To date, much of the energy, tools, and support for action research by young people has come from community-based organizations or university centers focused on youth and community development. The resources listed below are the product of this growing commitment to youth research outside school walls. But the lessons and tools are easily transplanted, and building this same interest and capacity inside schools is one of the goals of Student Research for Action.

Research for Action
http://www.researchforaction.org/
Matthew Goldwasser, Ph.D., a researcher formerly with the Philadelphia-based Research for Action, has written a useful, short publication called A Guide to Facilitating Action Research for Youth. The guide is divided into three sections, representing three major stages in the process of action research projects: "WHAT?"—choosing a research topic and collecting data; "SO WHAT?"—analyzing and interpreting the findings; and "NOW WHAT?"—making sense of a study's findings. Within each of these sections are subsections related to steps in the action research process. Each subsection includes descriptions of one or more group activities which facilitators can use with students to help them develop needed skills and carry out their research project.

Youth Engaged in Leadership & Learning (YELL)
http://gardnercenter.stanford.edu/support_community/yell.html
A landmark program of The John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University, YELL prepares youth to be part of the policy process by supporting young people as action researchers in a number of San Francisco Bay Area communities. YELL's Handbook for Supporting Community Youth Researchers offers step-by-step lesson plans, activities, and worksheets that introduce youth to different research methods, analytical tools, and presentation skills. The lessons can be adapted to meet the needs and interests of different communities and can be facilitated by teachers and educators in school and out-of-school contexts. An array of other publications and tools related to youth research are available at the Center's website.

Youth in Focus
http://www.youthinfocus.net/
Since 1991, San Francisco's Youth in Focus has supported youth-led research, evaluation and planning. Its work is rooted in the belief that youth can effectively partner with adults to address social and organizational challenges, and that these partnerships are crucial to making just, democratic, and sustainable social change. Through its Youth REP program, young people play lead roles in designing and carrying out research or evaluation projects that can initiate or change a program, community initiative, or policy that affects them and their peers. To order Youth REP Step By Step, a guide to helping develop successful youth-led research and evaluation projects, click here.

Youth Action Research Institute/ Institute for Community Research
http://www.incommunityresearch.org/research/yari.htm
The Connecticut-based Youth Action Research Institute of the Institute for Community Research trains adolescents to do ethnography-based action research; involves teens in training other youth to use action research for social problem solving; trains educators, youth workers, service learning program facilitators, and social science interns to use action research methods and cooperative education in their classrooms and programs; and involves youth in developing new curricula, materials, and research instruments for conducting action research with children and adolescents. The institute's Participatory Action Research Curriculum for Empowering Youth outlines in detail how to help youth discover, collect information about, and take action on issues that directly affect them and their communities. To order, click here.

Designing learning that is project-based

Student action research and project-based learning (PBL) share much in common, although they are not one and the same. Not all project- or problem-based learning has research, action, and change at its core. However, the strategies through which PBL engages students in exploration and ³real world² learning infuse student action research.

Six A's of Designing Projects
The Six A's, developed by Adria Steinberg, is a widely-used reflection tool for project planning and project assessment. The six elements are: authenticity, academic rigor, applied learning, active exploration, adult relationships, and assessments. In Schooling for the Real World: The Essential Guide to Rigorous and Relevant Learning, Steinberg, Kathleen Cushman, and Robert Riordan offer a host of practical ways for teachers and schools to provide students with an education that gives them experience in the real world.

Buck Institute for Education
http://www.bie.org/
The Buck Institute for Education (BIE) works to make schools and classrooms more effective through the use of problem and project-based instruction. BIE creates curriculum and training materials, provides professional development for teachers, and conducts and disseminates research. Its Project Based Learning Handbook explains for middle and high school teachers each phase of a successful, standards-focused project, from devising a project idea to reflecting on final outcomes.

Problem-Based Learning @ IMSA
http://www2.imsa.edu/programs/pbln/
This site, created by the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, offers online tutorials for carrying out problem-based learning, a comparison between traditional and PBL methods, model problems, a teachers' listserv, research on PBL, and other, related resources.

Mastering special skills

Both the investigation and presentation phases of a high quality student action research project often call upon teachers and students to master new technical skills, including video, digital photography, audio slideshows, (dynamic) PowerPoint, survey research, interviewing, storytelling, GIS. The resources that follow offer starting points for learning some of these skills.

MULTIMEDIA

Youth Learn: Working with Youth and Technology
http://www.youthlearn.org/
This initiative offers youth development professionals and educators a comprehensive set of resources for using technology to animate learning. Created by the Morino Institute and now led by Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), Youth Learn includes a comprehensive website, a growing online community, a free electronic newsletter, and an extensive manual called The YouthLearn Guide: A Creative Approach to Working with Youth and Technology.

Introducing Photography Techniques: Some Basic Vocabulary for Teaching Kids How to See
http://www.youthlearn.org/learning/activities/multimedia/photo3.asp
Among the many resources at Youth Learn is a basic introduction to photography that's both simple and complete. Topics range from how to hold a camera and use its basic features to composing photos and editing images. The tutorial stresses common photographic vocabulary and short exercises where students can put the vocabulary into practice. Included, too, are thoughtfully chosen links to resources that expand upon the tutorial's lessons and tips.

