CCP - Research Techniques

This is one of a series of posts on the Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project. Other posts in the series include:
​Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project (CCP) - Intro
Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project - Research Techniques
Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project - Evaluation
Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project - Use augmented reality
Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project - Create a multi-level game
Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project - Create a sustainability video
Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project - Build a sustainability app
Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project - Design a sustainability city or town
Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project - Overview

For a more student-friendly layout visit the Sustainability Cross Curriculum Project website.

When undertaking research begin with the following questions:
- What do I know about this topic?
- What do I want to know about this topic?
- Why am I interested in this topic?
- What do I need to research this topic?

Search engines - Why don't you google it?
A search engine is a program that finds relevant sources (articles, websites, etc. ) based on your search term. Google is one of the most popular search engines used to research topics for school assignments. There are a range of other search engines which will provide you different sources than the ones you can find using google. 

Some other search engines you could use are:

Google Scholar is at www.scholar.google.com.au/
Duck Duck Go is at www.duckduckgo.com 
Iseek is at http://education.iseek.com
OJOSE is at http://www.ojose.com
Dogpile is at http://www.dogpile.com
Yippy is at http://yippy.com


There is a Library blog post which outlines the details of some search engines: http://eppinglibrary.weebly.com/blog

Your sustainability project

Planning your research:
Create a research plan for your group. In your plan consider the following:
- What information do you need?
- When will you need each piece of information?
- Who will be responsible for each task?
- Are there certain tasks that need to be completed in a certain order? Which tasks will need to be completed first? What order should the rest of the tasks be completed in?


Developing a Research Plan
As part of your plan develop a calendar which shows a timeline to completion. Make sure that you allocate more time for complex tasks and less time for simple tasks. You will need to use in-class time and out-of-class time.

When you have put together your plan, have a conference with your teacher to see whether it is feasible (whether it will work).

planning_your_research.pdf
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Prior Reading:
Before you can become too involved in your project you need to read widely. Each person in your group needs to read five articles or five websites that relate to the topic of sustainability. You will be required to take notes about the article. You will use your notes later in the project. You should record the site that you visited, the date you viewed the site and a series of summary dot points.  Use the Research scaffold to record your information.
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Articles:
Epping set for transformation as 54ha rezoned for housing and retail

Sydney suburbs earmarked for high-rise blocks

research_scaffold.pdf
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