Making a Database
Year Six
Unit Overview
This unit introduces children to databases in a more structured context than they will have previously experienced within school. They will learn how databases can be used in a real life context through Junior Librarian, and how to design their own databases in Microsoft Access. They will also learn how to use Google Forms to collect information for a database.
Children will cover:
- What a database is, and how it can be viewed and searched.
- How information for a database can be collected
- The different forms of information that a database can contain.
- How to create a simple database and fill it in.
- How to edit the design of a database to suit its purpose.
Expectations
Curriculum Links
Prior Skills
Children will be able to navigate, sort and search a pre-existing database in Junior Librarian and Microsoft Access. They will be able to collect information through designing a form in Google Forms. They will be able to create a database which stores this information.
This unit is an amalgamation of units previously in Year 3 and Year 5. In its most recent form before this one, Year 5 created databases about the planets of the solar system. The principles of the last two lessons of this plan need to link to the wider curriculum somehow, but it makes little difference what context you use. At the time of writing, it looks likely that this will fit into the
Kensuke’s Kingdom theme.
Children will have had some experience of storing data in a spreadsheet. They may have seen, or used Junior Librarian outside the context of Computing. They will have had experience of searching web-based databases through search engine use.
Software Used
Junior Librarian Google Form Microsoft Access
BWJS Computing Planning - Year Six – Making a Database Jon Senior for Bishop’s Waltham Junior School, 2014
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
Making a Database
Year Six
Assessment Strands Relevant to this Unit
IT
Bronze Silver Gold
Understand that you need a username and password to log on to an ICT system.
Understand that your username and password is private. Be able to log on to an ICT system independently. Understand that ICT communications must be used appropriately.
Save files to a specific location. Create a folder
Understand that passwords should be difficult to guess. Understand how to use ICT communications
appropriately.
Report inappropriate use of ICT communications. Copy or move files to new locations and rename them. Transfer files from a device to a computer.
Understand that passwords can be made of numbers, letters and symbols.
Create your own online account. Independently organise files.
Transfer files from a device to a computer in an organised way.
Working & Communicating Online
Bronze Silver Gold
Send an e-mail to a person or group.
Leave a comment on a blog or other online item. Reply to or forward an e-mail.
Write a post on a blog.
Upload a picture to an online gallery.
Create a website which contains text and images.
Create a website with multiple pages containing text, images and other elements.
Share a website or document with others. Collaborate with others on an online document.
Handling Data
Bronze Silver Gold
Add data to a spreadsheet or database. Create a simple graph.
Create a simple spreadsheet or database from scratch. Sort information in a spreadsheet or database.
Use a simple formula (+ / -) within a spreadsheet. Format a spreadsheet.
Present data using an appropriate, labelled graph.
Use a wider range of formulas within a spreadsheet. Alter the format of specific cells.
Collect data and present it using a spreadsheet, database or graph independently.
BWJS Computing Planning - Year Six – Making a Database Jon Senior for Bishop’s Waltham Junior School, 2014
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License
Making a Database
Year Six
Learning Objectives Key Skills Concepts Lesson Content
1 To navigate, order and
search an existing database. Open Junior Librarian. - Re-order a database. - Open an individual record. - Search a database. - Information can be
ordered in different ways – alphabetical, numerical, by category. Junior Librarian uses all three of these. Names should be by surname – consistency is important if your database is going to work.
Open and display Junior Librarian (enquiry). What is Junior Librarian for? How is it used? Before the days of computers, what would the equivalent system be? Introduce some vocabulary – ‘record’ and ‘field’. A ‘record’ is a set of
information about one thing (a book, in this case). A ‘field’ is a type of information – title, author, etc.
Show children how to navigate the database and how to sort the information by using the contents of each column. Show them how to use the search tool. Give children some questions to answer using Junior Librarian as a research tool and allow them time to find the answers.
2 To design a Google form to
collect information.
- Create a new
Google form.
- Choose the right
question type.
- Send a Google form
to other people.
- Collecting information
about people needs to be done carefully, and the information needs to be kept private. You should always think very carefully before giving personal information to somebody online, even if filling in a form.
Explain that, to build a database, you first need to collect information. Over the next couple of weeks, you’re going to collect information about people in the class.
Show children how to put together a Google Form. Talk through the importance of clear questions, and the different question types that are available (text, multiple choice, tick box, etc).
Brainstorm different questions of each type you could ask. Children to create their own Google form and send them out to others.
(You’ll need to consider how to group children for this task – you may want groups of, say, 6 children to send their forms to each other so that children aren’t bombarded with a class load of forms to fill in next time.)
3 To collect information
using Google forms.
- Reply to a Google
form.
- Access your replies
to a Google form.
Children should have a selection of forms to fill in via their e-mail accounts from the last session. Allow them time to complete these forms.
4 To create a database using collected information. - Open Microsoft Access. - Create a new database.
- Switch between list
view and record view.
- List view and Record view
allow you to look at your database in different ways – as a whole document, or as a specific set of
information about one thing. Both can be useful.
Open Microsoft Access and talk children through the process of creating a new database. Children to emulate this and create a database of their own (making sure their field headings and types correspond to the information they collected using their Google forms).
Children to fill in their databases.
Show children how to switch between list view and record view – why is this helpful?
5 To design a database for a
new purpose.
- Change column
widths in a database.
- Edit the design of a
database.
Give children the premise of their second database (curriculum linked) and take the time needed to establish the type of information it should contain, and where this information should come from.
Children to open Microsoft Access and design a database appropriate for their intended outcome.
6 To add information to a
database.
- Fill in a database. Children to add information to their database using whatever information source
is appropriate (this could be work done in other curriculum areas, or research carried out during the session).
