6-12 Models of Student Work

“Should I eat that?” Inspired from student voices criticizing our school’s lunch program, we dove deeply into a holistic investigation about the food we eat. Students read Omnivore’s Dilemma, watched various documentaries, and explored the nutritional values and science behind the everyday food they were consuming. Using the magic of the Maker movement through muppet building and filmmaking, our students transformed their learning about food justice, urban farming, and healthy food choices.

Sixth grade students at High Tech Middle Chula Vista in San Diego, California created this cookbook as part of a project focused on why and how to make healthy food choices. Students first watched the film Food, Inc. to learn about food processing and childhood obesity. They took a trip to Olivewood Gardens to learn about the growing cycle of vegetables and the benefits of eating organic vegetables. After that they selected individual vegetables that are grown in their own school garden. The st

9th grade students used comics to explain real world physics concepts. A cross-curricular physics and humanities project.

7th and 8th grade students in New Mexico created a book with the guiding questions of “Can one person change the world?” and “Can one person make a difference?” Students each completed a research project on a person who helped change the world. Students did extensive research, watched documentaries, wrote reports, and then dressed up as that person and personified that person at the celebration of learning. Presentations were made to their classmates and filmed as well.

For this project, our team of 45 students has decided to make a documentary called BEYOND THE CROSSFIRE.  Beyond the Crossfire will document our mission to answer one question: How can we dramatically reduce the amount of gun violence in our country?  Gun violence is an issue that matters to our school community because we lost a student to an incident of gun violence in 2011. Sean Fuchs was a musician, a poet, and a kind and loving son who was taken from his mother and his friends too soon.

Using Google Sketch Up, students design a student play-area for the new High Tech High K-8 school in Chula Vista. Students create design firms, conduct student surveys for imput on their design, determine budget costs, and propose their ideas to a panel of adults and peers. Students have complete control of the design of the space with the stipulation that it must be safe and accessible to all students.

Human history is punctuated by the prolific rise and inevitable collapse of civilization after civilization. In this project, students formulated hypotheses for these fluctuations, compared their hypotheses with historical evidence, mapped quantitative changes throughout history, and then created a narrative and mechanical representation of their findings. Their work was then exhibited on the eve of the Mayan Apocalypse.

For many, where we live plays a major role in who we are, for others, their neighborhood is just a place in which their home resides. In addition, neighborhoods, like people, carry with them stigmas. Students will be grouped together based on the neighborhoods they live in to explore the identity of their barrio. Through ethnographic writing and sensory writing, they will bring to life their neighborhood. The writing will serve as the foundation for the neighborhood box that will rotate through

Seventh grade students from Polaris Charter Academy created this book, Peacekeepers of Chicago, to honor their local community members who serve as peacekeepers. While studying the U.S. Constitution and learning about the second amendment, Polaris students collected data on gun violence in their own neighborhood, West Humboldt Park in Chicago. The statistics, showing high numbers of fatalities near the school, and their own personal experiences with violence compelled them to take action. They

These booklets were created by tenth grade students at Harborside Academy in Kenosha, Wisconsin as the mathematical component of a learning expedition called “World of Conflict.” Students used the principles of geometry, particularly ratios and proportions, to compare different wars and determine which was the most devastating to the United States and why. Over a two week period, they conducted statistical research, calculated ratios and proportions, interviewed veterans for background informat

Students defined the purpose of staircases and observed to define a stairway. Afterwards, they went through the process of designing real life staircases. Using a 1:10 ratio staircase, with a partner they designed and created life size staircases to nowhere around the school.