What Questions Do You Have About How the World Works?

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

The best entries to the many student contests we run each year grow out of genuine individual interest — topics students choose because they are passionate about them, often because they connect to their own lives in some way.

In this special writing prompt, we hope to inspire you to find a meaningful topic for our latest contest, a STEM writing challenge in which you can explore and explain anything related to science, technology, engineering, math or health that you find fascinating — or, perhaps, troubling.

We invite you to use this writing prompt to brainstorm and publicly post as many ideas as you can. Even if you’re not participating in our writing challenge, we hope you’ll find the exercise fun — and, of course, you can use this prompt as a catalyst to come up with ideas for any kind of STEM inquiry project. We also hope students will inspire one another, so the more ideas you share, the better.

Here are some possible ways to start thinking about the question, with examples of Times reporting for each:

• Maybe you want to explore something that will improve your own life, like what happens if you ditch your phone for a while, whether you should use a home-DNA test, if you need to hydrate, whether your dog really loves you, or if cats can actually bond with humans.

• Maybe you’d like to investigate an issue that affects your community or school, like the impact of this year’s flu season, the increase in vaping-related illnesses, the role of racial bias in receiving health care, or even if your school can create its own physics escape room.

• Perhaps you’ve observed something interesting in nature, on YouTube, in a science or natural history museum, or in a lab, and you want to know more. Maybe you’ve been introduced to a new idea, like the Cloud Appreciation Society, an all-women spacewalk, a quantum computer that made history go backward, a new kind of periodic table, or the scientific uses of bumblebee vomit.

• Or, maybe an innovation in engineering, science or technology intrigues you, whether it’s something that already exists, like the use of A.I. in the operating room, living concrete that can reproduce or 5G. Or, perhaps it’s an innovation, positive or negative, that is still mostly in development, such as flying cars, space tourism or killer robots.

• Many students will likely choose a problem to explore, whether recent news reports that birds are vanishing from North America, that 2019 was the second-hottest year on record, or that it’s possible a billion animals were killed in the fires in Australia. Others may be interested in ethical questions about issues like genetically-modified foods, pet cloning or the increasing powers of governments and companies to breach our privacy.

  Whatever you choose, feel free to elaborate on why it interests you.

Students, brainstorm alone or with friends or classmates, and tell us …

• What questions do you have about how the world works? Any topic under the umbrella of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) can work, as can health, psychology, and other related fields.

• What innovations in STEM impress or intrigue you? What problems or issues in STEM fields concern you? Take a look at some of the reporting we’ve linked to above, then take a look around The Times or Science News (our partner for this contest) to see what else you might find.

• Another suggestion? Take 24 hours and keep a journal of the STEM-related questions, issues, problems and ideas that occur to you. That rickety bridge you have to cross on the way to school? Maybe it gets you thinking about how bridges get fixed, or how they’re made structurally sound in the first place. Your morning breakfast cereal? Is it as healthy as the box claims? Is breakfast really “the most important meal of the day” — or is that saying outdated? See how many ideas you can come up with in just one day, then think about which intrigue you most.

• Please post to our comments as many questions or topics as you can. We hope that your ideas will inspire others, and their ideas will inspire you. And if you see something someone else posted that you find interesting, or that you’d like to elaborate on, don’t be afraid to leave a comment.

  We can’t wait to read your ideas and conversations.

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.