One way to involve students in a research project is to create a class alphabet book. Making a picture book is a good project to teach both the work of the author and basic nonfiction writing. Illustrations can be their artwork or with another image they found. Each child creates a page in the book and they work together as a culminating project. As a class they can add a title page, dedication, index and even a glossary.
Some of the letters have many options for alphabet entries. Some are hard to find. For “X” I had to stretch to the second letter to suggest research on the exile of Loyalists after the war.