Ten Top Digital Photography Tips
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/10/22/digi_photo_tips.html
"It's not the camera that makes beautiful images," says photographer Derrick Story, "it's the photographer. With a little knowledge and a willingness to make an adjustment here and there, you can squeeze big time photos out of the smallest digicam." Here are ten tips for making great images.

Educational Video Center
http://www.evc.org/
The New York City-based Educational Video Center (EVC) is a nonprofit media arts center that teaches documentary video production and media analysis to students, educators, and community organizers. It sees video and multi-media as a means to develop the literacy, research, public speaking and work preparation skills of youth, especially those at-risk. The YO-TV Production Handbook is a YO-TV (Youth Organizer's Television) student-produced introductory guide to video production for youth, teachers and independent video makers. In the winter of 2005-2006, EVC will release a comprehensive curriculum on integrating documentary video into high school classrooms. Click here for a PDF of EVC's "Hands-On: A Guide to Using Video and Multimedia Production in Project-Based Work," prepared for New York City Board of Education's Office of Instructional Technology.

Listen Up!
http://www.pbs.org/merrow/listenup/
Listen Up! is a youth media network that connects young video producers and their allies to resources, support, and projects with the goals of developing the field and achieving an authentic youth voice in the mass media. The website includes clips from youth-produced videos, news and resources, tools, and links to Listen Up!'s extensive network of organizations nationwide involved in youth media. In The Way We See It series, young filmmakers across the country created short videos that responded to the questions, What makes a school worth going to or What makes a teacher worth paying attention to?

PowerPointers Above&Beyond
http://www.powerpointers.info/index.html
This (somewhat irreverent) website is filled with tips and strategies for creating PowerPoints that are visually strong as well as informative—and avoiding the traditional PowerPoint presentation, which many technology experts call an abuse of an imaginative piece of software. The site includes a "PowerPoint Health Check," "Ten Ways to Avoid Death by PowerPoint," "PowerPoint How-to Guides," and "50 Top Tips for Effective Presentations."

INTERVIEWS, FOCUS GROUPS, AND ORAL HISTORY

Interviews
A lot has been written about how to conduct a good interview. For a short, down-to-earth tip sheet prepared by National Public Radio's Ira Glass, click here (PDF).

Focus Groups
Researchers use focus groups for many purposes, from marketing products to collecting personal experiences that do not lend themselves to written surveys. For a good outline on conducting focus groups, written by Richard Krueger at the University of Minnesota, click here (PDF). For a tip sheet on focus groups prepared by the Extension Division at University of Wisconsin, click here (PDF).

Oral History
There are many excellent resources on conducting oral history projects with students of all ages. This step-by-step guide from the University of North Carolina School of Education is one of the best.

STORYTELLING

The Center for Digital Storytelling
http://www.storycenter.org
The Center for Digital Storytelling in San Francisco focuses on the art of personal storytelling. It helps young people and adults use the tools of digital media to craft, record, share, and value the stories of individuals and communities. In the Center's intensive workshops, students record first-person narratives, collect still images and music with which to illustrate their pieces, and then edit their stories. The Center serves as an international clearinghouse on information and resources about storytelling and new media.

These Stories in These Pictures
http://www.storycenter.org/canada/index.html
This website offers a detailed guide to telling stories from the images we collect in our lives. It covers storyline, meaning, memory, voice, metaphor, expectation, economy, pacing; it provides advice for choosing and shaping as well as improving and editing a story.

GIS AND COMMUNITY MAPPING

GIS (Geospatial Data and Information Systems)
http://ceita.emich.edu/visit
Project VISIT (Virtual Immersion in Science Inquiry for Teachers) is a professional development program for teachers, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation to the Institute for Geographic Research and Education at the Eastern Michigan University. Involving 215 teachers, 31 teacher leaders, and experts in GIS, the program advances teachers' understanding of GIS, applies these tools and applications in classrooms and curricula, and conducts real-world investigations that take advantage of these technologies. The site includes lesson plans, hands-on tutorials, data sets, documented investigations, technical manuals, assessment rubrics, and a guide to sources of geo-referenced data.

A major "force" in the GIS world is Environmental Research Systems Institute (ESRI). ESRI makes several tools that can be used by educators to study GIS in the classroom. These include ArcView and ArcVoyager, a free tool designed to introduce the novice user to GIS software.

GLOBE
http://www.globe.gov
GLOBE is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based education and science program that allows students around the world to: take scientifically valid measurements in the fields of atmosphere, hydrology, soils, and land cover/phenology; report their data through the Internet; create maps and graphs on the free interactive Web site to analyze data sets; and collaborate with scientists and other GLOBE students around the world.

Community Mapping
Community Mapping extends the power of maps by bridging research and action. It is a process, a product, and a tool for change. Often linked with GIS, it provides a creative means for local people to affirm and locate the historical, cultural, social, ecological and spiritual assets of the place they live. There are several websites (but no single standout) that describe specific community mapping projects, including details about the process involved. They include a how-to guide for working with students prepared by the University of Manchester (UK), the Homewaters Project, the Green Map System, and the Orton Family Foundation. For a PDF of a technical overview of community mapping as a tool for teachers and students, click here.