Lesson Plans
Fish Kills!
2. Plan Your Search:
Plan your search and think about the way that your group will carry out this investigation.
Remember, the purpose of a driving question is to help focus your investigation. Now that you have this question, you will have to spend a little time planning your search. To plan your search, work through these three steps:
1. Develop Sub-Questions:
What do you need to know to answer your question?
What do you already know about this question?
What smaller sub-questions can you ask to help answer your driving question?
2. Find Information:
What kind of information do you need to answer these sub-questions?
Where do you think you can find this information?
3. Divide Up the Work:
How will you organize your search?
Who will do what in your group?
When will you do your work?
Your Plan is very important! Record all of your ideas in your journal.
3. Explore and Locate Information:
Explore available resources and locate specific information on your question.
Now that you have planned your search, let's explore and locate information on your driving question.
Information for your question can be found in many places. Think about this list:
- Magazines
- Encyclopedias
- Research Journals
- Books
- Multimedia CDs
- Laserdiscs
- Videos
- Television Programs
- Radio
- Internet
- World Wide Web
- Personal Interviews
- ... and your own experiments, measurements or surveys!
Sometimes finding information raises new questions. You may need to redefine your question or replan your searches. Don't worry if you do, the Define-Plan-Explore-Assess (Inquiry Process) is a common strategy that you will use over and over again during your investigation.
As you explore, keep track of your work in your journal. Include the following:
Where did you search for information?
What were the information sources you found?
What search strategies/keywords did you use?
What exactly did you find about your question?
What is interesting about your findings?
Who did what in your group?
You might also include these:
What experiment, survey or measurement did you conduct?
Explain how, when, who, and why about your work.
What did you expect to find? Why?
What do you actually find?
How does this compare to other information resources?
--->page 3 of 3, Fish Kills!
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©1998 Alec M. Bodzin for Science Junction, NC State University. All rights reserved.
URL: http://www.ncsu.edu/sciencejunction/terminal/lessons/fishkills2.html
Last Modified: 5/5/98
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