Wondering

I'm still "wondering" if I'll get this all done! First off, Ace Awards to Jennifer Smith and Julie Mansfield for their blogs. I've only visited the ones from my POD so I can't judge them all, but these two are on the ball.

I found some comfort in the Carol Kuhlthau video clip on "Student Frustration." (Can be found on Eduscapes under "Wondering"). I have been mulling over the materials I have. It has been a long time since I've done any research quite like this. My youngest does this all the time for fun! She has always been into Non-Fiction and loves animals. She has created many PowerPoints on various topics: planets; sharks; monkeys and apes, etc. I have even greater admiration for this passion in her now that I'm faced with this project.

I wrote out a list of questions I began wondering about as I thought about my topic. Side note: Is it recursive to think of the final product and then back to questions? I've already admited that I tend to get caught up in the final product. I went from being curious about the vitamin/nutrition aspects of my daughter Sarah's vegetarian diet choice. But that curiosity has expanded to include wondering about other aspects. And includes not only Sarah but her group of close friends, too.

Questions:

What prompted you to become a vegetarian?
What was your parents/siblings reaction?
What's been the hardest thing being vegetarian?
Have you researched your nutritional needs?
Iron? How much needed at your age?
Calcium? Ditto.
Can you enough of these through diet only?
Do you take a daily vitamin with iron?
Where do you go for support? Books? Websites? Magazines? Friends?

Is any of this conducive to my research? To my final product?
Probably more to the latter. I really want to video "the girls" and ask them these questions. Don't get the wrong idea, I support them fully in this choice of diet.
And I admire their stamina in sticking to their choice. Maybe it's the inner teacher in me that wants to know what they know and to bring to their attention information about nutritional needs for girls their age.

Research: I need to learn as much as I can about vegetarian diets and vitamin needs.

One of the two bloggers I mentioned above, not only used a mapping tool, but was able to blog it in. I tried to use a pdf. wondering chart but could not figure out how to fill it in without printing it out first. I've now found "Inspiration" not a pun, but a download I'm hoping I can get to work for me. The video tour of it impressed me, it looks like a really fantastic tool for students and teachers to use.

I found the download of Inspiration on James McKenzie's page on "The Research Cycle."
I really like his philosophy toward learning and research. He's providing information to educators to turn from topic driven research to using creative questions to prompt research projects. This avoids turning "students into simple word movers"(McKenzie, ). Kids are natural questioners and if this could be incorporated into K-12, it would be fantastic. All three of my girls got some of this via their school, Center for Inquiry. But even there, I'd like to see it stretched further.

Now I'm wondering if I can borrow a digital video camera from a friend and whether I can get this group of girls together before Oct. 3rd.