Asking the "right" questions -

The DID project is designed to consider selected contemporary technologies and how they impact our society as well as our lives. In order to better focus your research, each DID team is to develop three "key" questions concerning these issues. Those questions should guide your research, whether it be in the library looking through reference books or on-line using any one of the search engines available. 

Here are some guidelines for developing your questions as well as a few sample questions related to a number of technological issues. Hopefully they will help you in getting off on the right foot with your research. Without this degree of planning, it is less likely that your final product will meet the goals established for this project.

 Developing appropriate questions:

1. Using your group's problem statement as a guide, develop three general questions, the answers to which would be helpful in determining what information could or should be included in your paper/presentation.
2. Some of the questions could be of the type "What is the impact of  ???   on  ??? or "Why is ???  an important topic today?"  
3. Other more specific questions answered in the report itself would deal with factual information or data such as  "What has been the growth or change of  ???   over the past  ??? years? This would suggest whether a condition is remaining constant or changing in either a desirable or undesirable way. Graphs are the best to show how data has either changed or can be compared rather than numbers on the screen.
4. Questions could also be more general and ask something such as "How has the change in ????  created ethical dilemma and what groups are concerned about this phenomenon?"

Sample questions:

1. What types of jobs are being lost in the U.S. over the past ??? years and what are some plausible explanations for this?
2. In what ways might the world address the issue of the increasing cost and scarcity of petroleum?
3. How has genetic engineering evolved and what are some of the promises and potential problems associated
   with this technology for the future?

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