Wicked webpages
How about producing a science newsletter, webpage or blog?
Writing a newsletter
A newsletter is usually printed, but can also be sent around via email.Here are some things to think about.
- Your audience: who are you writing your newsletter for? How often will you publish it?
- The name of your newsletter: you will need a name for your newsletter, and possibly also to design a masthead. You might also include a strapline.
- Content: it might sound obvious, but a newsletter should contain news! This can either be about something coming up, or a review of something that has happened. Newsletters usually have some or all of the following sections:
- A title
- A list of contents
- A piece from the editor
- A series of short articles
- Some news or bits of useful information.
- Writing: remember to include the six Ws:
- Who
- What
- When
- Where
- HoW and
- Why.
- Editing: you don't have to write the whole newsletter yourself, you can ask others to write bits for you. Someone will need to edit their work though, to make sure it fits in the space, is spelt correctly and doesn't say anything you shouldn't print.
- Layout: there are lots of ways to layout a newsletter. Look at some of the examples in the weblinks for ideas.
Blogs
A blog is a bit like an online diary. It's a place where you can write (or post) diary entries about your hobbies, interests or anything!You must remember to be very careful about internet safety and not write anything that means people could identify you or work out where you live.
To start a blog, you will probably need some help, and access to a website where it can live. There are lots of websites that can help you do this, but ask an adult to help you to choose one.
Here are some tips about writing a blog.
- Keep your posts very short.
- Write catchy headlines.
- Break up your post by using subheadings.
- Include lists - use bullets.
- Include links to other websites or blogs.
- Edit your post.
Writing web pages
You will need to ask an adult to give you access to keesome space on a website.There are lots of software packages that can help you to write web pages. You will probably find that your school or organisation has access to one.
When you write your web pages, you will need to think about:
- choosing a sensible font, one that works well on the internet (this is written using Verdana).
- having consistent navigation (we use the links on the left to link between pages in each section).
- keeping the background colour the same on each page, rather than changing it all the time.
- the different colours you use. Try to make sure things are easy to read, but also attractive. Look at our website to see how we use colour. Black is for text, green is for headings etc.
- how you arrange pictures and text on your page.
Resources
- Internet safety
