Recipe for Developing High-School Research Projects Illustrated by a Student’s Interpretation of Historical Metal Casting

Abstract

Incorporating research activities at the secondaryschool level is an effective method to teach science; however, students and teachers may feel intimidated when trying to identify a suitable research topic. Ideas may be obtained from short articles in periodicals or newspapers to allow students to design their own experiments and interpret data. To illustrate how highschool research projects can be developed from such sources and accomplished with simple techniques and tools, a student-directed project inspired by historical metal-casting methods is described. References to key steps in the process of scientific inquiry are included to demonstrate how simple ideas can yield research questions.