I haven't got to my research for a bit, but researched SIRS today.  I went ahead and researched armadillos as suggested and found many articles.  More than I thought there would be for an armadillo.  There was a nice close-up picture of an armadillo which I have always thought was a strange looking animal.  The article I read was "Amazing Armadillos."  I like the option of being able to e-mail an article to yourself.  Very convenient!  I also liked how the difficulty levels of the articles were color coded so readers don't waste time going into an article only to discover it was too hard.  Nice feature.  I then researched the country of Fiji.  I liked the graphic organizers offered in different levels.  I would use this feature as I am also a teacher.  The site offered many different facts about the country including population, economy, government, history, etc.  I learned enough about the country to know I want to go there!  The map feature is also very nice for studying geography.  I liked the feature on science fair exploration.  How nice for when that time of year rolls around for studetns.
I then went in and researched SIRS researcher for older students.  I chose the topic of adoption and then discovered how it will narrow research topics for you.  Very nice.  I continued with interracial adoption.  I really liked the timeline feature as well as statistics.  It is nice being able to copy and paste the citation.  I remember having to write those out when I was in high school and hated it.
I then went into curriculum pathfinders and picked Language Arts.  There were many reasearch ideas to pick from.  I chose the book "Lord of the Flies" because I had read that book in high school and liked it.  I discovered a game online where you had to match quotes by the different characters to who spoke it.  I guess it has been awhile since I have read the book because I didn't do very well.  But neat teaching feature for anyone reading it now.