Research is a journey, not a destination- Seabury Visits UW Tacoma's Research Library

Seabury Middle School students are knee deep in their next inquiry based research project, delving deeper into Washington State history, science, culture and more. Study after study has shown that gifted kids learn best not by being lectured at, but by getting their hands dirty, so to speak, and Seabury's Middle School curriculum is doing just that. We combine some traditional classroom time with inquiry-based projects where students can research a topic of interest, to ultimately create an authentic and meaningful project.

Seabury visited the University of Washington, Tacoma's, main research library on Monday, allowing students to get a deeper level of research than they could from the main library or even online. Students were greeted by a Library Science grad student, who spent the morning helping each of them research the University's database, find books on the stacks, and locate the "needle in the haystack" once they found their books.

Students learned some valuable lessons in researching, such as how to navigate a book's index (versus reading every page in search for something useful). Students also discovered that research is a journey, not a destination. Some found the perfect source, just what they needed, on their first try, while others would bring down stacks of books only to find that none were helpful at all.

But, nevertheless, they persisted. And they learned a valuable lesson in patience for the research journey in the process.