Perhaps you are writing about a current event happening in a community, such as the installation of solar panels in schools in a particular town. Talk to people in the town to survey how they feel about the investments, as well as experts in the field to see what the benefits of such a project are. If you are covering a developing news story, have people as close to the scene as possible weigh in.
Go to a locale or scene and observe the ways in which people behave. If you are conducting a science experiment on the best conditions for plant growth, your observations of plants growing in different environments is firsthand experience. Another example is if you are conducting research that requires you to observe how animals or human beings act when they are presented with different types of stimuli.
A survey is generally a group of questions that go out to a large number of people, as opposed to interviews, which are done on a smaller scale. Surveys can be about religious and political views, opinions on the effects of fast food or a wide range of other topics. In any case, you will be able to say that a certain percentage of people surveyed agreed on certain points, and draw conclusions from the statistics and responses you have gathered.
Collect as much firsthand information as possible. For example, if you are excavating a site, gather all of the artifacts that you can find. Look at them as a whole, and try to determine if any relationships exist among them. You can analyze the ways in which past civilizations went through a typical day, or you can analyze the ways in which these ancient civilizations communicated with one another.