everyone's databases will have the default Name, Image and Sound fields, but they will also add at least four other fields of their own. These will vary by topic. They should aim to include a mix of fields that will need both text and number answers.

We've provided some examples on the lesson slides, for inspiration, some with example fields:

 

Dinosaurs

1. Weight (number)
2. Height (number)
3. Diet (text)
4. Era (text)

 

Football teams

1. Stadium name (text)
2. Stadium capacity (number)
3. Year founded (number)
4. League (text)
5. Team colours (text)

 

Planets

1. Distance from the sun (number)
2. Number of moons (number)
3. Average temperature (number)
4. Colour (text)

 

Pokémon

1. Type (text)
2. Height (number)
3. Weight(number)
4. Colour(text)
5. Number of evolutions (number)

 

Pop stars

1. Solo artist or band (text)
2. Country (text)
3. Number of albums (number)
4. Number of UK number 1 singles (number)
5. Number of monthly Spotify listeners (number)

 

Olympic sports

1. Indoor or outdoor (text)
2. Individual or team (text)
3. Number of players per team(number)
4. First Olympic year (number)
5. Main equipment (text)

 

And a further list of topics for even more ideas:

• Cars
• Athletes (from any sport)
• Pets
• Wild animals
• Birds
• Famous inventors
• Historical figures
• Plants and trees
• Rivers in the UK
• Castles in Britain
• Movies
• Kings and queens

 

The list of possibilities is endless.

They can plan their topic and list of fields using our planning sheet(opens in new tab). Ensure they have considered having a mix of fields that will need both text and number answers. They should list the record entries they plan to include.

 

 

Here's a completed example.

 

 

Creating the database

1. One person in the team should create the database by adding the title and the fields from their planning sheet, selecting what type of data each field will hold.

 

 

If a field has limited response options, they can add ‘has choices’ to give a drop-down menu when adding records. This can speed up data entry and avoid errors or spelling mistakes later. 

 

2. They save it to a shared class folder.

3. Turn on Collaborating.

4. The other group members open the same database from the shared folder.

 

Gathering the data

They should then divide the records between them. Agree who is researching and entering each record before they start so they don’t get duplicates entries. They should aim for 12-16 records. 

Next, they need to gather the field data for each record that will go into their database. 

Remind them to search carefully and safely by following your school rules for searching online. 

They should also check that the data they collect is accurate and reliable. 

Consider the website you are using: 

• Is it genuine?
• Is it a reliable or official source?
• Does anything look strange or suspicious?
• Can you find the same data on another site?

 

As they gather the data, add each record to the database and press Ok to save it. 

 

 

Once all the records have been added, they should take some time to check each other's records for any mistakes or missed fields. This is best done in table mode.

 

Questions for your database

For the next activity you can decide whether each child completes the task individually, in pair, or in their existing groups.

They need to come up with 5 questions that they could ask someone about their database. As they create the questions they should think about how people will need to search their database to find the answers:

• Sorting
• Grouping
• Filtering

For each question, they must then find out and make a note of the answers themselves. 

They should create their questions on our My Database Questions(opens in new tab) worksheet.

1. Add their name in created by,
2. Add the name of the database as it is saved in the shared folder.
3. Add their questions in spaces provided

Then leave the rest for someone else to complete.

 

 

Sharing your work

They then pass it on to someone from another group. That person can open the database from the shared folder and answer the questions and show which method they used to find the answer by ticking the sort, group or filter boxes.

Emphasise how important it is that nobody alters anything on any of the databases. When they close a database they should NOT save when prompted. 

 

Review

Open a couple of the group databases on the board. Take some of the example questions created by the groups and ask the class how they would find the answers. Which searching method do we need to use?

 

Create a chart

Using their own database, the children should then create a bar chart of one of the categories from their database.

 

 

 

Once complete, you can right-click the graph and save or copy the graph as an image.

 

 

Save and close your database. 

Then go to Tools > 2Publish+ > Blank template - Landscape.

 

Paste the picture onto your page (Ctrl+V) and resize it to fill the page (or add an image box and upload it).

Add text boxes for a title and statements to explain the data in your graph.

 

 

Finally, ask the class to save and print or close their work.

 

 

 

To finish

Finish the lesson and unit by reviewing the children's knowledge, understanding and success with this final project:

• Did you create an accurate and complete group database?
• Did you choose suitable fields for your database?
• Did you have a mix of text and numerical data?
• Did you create suitable questions for others to answer on your database?
• Could you use sorting, grouping and filtering to answer questions on another database?
• Did you create and present a chart to show meaningful data from your database?