Before you can solve a school or community problem, you need to understand what the exact problem is, what causes it, who or what is impacted by it, what solutions have been tried, and where you might find support for your efforts. That’s where research comes in. Through research, and putting in the time and effort that research takes, you can make sure that you are starting out on the right foot and avoid wasting time later in the project.

Here’s an example of what happens when you don’t do your research. Back in the 2010s, schools wanted to stop bullying. School administrators thought that the cause of the problem was easy: bullies. They created a “zero tolerance” policy (harsh discipline) to get rid of bullies and thought that they had fixed the problem!

(Narrator: They did not fix the problem.)

It turns out that the causes of bullying are more complex and include things like toxic school environments and too little information for students on how to solve conflicts.