This semester, I planed a series of science lessons about life cycles for my first grade students. Before I could write the lesson plans, however, I knew I had to do a large amount of research on the topic.  Conducting research before writing lesson plans is very important.  It ensured that I knew more about the topic than I planned to teach and that I would be teaching accurate information to my students.  While researching the topic of life cycles, I learned how important it is to check a resource’s credibility.  There are so many resources online that are not credible sources of information.  I also learned how difficult it can be to find those credible resources.  By composing a subject matter research, I put myself in the shoes of a learner and was able to not only educate myself, but appropriately and accordingly plan to educate my students.  Pictured above is my Life Cycle Research Paper that informed my planning!