Who Might Use this Pathfinder?
As I designed this Houses of Straw Pathfinder, I had in mind students, researchers, teachers, and dreamers who are high school age and older. Of course, anyone may find the resources presented engaging, as the topic of home construction in general, is something that most of us have been fantasizing about ever since we were children playing with Legos and Lincoln Logs. The intriguing notion of straw bale construction (that is, constructing homes and buildings using straw bales to build the walls of the structure) is something that, I believe, appeals to the child in us all.
What is a Pathfinder Anyway?
Learning takes you on a journey. However, when you are faced with what seems like an endless amount of information available in books, journals, online, through software, and on video, it’s helpful to know where to start.
This is where Pathfinders come in. A Pathfinder is designed to be your guide for locating reliable and pertinent resources, both online and/or offline on a specific subject area or topic. The goal of a Pathfinder is to help you achieve a successful learning outcome.
However, a Pathfinder is not meant to be comprehensive and all-encompassing. Rather, a Pathfinder is meant to be useful for getting you started in the right direction.
To put it another way, a Pathfinder is a guide for researchers. For many years, libraries have provided Pathfinders in order to save researchers time. While a Pathfinder is your map for locating important information, it is up to you to follow the path and to end your journey successfully. A Pathfinder cannot do the hard work that goes hand-in-hand with research, but it will get you on your way to navigating the sometimes wild world of information.
The Houses of Straw Pathfinder is designed as your launching pad for learning about the construction of straw buildings. As is the case with all Pathfinders, resources chosen for the Houses of Straw Pathfinder have been chosen in an attempt to highlight quality materials in a variety of formats, including print materials, Internet resources, videos, databases, and CDRoms. In addition, keywords and phrases are provided in order to aid you in taking your research beyond this Pathfinder.
How were the resources chosen?
The amount of information available on the topic of straw bale construction is amazing and quite overwhelming. In narrowing down the wealth of information I crossed paths with as I was doing my own research for this Pathfinder, resources were chosen based on experience with the material and reviews of material from other sources such as books, blogs, and websites. In addition, I strove to select resources based on clarity, ease of use, currency, and authority.
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