Ms. Beichner's English class:

Virtual information resources THAT AREN'T GOOGLE,

As you research the material for your project about The Alchemist try these:

World Book Advanced Reference
Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia
Lands and Peoples of the World
Music from different cultures: WorldMusic (National Geographic)
and, to use for creating your lesson for the class
Maps to show or to have them fill in: Maps101
Samples of questions, etc: Teachingbooks

When you are searching Google, you can save yourself a lot of work by searching for the specific information you want. When you type a complete phrase or sentence Google gives you a lot of extra garbage. Create a search that uses ONLY the SPECIFIC Word or words you need:

NOT:   what do the people of Andalusia eat

YES:   food in Andalusia