The first research assignment I can remember having to do was an assignment on Global warming. I did the project in middle school at IS 75 while I was on the Robotics Team. I believe I was in 7^th grade when I did this project. I cannot remember if I did any research projects in elementary school it is too far back too remember. I remember that most people were not truly informed about global warming and that daily the world is being seriously affected by this phenomenon.

      This project was not selected by my group we were given the topic by the league and had to research the topic as part of the contest. Our teacher and many other teachers helped us gain knowledge on the topic as we learned a lot more then we had ever known. Our librarian had helped us by given us a chance to use the school library to do research. She showed us how to use the internet, databases and new articles to research our topic.

     I enjoyed doing that project because behind the research project we had to create Lego robotics to perform tasks that could represent a real life object to counter and make a change to the problem is the world. So this research project was somewhat hands on and experimental. That year my team would go on to the state championship and come in 3^rd place. The judging was based not only on the robotics but a big part was the research project. The research weighted heavily on the scoring so our research had to be really good.

Blog 1

     The last time I did a research project was last year in my Us History Class last year with Ms Mangiero. This assignment was for a contest to win a free trip to Italy. I have to compare the Library of Congress to the San Marco Library and how they connect to the birth of America and the Italian Renaissance. It had to be an informational essay so I had to use various forms of information and use different databases to gather this info. I had explored many different website some not being in English but in Italian.

     While writing this essay I felt confident when I wrote it because I knew what I was writing about. The directions were fully explained we had to write a research essay about The San Marco Library and The Library of Congress the Italian Renaissance and the Birth of America. The topic however was not selected by me or my teacher. The topic was chosen by the Foundation running the contest for the free Italy trip. Although I did not know much about the topic I had to do a lot of research to be able to understand what I was writing.

    

     I thought writing this essay was extremely interesting to learn about another time in history and how it relates to how America was born. The essay was not hard to write it was just a lot of research since I had a broad perspective of the topic so it was a little challenging but in the end I ended up winning the contest but I did not take the opportunity to go away to Italy.