Thursday, October 21, 2010

RESPIRATORY ILLNESS - Science News for Kids on Asthma

Current asthma treaments.

http://wwwwww.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060405/Feature1.asp

OBESITY - Science News for Kids

Junk food diets and their impacts....

http://wwwwww.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20091028/Note3.asp

RESPIRATORY ILLNESS - Genetic engineering

Understanding genetic engineering will be key to assessing whether or not we can logically argue for producing the protein that has been indentified in the Tibetan sherpas.

OBESITY - Thoughts on obesity from the Great Ormond Street Hospital

Another reputable source on obesity.

OBESITY - Healthy Eating

Check out this site for information on healthy eating and how to take care of your body. Lots of good information here.

RESPIRATORY ILLNESS - ASTHMA

This is a good source for information on Asthma.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Science News for Kids website

I found lots of good stuff here. I would encourage you to check out the Human Body and Health and Nutrition links on the navigation bar on the left side of the page.

Science News for Kids

Science News for Kids: "Kids Getting 'Adult' Diseases

Also looks interesting...

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20090422/Feature1.asp

Science News for Kids: "Fighting Fat with Fat"

This sounds interesting....

http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20090422/Note2.asp

Science News for Kids article on fat

This article shares some ideas scientists have on creating healthy body fat.

EurekAlert: Could Robots Replace Scientists

I thought this was an interesting read about one idea about how robots might help (???) or hurt (???) in the future.

http://www.eurekalert.org/features/kids/2009-04/aaft-rwi032709.php

Research Tip #4 - Taking Notes vs. Copying

It is important when doing a research project to give credit where credit is due. If you didn't write something don't claim it for your own. Taking another person's work and calling it your own is cheating and when specifically related to writing called plagiarism.

When looking at sources and taking notes it is important to write down the general idea (main idea) the piece of writing is trying to communicate. If the information is very factual - numbers, statistics and such you may use the numbers found in that source but you must give credit to your source.

OBESITY - Medical News Today

Another possible good source of information.

OBESITY - NY Times Article

This New York Times article might be of some help.

OBESITY - Center for Disease Control and Prevention

This website also looks to have good information from the government agency the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

OBESITY - American Heart Association

This could be a good source of information on obesity.

Research procedure

Read research tips 1 - 3 on this blog.

Complete step three for three different sources about your team's topic.

The method to my madness here is two fold. First, each of you should have some basic information about your team's topic and nine minds are better than one or two. The bigger/stronger our collective knowledge the better prepared your team will be tackle the challenge you have chosen. Second, this will also in a short period of time document a nice foundation of information for our group.

Keep all of the notes pages you make. I will give a file folder in which to place all of your notes.

Go. Have fun. Learn something new about your research topic.

Research Tip #3 - Think 5 W's and an H

To gain a basic understanding of your topic utilize the 5 W's and an H method. As you look through books and websites ask yourself...
1. Who
2. What
3. When
4. Where
5. Why
6. How

My suggestion is to use a separate piece of paper for each source (book or website) you use. Place the source information - author, title, URL, etc. at the top and down the left side list who, what, when, where, why with room in between each item for notes.

As you read through a source you can then fill in this information.

Research Tip #2 - Keep track of the sources of your information

Since this is not your original research we need to keep track of where you get your information.

If your information comes from a book: note the author, title of the book, and the page on which you found your information.

If your information comes from a website: note what group owns the page, the URL, and the date you found the information.

For example: Parish Episcopal School owns www.parishepsicopal.org; Oct. 14, 2010.

We will need all this information to compile a bibliography documenting where you got the information related to the project.

Research Tip #1 - Be ware of relying on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a good source of general information that will give you a basic idea about your topic.

Be warned: Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia that was designed with the idea of harnessing the worlds brain power. This is a great idea is theory but in execution has some glitches. Anyone in the world has the ability to edit the information on Wikipedia. This power was meant for good allowing experts to contribute their knowledge, but it also means that non-experts have the power to post as well.

Be cautious about the information you find. This should never be your only source. Use Wikipedia as a guide to get started but be sure to visit sites that are published by experts in their fields.