Information for Parents and Teachers

• Who are the Kids’ Quests designed for?
• What is the objective of the Kids’ Quests?
• What are the Quests?
• How do we start a Kids’ Quest?
• What are the steps for doing a Kids’ Quest?
• Where do we go from here?

Who are the Kids’ Quests designed for?

The Kids’ Quests are designed for students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. Parents and teachers can modify the materials to meet students’ learning styles and levels. The Quests can be used in lessons about health, social studies, and tolerance in society. Although students could do a Quest entirely on their own, we suggest that parents and teachers work with students to share ideas, talk about issues raised, and encourage students to reflect about themselves and others.

 Return to Top

What Is the Objective of the Kids’ Quests?

This site is intended to get kids to think about people with disabilities and some of the issues related to daily activities, health, and accessibility.

What Are the Quests?

The Quests include topics related to limitations people with disabilities face in participating in various activities. These limitations are grouped under motor, communication, personal-care, and learning. For each Quest, we have developed:

A primary question.
A set of related questions about other contributing issues.
A series of questions about barriers and issues within the student’s own school and community environment.

How Do We Start a Kids’ Quest?

After reading the home page for the Kids’ Quests, students should choose a topic area and question that interest them from the left navigation.

What Are the Steps for Doing a Kids’ Quest?

Each Quest takes the student through a series of steps. These steps help the student organize how they will gather information and provide a way to check whether this new information not only answers the questions posed but also changes the student’s attitudes.

Step 1: Check out your own facts. Take the Fact Checkup!

The Fact Checkup is designed to give students a chance to reflect what they think about people with disabilities. We suggest that students take the Checkup before beginning the Quest and then again after they have gone through the Quest investigation. Students can print out their Fact Checkup so that they can easily compare their “before” and “after” answers.

Step 2: Think about some questions to ask. Let’s see…

To help students think through the kind of information needed for the Quest, we posed additional questions. Encourage students to come up with their own questions about the topic and to write them down. Again we have provided an interactive page for writing and printing these questions.

Step 3: check out some quick facts.

Quick Facts are intended to stimulate curiosity about the Quest topic. These facts can be fun to discover.

Step 4: Check out some great websites to help you learn more.

We have listed a few websites as a starting point for students’ information search. Please note that the Web is an ever changing environment in which many websites are here today and gone tomorrow. We have tried to provide stable sites that include their own links to other websites. We cannot guarantee that all websites and links listed on our pages will be active during the student’s Quest. Please let the Kids’ Quest Webmaster know if you find a broken link to a web site so we can research it further.

We checked the website links for appropriate content for children at the time the Quests were created. However, we encourage parents and teachers to review these sites with students to be sure they remain appropriate.

Step 5: Find out about some people we can read about to help with our Quests.

This section provide biographies and stories about people with disabilities. Some of the people spotlighted may have their own website and can be emailed to ask further information. We encourage parents and teachers to review appropriate e-mail etiquette with students and monitor the questions and responses.

Step 6: Learn about movies and books that can give you information.

We have listed either related movies and books for each Quest. These movies and books are available from a variety of bookstores or at your local public or school libraries or online. The videos can be viewed as a class activity and discussed as part of the Quest. We recommend parents or teachers view videos or movies with students.)

Step 7: Check out your your school or neighborhood.

Accessibility is a common theme throughout all of the Quest topics. Students are asked to think about and respond to questions about situations within their own environment.

Step 8: Now check and see if you have learn anything. Take the Fact Checkup again.

We suggest that the student repeat the Checkup after they have completed the Quest investigation. Students can print out their Fact Checkup so that they can easily compare their “before” and “after” answers.

Where Do We Go from Here?

CDC will continue to develop Web Quests around disability and health related topics. If you have suggestions or comments about current Quests or Quests you would like to see, please e-mail the Kids’ Quest Webmaster.