Conducting Your Own Research Project

By definition research is a scientific investigation or study of a subject. (Professor Phil Marcus, from UC Berkeley, probably best known for his research on the Red Spot of Jupiter, would teach his students that "research is investigating something new, or looking at something already known in a new way.")

Sometimes you're just curious about a subject and have a question you want answered. You might ask a friend or look in a book for the answer - or you might just try a simple experiment. Here's an interesting question someone posed to us: "Does a cold tennis ball bounce higher than a warm tennis ball?" (If you know the answer write to us at coldtennis@cislunar.com.)

Other times you might have to do a science project for a class, a school fair, or even your college degree - and you need to think of a question or a research project. Finding or thinking of a question or research topic can be a challenge!

On one hand you don't want to "reinvent the wheel" as the expression goes or spend a lot of time and effort on something that someone already knows the answer to. If you are in college or a professional researcher your question may need to be original - something no one's ever tried to do before.

On the other hand you will learn a tremendous amount and develop important skills by trying things out for yourself - just because you're curious and want to see for yourself how things work. (G. Warren Hall was NASA Ames chief test pilot and taught aeronautics at the college level for years. He would tell his students, "You aren't doing homework problems because the number you get at the end is important; you're doing them to learn the tricks to solving problems. Soon you'll have a large bag of tricks and you will find that the same techniques will apply over and over again in other circumstances.")