NCAA Tournament College Research Project
NCAA Tournament College Research Project
Once the NCAA releases the tournament brackets, you will draw a college that is competing in the tournament out of a hat. The college that is drawn will become your topic for an extensive research project/presentation. All of the requirements for the project are below.
Guided Research Question Sheet
In order to help you get on the right track with your research, I have provided you with guiding questions that you have to answer about your college. This will be the first step in the researching process. You are to use the internet to attempt to find the answers to these questions. It is MANDATORY that the first place that you look is at your college’s official website. From there, you may use other websites to find the information that you need. Although it is not a good place to research all topics, wikipedia works very well for this project. You may also include any other interesting information that you find about your college in addition to the information from the question sheet.
Informative Research Paper
The second step in the process is to write a 2-3 page informative research paper about your college. You must organize the information that you recorded on your guided research question sheet in a logical, orderly fashion and write a research paper about it. Your paper must be either neatly hand written in blue or black ink or typed. If it is typed it must be typed in 12 PT FONT, TIMES NEW ROMAN and DOUBLE SPACED. If you type your paper and do not follow these requirements, points will be deducted.
Bibliography
You must turn in a bibliography attached to the end of your paper. A bibliography is a document that gives credit to the sources that you got your information. If you take information from a website or book and do not give that website or book credit, it is called plagarisim. We will discuss how to do a bibliography later. Just make sure you write down EVERY WEBSITE that you get information from.
Presentation
Upon completion of the paper, every student must make a 2-3 minute presentation to the class about their college. You must look prepared and rehearsed. You may bring notecards with you to the front of the class to help you, but you cannot just read from the cards. Any student who decides to read word for word from their research paper will have points deducted.
Visual Project
You must also have a visual project to show during your prepared presentation. You may choose between one of the following three projects:
- Powerpoint Presentation- You can make a powerpoint presentation that has at least five slides containing information about your college. You must bring this presentation to school on a CD or a flash drive so that we can show it during you presentation.
- Poster- You may select to do a poster that goes along with your presentation. The poster must be neat and must contain both pictures and facts about your college.
- Timeline- You can make a timeline that shows important dates in the college’s history. These dates should pertain to both important academic achievements and athletic achievements. The timeline must be neatly done and must have at least three pictures.
Below is the rubric that I will follow to grade this project:
RESEARCH PORTION
Guided Research Question sheet ______/30
Research Paper rough draft ______/10
Research Paper final copy ______/50
Bibiliography ______/10
TOTAL ______/100
PRESENTATION PORTION
Visual Project
Follows directions ______/20
Neatness/includes 5 slides ______/20
Presentation
Student appears prepared and rehearsed ______/40
Presentation presents good information ______/20
TOTAL ______/100
Name______
Guided Research Questions
College:______
ALL QUESTIONS MUST BE ANSWERED IN COMPLETE SENTENCES. YOU MAY USE AN EXTRA SHEET OF NOTEBOOK PAPER IF YOU WOULD LIKE.
1. Where is your college located?
2. What year was the college founded? (founded means started)
3. How big is the undergraduate student body? (how many students go there?)
4. How many graduate students attend this college?
5. What nickname does this school’s athletic teams use? What are the school colors?
6. Is this a private college or a public college? Explain what the means.
7. How much does tuition cost for one year of school? How much would it cost you to go there for four years?
8. In it’s history, has this school won any national championships in any sport, men’s or women’s? What sports and in what year?
9.. Alumni is a name given to people who graduate from a school. When you leave Jefferson Middle to go to high school, you will become Alumni of this school. What famous Alumni, if any, attended your college?
10. Write four sentences about the history of this college.
11. Write EIGHT more interesting things you’ve learned about this college.
Research on this year’s college basketball season (use ESPN.com for this information- Click on College Basketball, then on teams)
1. What was your college’s record this basketball season?
2. What conference do they play in?
3. What player was their leading scorer? How many points did he score per game?
4. What seed are they in the NCAA tournament? (seed is the little number in front of the team name on the bracket)
5. Who is their first round opponent?