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Hello Everyone! My name is Emma True. I am an Elementary Education major with K-12 Special Education Endorsements. One question that I have is how can you implement research into K-12 instruction for STEAM? What are some ways to introduce the idea of conducting research regardless the age group? Research is typcially conducted in a secondary or postschool setting, and I feel as though it would benefit students greatly to start thinking about how research can help their education. 

Hello Emma,

Have you looked at Citizen Science topics?

Also, what are your students interested in? If you have a wonder wall, that can give you a clue as to what interests your students. Wonder Walls can initiate simple research Google research, but then you can start building your students' focus to do more research related to your standards AND student interest. 

Weather observations are even easier to incorporate daily since it affects what students wear to school—setting up a simple weather station or using a local weather source from the internet to collect data such as tracking temperatures over the week and graphing them by simply writing on a sticky note and putting it on a grid. 

Starting simple, using your standards and students' interests is a good place to start. 

I completely agree with you Emma. The sooner you get students thinking about research, the better off they will be in school and future endeavors. Being able to find quaility resources such as NSTA articles is an essential skill students need to aquire in order to learn quality content.