Ideas for research

One of the most difficult things with a research project is to find something that you might be interested in and able to research. You have to try to come up with a topic that you will find interesting and that you actually want to know something about. Remember, science is based on experiment and testing ideas. Asking the right questions is important, but designing a suitable experiment that will be a fair test to help find out the answers, can sometimes be even more difficult.

A good way to begin is to create a mind-map (concept-map) and outline the things you are interested in and which of these might offer some possibility for a scientific investigation. Always be thinking about experiments that you could do that might provide the answers to the questions that you are asking. The following example is just to give you an idea as to how this can be done. Suppose we have an interest in electricity. We can construct a mindmap that looks a bit like the following;

In this example the student has an Uncle Harry who might be able to help. Make sure you think about all the resources and people that might be able to help you. The internet is a great resource and you would be surprised how many people like to share what they know. There is no harm in trying and sending off the odd email.