This is an important act, for it forces everyone to be clear about collecting data on the problem. This should always be done in the form of a question and should always clearly indicate whom the question refers to, that is, which groups of people or animals or plants, etc. It is unlikely that the children will be able to write a good research question the first time. This is an excellent opportunity for you and all the children involved to help the group clearly define what it is they are interested in. This, more than anything, will affect the clarity of the subsequent research effort.
Children can choose to work on either a problem theme or a specific study site.
For pre-adolescent children there is great value in their having a specific study site to investigate. This can greatly reduce the complexity for children who are still learning to deal with complex intellectual challenges. Investigating the life of a particular pond or stream, for example, would be a much more appropriate task for most pre-adolescent children than to generally investigate problems of water quality in their whole community. Acquiring Information from a Variety of Sources Children need to learn the importance of thinking broadly about different sources of information related to their problem, including their own experiences and observations. They can each keep a logbook of their own observations.