Lesson 4 -- SIRS Issues Researcher and Discoverer

SIRS Discoverer
1. In the advanced search options, I entered solar systems as the subject matter, then the "Easy" reading levels. This resulted in locating 4 newspaper articles, 31 magazine articles and 7 references. As I explored the other options available, I learned the "Lexile arrows" will help to find better appropriate reading materials for the 3rd graders abilities. I set it to the lowest arrow possible and the results remained the same.

2. My first method of searching was by using the Keyword/Natural Language search feature. I entered the phrase "maps of volcanoes" and discovered 239 articles, total. There were only 16 graphics, mostly of maps, but there are several Newspapers (15), Magazines (122), and Reference (74) materials which contain images of the volcanoes around the world.

My second method was using the basic search feature. I typed in "volcano" and got 1000 articles, total. 151 Newspapers, 492 Magazines, 238 References, 151 Graphics. Once again, many of the various results contain one or more images of the subject volcanoes.



SIRS Issue Researcher
1. This was a tough one for me. I searched the SIRS Issue Researcher, but only came up with 2 results via WebSelect Sites. If I did a simpler search for just Suicide Prevention, the results were a total of 4. However, using Google resulted in just a couple thousand more than 2 million results. Bear in mind, however, via the SIRS Issue Researcher, there are a total of 243 results in a number of different sources (newspapers, magazines, viewpoints, reference, graphics/multimedia, and WebSelect Sites.  I didn't have the time to check out all of the "hits" on the Google search, but would venture a fairly safe guess that many of those results are also links to magazine/newspaper articles and other sources, much like those found in the SIRS Issue Researcher. I would think if one had the time to view the many results which stem from the SIRS Issue Researcher, one might find more good websites on suicide prevention for teens.

2.  For this lesson, I used Topic Browse >  Earth Science > Contents = which led me to 1K+ results in Newspapers (543), Magazines (332), Reference (0), and Graphics (399). This offers many choices for the researcher, but I wondered if there were a better way to find the answers...

This time, I chose Subject Index instead of Contents. This led me to a more condensed search tool, where I was able to enter the keywords, "drought or water restrictions" into the Subject Heading Search window. Eureka! Here, there is a list of subject headings, nice and neat, where I chose the following subjects to use for my research on this topic:
Crops, Effect of drought on
Drought relief
Livestock, Effect of drought on
Plants, Effect of drought on
Droughts
Drought Relief

There are a few more condensed subjects, mostly related to droughts & their effects on other countries. so I didn't feel it necessary to include them in my answer. :)