Starting the school year with passion

Paper

This school year (2022) the grade 9-12 humanities teachers at a 5-12 campus of a K-12 congregated school for gifted children in Canada decided to start the school year with individual research projects. All students in grades 9-12 had to choose a topic that interested them, select appropriate research articles, synthesize information and create a presentation, then share what they learned in a 5-10 minute gallery walk style presentation. The intent of the project was for the high school students to develop and practice research and presentation skills. Approximately 350 students participated in the research project process. Topics ranged from the diplodocus family tree, to the use of virtual reality to explore social situations, to an overview of the structure and function of the human brain. One student created a video comparing linear video role playing games (RPG) with open world RPGs. Another student explored the use of Aspirin in preventing and treating heart attacks. A third student did research on executive functions (EFs) in the school. She created two surveys, one for students and one for teachers and got 251 replies to her surveys. The only limitation on topics was they had to be appropriate for a grade 5 and older audience as all students on campus were invited to see the presentations and ask questions of the researchers. This presentation is practice based and will share the impacts of students leveraging their talents and interests to conduct individual research projects. The impacts will be looked at from student, teacher and learning specialist perspectives.