Human-made pollution is a large and complex problem that has harmful effects on communities and ecosystems. Understanding these impacts is essential, but it can be daunting when many types of chemical pollution are difficult to conceptualize, especially for elementary school students. Something every student can understand, however, is trash.…

Course: Mixed-Method Communication Research Methods. Objective: The purpose of this semester-long activity is to provide students with opportunities to cultivate mixed-method communication research skills through a social justice-informed service-learning format. Completing this course, students will be able to: recognize the unique strengths of…

Drawing on experiences in his social studies classroom, Houman Harouni evaluates both the challenges and possibilities of helping high school students develop critical research skills. The author describes how he used Wikipedia to design classroom activities that address issues of authorship, neutrality, and reliability in information gathering.…

The article details the advantages (such as the multidisciplinary nature) of collecting as a curriculum strategy for gifted students, suggests activities to arouse collecting interests, and offers ways to build such skills as decision making, research techniques and organization/classification. (DB)

Describes three research report projects for second graders used in the science and social studies curriculum. Outlines class discussion strategies, sequential stages, use of notecards, encyclopedias, and other sources (including parents) for researching animal topics, biography projects, and studies of a farm. (JG)

Too often students enter high school without being exposed to the research process and are often overwhelmed by the complex task of selecting and narrowing of a topic, developing research questions, writing the text, and appropriately documenting sources. This paper delineates specific learning activities that will simplify the process to make it…

Describes a program at an independent college preparatory school which introduces primary grade students to research techniques and tools through a carefully planned sequence of encounters with library research and reference aids. (CLB)

This guide for teachers of grades 3 through 8 provides a collection of self-directed projects for either individuals or small groups. Suitable for use in classroom learning centers, the guide is divided into 7 sections. Section 1, Working with Literature, offers activities for teaching reading using novels, student-made novel packets, fiction…

Using a sequential approach, this booklet identifies a number of research skills students need to become independent in gathering and presenting information. The booklet begins with a brief description of the sequential development of research skills it recommends, a bar graph representation of the skills used as a curriculum planner, and a…

Provides fully developed library media activities designed to be used in connection with specific curriculum units, including health, reading and language arts, and social studies. For each activity, the objectives of the exercise, resources, instructional roles of librarians and teachers, procedures involved, evaluation, and follow-up activities…

One aspect of children's daily lives--the school itself--is often ignored as a source of readily available data for student activities. School-based research activities that require students to collect, organize, and interpret data are described. For example, students conduct research on how students travel to and from school?

This book contains multicultural "treasure hunts" designed for use by teachers and librarians working with grades five through eight to: develop students' awareness of cultures other than their own; promote student research that requires using books other than an encyclopedia; provide students with annotated reference lists that may be used for…

Intended for use by both teachers and teacher-librarians, this guide for teaching library and information skills presents a five-step model for the research process: (1) planning the research project; (2) searching for relevant information; (3) selecting and evaluating the information found as it relates to the project; (4) presenting the results;…

This booklet describes how students and other researchers can use historical resources in their community to explore the history of their school and to determine how that history relates to community-wide and statewide developments. Although the manual is written primarily from the perspective of the public schools, the underlying theme of the…

Provides a detailed description of a pilot project designed to develop critical thinking and writing skills in secondary school students. Activities involved in the process include online searching, writing abstracts and research papers, developing bibliographies, and using word processing equipment. Related article appeared in June 1986 issue of…