Web Quest - A Trip to Germany

Web Quest - A trip to Germany

- Making an itenerary

- Make a budget

- Get information on REAL flights and REAL hotels/accomodation possibilities

Introduction

This web quest is designed for high school (lukio) students or students of univiersities of applied sciences (amk) with advanced German skills or who are studying German for a special purpose (e.g. business German or German for toursim). 

The aim is to fully plan and organize a trip to Germany, planning an itenerary, finding flights from Finland to Germany, finding hotels and interesting places to visit. Furthermore the students are asked to make a budget plan in which they plan their expenses for the trip (flights, hotels, domestic travelling, entrance fees etc.).

The aim is to make the student comfortable working with authentic material, use the required web pages in German and find authentic information.

A part of the task also requires actual authentic communication, getting information from a German tourist office or other place.

Task

Your task is to plan a trip to Germany. You can choose your destination and travel dates freely. The only requirement is that the trip has to take place in summer 2011 and should last for a week (7 days).

You have to plan a flight, your destinations and find accomodation at those destinations for the required number of nights. You should plan one trip to a place of interest or event and present that place/event. The task also requires communication with for example a tourist office at the place of destination, asking for information (this can be whatever you would like to find out). The communication should be by e-mail. You should make a rough budget plan including the flight prices, pirces for accomodation and for example entrance fees to the place of interest you would like to visit.

Your results are to be presented as a powerpoint in class.

This task is supposed to be fun so don’t take too much stress on it! Consider your own interests and wishes for your very own trip. Where would you like to go? What would you like to see and do? Maybe you can do that very trip someday!

You can work individually or in pairs. Whatever you feel comfortable with. Please do not work in bigger groups. Two people is the maximum!

Now get started and have fun with it!

Process

1.     make a schedule (day of departure and return)

2.     decide on where you want to go and to which airport you want to fly. Find an airline. It should be a German airline or an airline that offers the web site in German
Here are some suggestions:
Places of destination: Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich
Airlines: Lufthansa (www.lufthansa.de), AirBerlin (www.airberlin.com) also Ryan Air is possible (www.ryanair.com/de)

3.     decide how you want to continue from your airport of destination. Do you want to stay in the city than check www.frankfurt.de, www.berlin.de, www.muenchen.de or do you want to travel to some other place?

4.     When you have made up your mind about the final destination, find out what is interesting about the area/town you go to.

5.     Find out how you can get around to the places you want to go. You can check the airport’s web pages of Frankfurt, Berlin or Munich or wherever else you fly to get information on how to get around and the German train company www.db.de

6.     Find accommodation and find out the price for the room for the required number of nights and check availability (you might have to contact the hotel/accommodation place for prices and availability. This could be your piece of written communication already)

7.     Find a place of interest or event that you want to visit (e.g. museum, park, concert, theatre etc.). Find out the price for it.

8.     Think what your piece of written communication can be (e.g. hotel/accommodation place, ask for information from a tourist office etc.)

Your presentation should include:

- your travel information (travel dates and times, place of departure, place of destination, prices)

- your final destination(s) (name(s) of the place(s), web page, name and address of accommodation(s) and web address (if available), price for accommodation

- at least one trip to place of interest/event, describe place/event and give prices

- at least one piece of written communication (e-mail) and (hopefully) an answer

Please note:

Of course getting information from tourist offices or hotels is non-binding, however, be careful not to accidentally make any binding bookings! The same is true as well for flights. It is possible to get flight information and prices without entering your personal data. Do not enter personal data or data of the school anywhere! For your written communication piece it should be enough to sign it with your name and e-mail address to receive an answer. Be careful using the web! If any page seems in any way suspicious to you do not continue using it or ask the teacher.