How exactly do you do research? The process of doing research is rarely taught in school. Teaching your team the research process, including how to come up with keywords and how to take notes, is very important.

1. Start by looking for keywords in the Challenge Guide. What does the challenge say we need to do? Are there any restrictions? What is the overall theme? What words pop out?

2. Discuss what makes one source more reliable than another. If you have a young team or a team that is not allowed to search online, a coach could generate a list of safe and reliable sources ahead of time and have students select from that subset.

3. Learn how to take notes. Taking notes does not mean copying every word down.

4. Learn to cite sources. In FLL, citations do not have to follow any particular format. However, it is important to know where your information is coming from. Keeping track of the author and website/links is a great place for a young student to start.

5. Finally, discuss how to communicate your research to others (each other or judges). For example, some information is best presented in a comparison table. A pie chart might be useful for other information.

For more information and links for each of these steps, refer to the Superpowered Pre-Season Guide for Innovation Project