Students who have taken the course emphasize that, besides learning how to do scientific research, they have acquired skills to deal with problems of all sorts that one must face in living a life, problems that might otherwise have overwhelmed them. They work on real problems, and the results they obtain constitute new scientific knowledge. Research students create an extensive portfolio which gives them an excellent sense of how they are doing, and which allows the teacher to make detailed assessments of progress. For example, the portfolio contains records of every telephone conversation with a mentor, every e-mail message, every bibliographic search, every conversation with the research teacher, and periodically formulated goals. Students prepare slides and posters and make public presentations.
Students write abstracts of their research and seniors write a twenty page paper.
Seniors are required to enter various contests such as the Westinghouse and the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. However the emphasis is on communication of results, and not winning contests. Although students may drop the course at any time, the Science Research course is normally a three year course, allowing students time to develop ideas, do significant research and then enter various contests without heroic efforts by students and teachers. Upper level students are role models and provide encouragement to beginning students. Students do their work in their backyards, in basements, in stream beds, and many students do science and social science experiments that are not laboratory based.