Research

What Can I do to Make a Difference? 

     Students each selected a social issue to research and answered the following questions: 

•        What is the problem?

•       Why is it a problem?

•       What is being done to help?

•      What can I do to help?

Why Social Issues? 

     In the past, students could choose a topic of their choice, which always seemed to be an animal or sport star.  The topics had no backbone, and the students weren’t invested in the process, in fact, their only reason for researching was to gather facts so that they could write the mandatory paper. Our goal was for students to use critical thinking and inquiry skills while learning the research process that needed to be taught in 6th grade. 

     Students spent time brainstorming social issues that affect our community and world with classmates. They also spent time listening to various representatives speak about local charities. The speakers shared stories and pictures and left students wanting to do more.

Choosing the Topic.     After spending weeks listening to different presenters, it didn’t take long for students to realize which platforms and organizations they wanted to learn more about, and more importantly, wanted to HELP! 

Research and Writing the Paper.

     We worked closely with our school's media specialist, Rachel Westphalen, during the research instruction.  We guided the students in finding relevant articles from encyclopedias, magazines, newspapers, and websites.  Evaluating resources and avoiding plagiarism were key points we stressed during this unit. Students individually researched and took notes using our school's many databases and wrote their papers (which were properly cited) using Google Docs.  And just in case you were wondering--yes--the entire research project was done totally paperless!

In 2017, we began making the lessons available digitally for the students.  This way, if a student missed something during a lecture, or if they were absent, they would have that resource to look at.  Check out our lessons, the grading rubrics, and some example research papers!