Many Scouting activities, whether it be regular meetings, ceremonies or camping events, begin with flag

ceremonies.  There are not many opportunities for young people to learn about  the rules and etiquette that surround our

American flag.  Scouting provides the perfect forum in which young people can learn about our flag.  Most children have had

to learn the pledge of allegiance in school but do not know where or how the flag should be displayed.

            For my site assessment of search engines I decided to search for information on the American flag.  My intended

audience for this lesson is youngsters between the ages of 10 and 17--a typical scout troop.

            The first search engine accessed was http://www.google.com which found 68,000 entries for "American flag." The

second search engine accessed was http://www.altavista.com which found  46,680 entries.  After looking at the entries that

were found by each of the search engines I decided that the topic I was searching was too broad.  I then tried the

entry--"American flag" + etiquette.  This search was much more effective with the following results.

            Google.com had 1330 entries for "American flag" + etiquette.  The following sites were appropriate sources:

            http://www.legion.org/flagtoc.htm--This is an excellent source with good information, presentation and graphics.

            http://www.guidezone.skl.com/american.htm--This site is very simplistic, but is presented by a fellow scout leader so I

had to incude it.

            http://www.ushistory.org/betsy--This site is also very good and had a graphic that actually folded the American flag.

            There were a number of sites that were accessed in the first 20 entries by google.com that were not appropriate for my search.
            http://www.ctssar.org/flag_etiquette.htm"--This site has very good  information for preparing the flag etiquette lesson

but would not be one I would list for the young people to search.  It is very wordy and would lose the interest of somebody in

the 10-17 age category.

            http://www.learn2.com/09/0903/09003.asp--This site is good for the purpose of learning how to fold an American flag

correctly.  It is eye-catching with its graphics, but I decided it was not a great source because it had a lot of advertising on the

page and also had links to games not related to flags or flag etiquette (such as Harry Potter games).  I thought the enticement of

the other games might allow my student to easily stray away from the purpose of the lesson.
 
            Another site, not named here, seemed at first to contain appropriate information but upon detailed reading of the text

contained some explicit inappropriate wording.  This taught me a very valuable lesson regarding websites and searches.  Before

recommending any site for any one to view I should read every single word contained in that site.

            Altavista.com had 116,466 entries for "American flag" + etiquette.  It seems strange that there would be more entries

for what seems to be a narrower search than that for "American flag" which obtained 46,480 entries, but the search engine

pulled up sites that had nothing to do with flags.  Some of these sites were just related to etiquette.

            There were three additional sites on altavista.com that I found useful for my research.

            http://www.theshop.net/slworley/flagetiq.html--This site has good information and has very fancy lettering and graphics,

but is a bit wordy.  It would probably be better for the older scouts.

            http://www.anyflag.com/etiquette.htm--This site is very good.  It has advertising, but it is not offensive in the way it is

offered.  There is a link to a page to find out how to obtain a catalog to purchase flags.

            http://www1.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/5691/etiquette.html--This site has the exact rules for flag ettiquette if they

would need to be accessed.

            There was a site that was exactly like the previously listed one, but it added a patriotic song.  The peculiar thing about

the site, other than the fact that it looks as if it has been copied line for line, is that the URL had the word boozers in it.  I would

not list this site as a source just because of the name of the site.  That may be a very strict way of limiting site access, but as a

scout leader it is important to be a model for the young people even in the sources I choose for them to use.

            The third site that altavista.com listed was not availble to be viewed.  The fourth site was about e-mail etiquette and the

fifth site was about party etiquette.

            After having completed the search for information about the American flag and the rules and etiquette regarding the

flag,  I know that the search on google.com was more effective.  Not only did it access sites that were most appropriate, but it

had the site that was most helpful--http://www.legion.org.flagtoc.htm. I printed all eight pages of this site and plan to make it my

main source of information for the presentation.  I plan to list the "good" sites for the young people so they can have as much

fun surfing the web for information about the American flag as I had.


Last updated 12/4/00