Step 1: Questioning
In the Questioning Step of the research process, YOU, the researcher, must identify the decisions, issues, and problems that affect your topic.
Essential Questions
  1. What are the effects of people's actions on the environment?
  2. How do people adapt to changes in their environment?
  3. What can people do to improve their environment?
  4. What are the intended and unintended results when people adapt the environment to meet their needs?
In order to answer the Essential Questions, here are questions to guide you through Step 3: Gathering. Each of these questions should be on at least 3 notecards.
  1. Background information about issue: What is the problem? When did it first become a problem? Where is it a problem?
  2. Current status: Who is it affecting and how?
  3. Future solutions: What plans have been suggested to solve the problem? What is the outlook for this problem?
  4. Answer Essential Question number 1 about your environmental issue and support it with information you discovered during your research for your feature news article.
  5. Answer Essential Question number 2, 3, or 4 about your environmental issue and support it with information you discovered during your research for your editorial. (NOTE: As you gather information about these questions, you need to form an opinion about the issue and solution in order to write your editorial.)