Unpacking the "Big" Question
Energy and the Environment

Directions: Use the following worksheet and strategies to help you to develop your individual research questions.

The "big" or essential question(s) for my research is :

WHAT IS THE BEST ENERGY SOURCE FOR THE NEW PLANNED COMMUNITY?
1. My questions for research are:

How can energy be obtained, transformed, and distributed?

How do differences in obtaining, transforming, and distributing energy from various sources impact the environment?
2. My individual or specific topic for research is:
(ex. solar energy)

3. Go back to the questions in#1 above, and highlight or circle the key words. (For example, "obtained" would be one of the key words.) Write all of the key words from both questions in the left column. When finished , write down one or more synonyms for each of your key words.

 KEY WORDS

 SYNONYM(S)
 ex. obtained gathered, mined, harnessed, collected, etc.
   
   
   
   
   

 4. You are now ready to write your individual research questions. Review the research questions in #1. Look at your topic from #2 and your key words from #3 in order to begin craft ing your individual research questions. On a sheet of notebook paper, write a series of questions that will enable you to answer all of the parts of both research questions on your individual topic.
Example:

 Topic

 Key Word

Question

 solar energy

gathered
  How is solar energy gathered or collected?

NOTE: You should create several questions. You may need to create additional questions as they arise during your actual research.

5. Use the following checklist to make sure that this worksheet is complete.

 ITEM

SELF (Yes/No)

PEER (Yes/No)

a. I have identified all key words in the research questions.    
b. I have combined each key word with my topic to craft each of my individual research questions.    
c. The questions that I have written cover all parts of the research questions as they relate to my individual topic.