World Building

What are elements of a well built world?
I'm not even going to talk about them all here, but rather try to 'think out loud' through several posts and unstick my current issue with my WIP.

There are a ton of articles and how to's online. They all start in different places, which is interesting. Where do you start?

Every time I do world building I start from a different place, but always with a question.
Why is [this character] the way they are? This is useful because we are all products of our genetics and environment. Is the character human? If not there is a lot more work to do.

Why is [this environment] the way it is? This is an area where I really struggle. I'm a science teacher by day and find it hard to accept bad science in science fiction. Still I can't write a story were it take my MC 200 years to get where they are going. So enter the wormhole (or tubes as I've been calling them in my WIP).
And while doing this, how much jargon is appropriate?