**For September-May of the 2022-23 scholar year, this course is part of a 6-month course.  Please see this PDF for all the course offerings. The pictures are clickable links directly to the Outschool listing for easy enrollment!  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eTquRAl2Yymp-0mUMLNuUCh2KBYrXblS/view?usp=sharing **

Learners are often given research papers and projects without being properly educated on HOW TO research first. This class fills that gap! Here we will take a deep dive into (mostly) online research by exploring everything from what research is to the difference between quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Learners will build a toolkit that will prepare them for research tasks that they will be able to take with them for life.

We begin with what research is, defining a topic and refining it, and how to find keywords to help search.  Then, we use Google and lots of powerful tips and tricks to begin researching our topic and keywords. To wrap up the first class, learners will discover ways to evaluate their search results.

On day two, we begin with "Fake News"-- how to identify fake news and a hands-on activity evaluating sites as real or fake. We will move on to making notes on sources and a deep look at plagiarism. We will finish day two with a quick look at what is needed for citing resources and sharing what we learned during the course. 

Topics will be presented in a variety of ways including lectures, open-ended questions, discussions, and hands-on activities.  For the first class, learners will choose a topic and work with it to refine it, brainstorm keywords, and search and evaluate sources; thus making the research more meaningful to them.  

This class teaches learners how to research and as such, we will not be writing a paper or doing an actual project. This is meant to prepare learners to be able to be successful in future assignments that include research. (Some) citation styles will be listed but not taught.