Research Tools

Inquiry Process: How do we research?

What are the steps we take when gathering information and learning about a topic? Research can feel overwhelming, but knowing the inquiry steps can help us stay on track. Let's take a look through the lens of our science capstone about flooding, and how the steps apply to your personal capstone projects.

Guided Inquiry Design Steps

Open

 This is the spark that ignites your curiosity and makes you want to know more. For the science Capstone, you looked at pictures of flooding and brainstormed questions that came to mind from looking at the photos. 

In your life, this stage could happen anywhere--in the classroom, while playing a sport or practicing another hobby, or as we are reading a book together in the library.

Explore

Through gathering background knowledge, you'll start to narrow down the focus of your topic. For example with the science capstone, are you more interested in how damages are prevented in floods, or how the patterns of flooding have changed over time? Narrowing down your topic will guide the types of sources you continue to gather in this step. Pause, take a look back at the work you've done so far, and continue with the path that still interests you most. 

At this point, meeting with the librarian about the kinds of sources you're looking for could be a helpful step. She may be able to help you find more sources that you hadn't considered before. 

Identify

Using the information that you've gathered for background knowledge, and on the subtopic that interests you, it's time to define your inquiry question. This is the big question that you'll be answering through the final steps of our research process. Remember that the inquiry question should be specific and open-ended, which means you can't answer it with just a "yes" or "no." For example, an inquiry question at this step might be "How will flooding affect our region of Vermont in the next 10 years?"

Create

Eventually you will come to a point where you have found enough information and trustworthy resources to answer your big inquiry question. There is no set timeline for this! Some people will get there sooner than others, and that's okay. Once you've gathered all of the information you need, and come to an answer to your question, you'll create a way to share your answer with our community. This could be anything from a video, podcast, or digital magazine, to a poster, model, or engineering project.

The library can help you find websites that will support your creative vision, provide cameras and podcasting equipment, and more! Just ask--you never know what might be available, or what we can get to make your vision happen. 

Share

Once you have created a way to express your findings and answer to your big question, you'll share it with our community! For your capstone projects, we'll be having a Celebration of Learning at the end of the school year. 

Because the library is a community space that many people use, it can be a great space to share your work. The library can display projects in our space, or on our website--whatever works best for you and your project to connect with your audience.

Evaluate

After you have shared your project and connected with others, you'll take some time to reflect on the whole inquiry process. Think about questions like: How did you feel during the different steps in the process? Did you achieve your goal and answer your question? Do you have new questions? What is something you might do differently next time? Remember that the inquiry process is never truly over as we start from the first step all over again with the next moment that sparks our interest!