Putting together a great research project for the FLL

1. Putting together a great research project for the FLL Some tips and suggestions… BUT NOTHING COMPARES TO READING THE RULES! Tom Bickford Maine Robotics 2013

2. Step 1: • Pick a community that you want to use for your “Nature’s Fury” research project. • Most teams are likely going to pick their own local community or a region near them, but it can be much larger… • Examples: • Orono, Maine • The Penobscot River (runs near my house) • The greater Bangor area • Down east Maine • Maine • New England • Coastal New England • BUT NOT the United States (can’t go to a whole country)

3. Step 2: • Either before or after you start looking at your community with regards to natural disasters you will need to: • Pick one of the acceptable forms of “Nature’s Fury” • Earthquakes • Tsunamis • Volcanoes • Severe storms • Tornadoes • Floods • Hurricane • Avalanche • Wildfire

4. Step 3: • Either before or after you start researching your topic in your chosen area: • Pick a particular area that you want to research in more detail. Remember your goal is to understand enough that you can recommend a new way to solve a problem

5. Step 4: • Research your topic • Contact local specialists who know about what you are learning about • Check out the library and online resource (don’t forget to document all of your sources, just like you would for a report) • Come back as a group on a regular basis to discuss what is the focus of your learning.

6. Step 5: • Define the problem. • Put it in words and diagrams. What exactly do you see as the problem caused by the natural disaster that impacts the community you chose?

7. Step 6: • Start brainstorming on ways to solve the problem. Talk to the specialists again. Do more internet research. Check with your teacher, librarian, parents, local agencies or anyone who might be able to point you in the right direction. • Remember, it isn’t your job to find someone who solves it for you; it is your job to get enough information so you can solve the problem you picked.

8. Step 7: • Refine, research, (w)rite, and rehearse: • Refine your problem and solution • Research all about the problem and the solution • Write your project up, including any pictures, documents, graphs, drawings, testimonials that you have gathered. • Rehearse your information as a presentation and start working to get it down to 5 minutes or less. Or if it is too short, find more material to make it better.

9. Tom’s Example • I tried to come up with an example to demonstrate what I wanted to do, with details on all of the different steps • I didn’t want to pick a topic that would likely be covered by any of the teams, so I picked a pretty far fetched problem • …..

10. NOTE – READ THIS PAGE: • The following example is NOT REAL • I made it up… • I didn’t research it… • I don’t know if it is accurate or not… • But it shows the steps you might take to make a good project… • So please don’t email or call with corrections, okay, thanks. Hence the note on each page Don’t take too seriously

11. Step 1: • Pick a community that you want to use for your “Nature’s Fury” research project. • I picked a coastal wildlife park, namely the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Don’t take too seriously

12. Step 2: • Either before or after you start looking at your community with regards to natural disasters you will need to: • I picked Hurricanes, since they can really hit a coastal wildlife and wetlands hard. I might have learned this in school, on TV, or by going to or emailing with people at the Rachel Carson park. Don’t take too seriously

13. Step 3: • Either before or after you start researching your topic in your chosen area, pick a topic: • Since this is a wildlife park, I decided to do my (our) research on birds. After talking with one of the rangers from the park and asking about hurricanes, I found that a lot of ducks are killed every year if a hurricane hits during migration season • I looked up when the hurricane season was on Wikipedia and found it was June 1 to November 30th • I looked up on State of Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife page and found that ducks migrate through Maine during the months of October and November. • So my area of concern was protecting ducks during October and November should a hurricane hit the coastal Maine area. Don’t take too seriously

14. Step 4: • Research your topic • Contact local specialists who know about what you are learning about • We contacted the local Audubon Society, the Rachel Carson Center and emailed a contact at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife about any information they had. • Check out the library and online resource (don’t forget to document all of your sources, just like you would for a report) • We searched on Google for “what happens to birds during a hurricane?” We found lots of places to start looking and gathering information. • Come back as a group on a regular basis to discuss what is the focus of your learning. • Every week when we met we talked about what we had found so far and to see if we thought we had a potential solution. If we didn’t, we tried to figure out what other information would help. Don’t take too seriously

15. Step 5: • Define the problem. • Problem: During hurricanes, particularly during migration when wetlands are prime stopping places for ducks, the duck population can be significantly hurt by seasonal hurricanes. High seas, tide surges, and high winds can all hurt or kill ducks. Don’t take too seriously

16. Step 6: • Start brainstorming on ways to solve the problem. Talk to the specialists again. • After we gathered enough information, one of our members came up with an idea to make a “hurricane proof duck house” that could be put out in the wetlands in September and collected at the end of the migration season. • We looked online and saw that many people make duck houses for more domestic ducks, so we figured we could make one for wild ducks. Don’t take too seriously

17. Step 7: • Refine, research, (w)rite, and rehearse: • 7a: Designed a duck house based on our own idea • 7b: Showed or design back to some of the specialists we had talked to and got new ideas: • 7b-1: Need to make it attractive to ducks or they won’t go in • 7b-2: Needed to make it so it would adjust to the water height in the wetlands • 7b-3: One person told us it would be best not to use chemically treated woods in the wild life preserve, so we shouldn’t use pressure treated woods • We added our new ideas, changes to the design and reworked our presentation (never ends until its over) Don’t take too seriously

18. The end: • Give your finished presentation to: • Your families • The school • Your class • The specialists you asked for help • Your sponsors • Every time someone asks a good question that you don’t know the answer to, write it down and go research that until you do know… then add it to your presentation if you think it is important Don’t take too seriously

19. Other things you might want to include: • If your design worked well, what would change? • How much would it cost to build/implement? • How many would you need to make a difference? • Are there funding and volunteer sources that you could use to make this happen? • Comments from any of your specialists about your idea • Diagrams, pictures, charts, websites, etc. Don’t take too seriously

20. Our finished design: Don’t take too seriously http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duck_House_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1366201.jpg