2019 - Honors Biology : Opening Activity

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Pretend you are planning to investigate the effect of the amount of water on plant growth as your Science Symposium topic. (The amount of sunlight and type of plants would be a constant, but you would give different plants different amounts of water for the experiment).  

Please note: This topic is too simple for your project; we are using it as our example in order to practice the research process. 

1. Watch the Videos linked to the right;
2. Create a Mind Map as a group, stringing together potential research Keywords and Boolean operators. Fill the chart paper with synonyms for your terminology, rather than limiting yourself to the most obvious key words;
3. Next, write QUESTIONS about the topic. What would you like to know? Fill the chart paper with questions.
4. Open the Database at the bottom of the page; 
5. Open the Advanced Search option and complete your Search. 

What are your results? Which articles work for topic selection or initial research? Which articles would you select for more scholarly, background reading? Discuss as a class.