When the US President banned the use of sludge as fertilizer, we needed to find other alternatives for our waste management part of our city sim. We used several different resources:

Search Engines

1. I would recomend 3 good search engines which are altavista.com, infoseek.com, and alltheweb.com.
2. Type in the keywords which are the main words in your search.
3. When you find the site that has the information you want, copy the address so you can come back.
4. Don't just stick to one search engine use others then you will provide a variety of websites.
5. When you start to write about something tell what it is, who it is or where it is.
6. Let's say you needed to do research on H Power you could type in hydrogen power and then see what comes up.
7. If you were doing a report, tell what H Power is, where you can find H Power being used, is it being used where you live (your country or state) and why is it being used.
8. Put in as many important details as possible

This resource got us information on biomass

But we used other resources as well as the Internet

• We contacted our local councilman, Ron Kouchi for information and he gave us information on where we are using H-Power in the islands and information on the use of bagasse for power.
• For information on food and the economy, we interviewed our Kauai Mayor Maryann Kusaka and attended an Environmental Awareness Day event where we got brochures about diversified agriculture.
• When one of our interview resource people, Troy Tanigawa, mentioned shipping cars off the island for recycling, we wrote an email to our team members on Oahu to ask them to call Honolulu Metals Recycling on Oahu and track down some information for us.

  Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 14:48:34
  From: Michelle 'M&M' Sone 
  Reply-To: ThinkQuest Junior--Cookies Team
       
  To: ThinkQuest Junior--Cookies Team 
  Subject: [cookiejar] Question to Melissa or Sean
  
  Dear Melissa and Sean,
        I would really appreciate if one of you may be able to call Honolulu
  Metals Recycling.  This company is on Oahu. They recycle metal which
  includes cars.  If you are able to contact them can you ask them these 2
  questions:
  
  1.What happens to the cars that are shipped from Neighbor Islands when they
  come to their company?
  
  2.After that process what do they do with those old cars or whatever that
  is left.
  M&M
  

  Our teammate Melissa followed up and wrote back immediately:

  Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 15:19:02 -1000 (HST)
  From: Melissa Cantillo 
  Reply-To: ThinkQuest Junior--Cookies Team
       
  To: ThinkQuest Junior--Cookies Team 
  Subject: [cookiejar] Re: Question to Melissa or Sean
  
  
  Michelle,
  I got lots of information. If you have anymore questions just ask and I'll
  call. Igot alot of information.
  
  Question One-The car is already smashed. Then they ship it to the Metle
  Center and they shreded it.Then they sell it around the world. They also
  sell it back to the selling company and they make a new car.
  
  Question two-The alplostary is left. They put it in the land fill to cover
  trash.
  Ferrous is old parts picked up by a magnet and the No-ferrous is not
  picked up by the magnet. Then they sell it sepreatly to China, Korea,
  Japan and indonesia.
  
  I hope these can help Michelle.
  
  Melissa
  

  ---

  Michelle's reflection on her research process: Before I joined Think Quest I relied on books and the internet for research information. Through my experience these past months I have learned not only about how to do a better search on the internet, but to make contacts with people knowledgable about our topic, use interviewing techniques, and employ e-mail. Even a field trip led to information I could use. Many people were willing to help us but we just needed to ask.

  I foresee using my experiences in helping me research projects in the middle school and beyond. Although I am still nervous I feel a little more comfortable doing interviews whether on the phone or in person.