Some 260 students at Franklin Middle School recently researched everything from crop circles to rollercoasters to clocks to the Hollywood film industry. And along the way, they learned how to research — a skill they'll use all their lives.
Two eighth-grade teams participated, under the guidance of their teachers and school librarian Laduska Adriance. The exercise involved English, math, science and civics, and students got to choose their own topics.
"They had to research an innovation beneficial to the world and make a written report and a computer power-point presentation," said Adriance. "They also researched people involved with their topic and the time period."
The written report was for English. For science, students gathered statistics and made charts or graphs. Then they analyzed the information for math. For civics, they made research notes and a biblilography. Afterward, they each gave eight-minute presentations to their classes and answered questions.
"Besides power-point, they had to use three different multimedia illustrations," said Adriance. "They could, for example, do overheads, show models and demonstrations, bring in food or costumes [relating to their topic] or show a two-minute video clip."
From Jan. 7-10, the students made 120 presentations in four days.
DURING THEIR RESEARCH, students had to use a variety of sources — not just the computer. They consulted nonfiction books, magazines, newspapers, reference materials and different varieties of encyclopedias. Adriance taught them to evaluate Web sites for accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency and coverage. She also advised them to verify through other sources any information obtained via the Internet.
Roy Lipworth, 14, explored crop circles. On the Internet, he researched persons involved in crop circles; they included scientists and seriologists — those who study crop circles. He found statistics about how many crop circles are in each country — Britain has the most — and learned about organizations that make fake ones.
The innovations he discovered included testing for radioactivity and for microwaves to see if these things caused the corn crops to bend. "They test for magnetic radiation and for the DNA structure of the crops to see if it changed," said Lipworth. "And they test the soil to see if it has chalk because, when it rains, the water would soak it in and, later, electromagnetic rays would be produced."
He used a book, newspaper and magazine articles and an encyclopedia. He concluded that "crop circles started in the 1980s because of futuristic movies like 'Star Wars,' 'Star Trek' and 'The Terminator' giving people the idea."
What Lipworth learned about researching is that "it's easier to use research databases in the Internet [than other sources] because, in the Internet, you can get more up-to-date information, and books get old."
HOWEVER, THE INTERNET wasn't as useful for Jordan May, 13, who chose the innovation of video games. "I like to play video games a lot, so I thought it would be fun to research how they've changed," he said. "At first, I was looking for articles on the Internet and only found a couple. Then the librarian gave me a book called 'The Ultimate History of Video Games' — it had everything I needed."
May learned that the games used to be mainly arcade type and couldn't be played with television. Then, in the early 1980s, Atari made the first, non-arcade video game — but it cost $900. As time went on, said May, "Both the video-game systems and the games, themselves, improved. They had better graphics, were faster and louder, worked better and could also play DVDs and music CDs."
For example, he said, on the X-Box — which came out in November 2001 — "You can copy CDs onto the disk drive and listen to songs while you're playing games. There's more of a wide variety of the types of games you can play and, in the newer games like 'Grand Theft Auto,' you don't have to follow a certain path, but can go your own way."
It was May's first research project, and it helped him realize the different types of books he could consult. He also learned where to search on the Internet. He said it was a good idea because, "in high school, we'll need to do more research and projects, so it helps us get an idea of how you do it."
Natalie Graver, 13, researched special effects in the Hollywood film industry. "I'm really involved in the theater, arts and acting through school and summer drama camps," she said. "I was curious to see how they did different effects in the movies."
To her surprise, she couldn't find much on her topic on the Internet, but Franklin's library had a good selection of books on it; an encyclopedia also helped. "It was really neat to see how, in the 1700s, it really began," she said. "They had optical toys and Medieval puppets to entertain people." Then came Thomas Edison's invention of the kinetoscope — the first motion-picture camera — in the early 1900s. Later, sound and color were added to movies.
Graver also researched problems faced during the development of special effects. For example, during the Depression, it was difficult to get people to spend money on movies when they had to worry about feeding themselves. Then, in the 1950s, people could stay home and watch TV, instead of going to movies.
Graver also learned about latex and makeup and how special effects are created with the modern-day camera, computer animation and blue screen. She even learned how cinema rain and fire are made. As for researching, she learned that, "Even though you figure it'll be overwhelming, you have to relax and be organized. And I had to focus on movies and special effects, not all of moviemaking."
SINCE KAITLIN Westergard, 13, has always loved history and the 18th century, she investigated innovations and changes in etiquette. Most of her information came from the 1500s. "Most of the etiquette rules came out of necessity of health and promoted cleanliness to prevent disease," she said. "Erasmus — who educated Prince Henry II of France — influenced Europe about how to act while eating."
Westergard also researched how modern etiquette writers like Emily Post "brought proper manners back after a period of time when they weren't so important." She learned, too, that researching wasn't as easy as she'd expected: "You have to search through it all to find the things you actually need, and sift through the information."
But she was glad she did the research project. "At first, I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, another thing to ruin my life,'" said Westergard. "But it's beneficial to know where to go to find certain things and how to look for them. I want to become a historian, so it'll be very helpful to me."
Niku Budhiraj, 13, studied biotechnology and the genome project. She used the Internet and books and found both equally helpful because of all the new breakthroughs. She learned how biotechnology is used and read about James Watson who, with Francis Criks Collins, won the Nobel Prize for first describing the double-helix structure of DNA. Said Niku: "It was interesting to learn about something we don't study in middle-school science."
Elise Ko, 13, studied theories of astrophysics and learned that Aristarchus, not Copernicus, was first to say the sun wasn't the center of the universe. By choosing topics they were interested in, she said, the students were eager to learn more about them.