I am new to this particular thread, and i haven't gone through all the topics, but I have a few beginner suggestions for people just starting out with VV2.

First off, children under 14 years old are detrimental to this game. The can pick mushrooms, as well as find the rare scientific artifacts, (the shells, butterflys, beetles etc.) In case you haven't had the option, if you see a artifact and you don't have any young children on the island, you CANNOT pick it up. The message popsup with "Only Children can see the artifacts. ) same with mushrooms.

Speaking of Mushrooms: the regular Brown capped shrooms give you 6 food points, and the rare red caps give you 35! so make sure you get those red ones right away because they don't stick around for long.
The artifacts keep appearing all over the island. Sometimes, the stones mainly, are disguised by the surroundings, so be sure to look closely. Also, I know that the same artifacts pop up, they aren't always different ones, but for each one that a child finds and takes to the reseachers, it will give you 100 tech points.

There's more, just gotta get there. I just started last night... [font:Comic Sans MS]

To add a couple of points:

Beetles are also often well-camouflaged against their background. There are a few rare ones that are almost impossible to spot unless you look VERY carefully.

The 100 tech points for duplicate collectibles is a minimum. For duplicate uncommon ones you gain 250 points, and for a duplicate rare one it's 1500!