Choosing My Main Question and Subquestions!

Capstone started off as something in the back of everybody’s heads. As the school year progressed, Capstone slowly crawled closer and closer to the front of everybody’s heads. And then, when the project was assigned, Capstone became something that was in the front of people’s heads 24/7 (or at least close to that).

Capstone also has made a place for itself in classroom time, winning at least 30 minutes a day dedicated to it. And there’s no doubt that the amount of classroom time dedicated to Capstone shall continue to grow.

So that brings us to the question: What are we actually doing in the Capstone Project?

Well, in my last post I talked about how I was choosing a Capstone topic, and I went back to the drawing board many times. But eventually, I chose my topic: Solar Flares. Next, it was time to come up with my main inquiry question.

The main inquiry question can be just about any question related to your topic. But for Capstone, we want to make sure we have good main inquiry questions. To help we rate ourselves on a scale from 1-4, which in my opinion is basically this:

1 = “Basic Question

2 = “Ordinary but Undetailed Question

3 = “Intricate Question

4 = “Intricate Question and a ‘question add-on’ (a comparison, a call to action, etc.)

My first main inquiry question was “What dangers do Solar Flares pose to earth?” On the scale, I would rate it a two point five, because while having an intricate base (solar flares), it’s not very specific (What dangers and why?). So I racked my brain for the perfect question that would fit the criteria in an almost perfect way.

And then, during a car ride, it came to me. “How have we prepared for solar flares in the past (the intricate question), and how can we prepare better in the future(“question add on”)?” And that was the question that made the cut!

All that was left was coming up with subquestions. Thankfully, coming up with the subquestions was really easy because my main inquiry question turned out to be easily dissected into smaller questions. View my subquestions below:

 

1 What are Solar Flares?
2 How does Earth’s magnetic field shield us from Solar Flares?
3 What dangers do Solar Flares pose to earth?
4 Who is responsible for alerting people of solar flares, and how do they do it?
5 How do scientists predict what a Solar Flare?
6 How did Solar Flares effect the Moon and Mars?
7 How can we protect astronauts in space from Solar Flares?

Now that the questions were done, it was time for me to research…

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