This year’s sophomore class recently started their MYP Personal Project. Every year, the sophomore class must do the MYP personal project, which is taken as a grade in their English class.

The MYP Personal Project is a student-centered and research-based project where students get to decide what they want to research and learn more about. 

Students have a wide variety of options for their project. The topics that they conduct their research on doesn’t have to be at all academic. Project topics can be complicated as building a computer from scratch or something as easy as researching sleep.

“I think the MYP Project is a good way to really know and explore a topic that we want to that doesn’t have to necessarily be academic or about a specific subject, but rather whatever you want it to be,” sophomore Sakina Azhar said.

In past years, there have been many students who have gotten creative and did really cool things for their personal project. “Last year we had a student who created and coded her own video game and created a circuit she could use to control it,” MYP coordinator Megan Padgette said. “We’ve had students produce and direct their own short films.”

For some students, they plan to create and design a product for their projects. “For my project I am going to be creating a badminton racket and birdie from scratch,” Azhar said.

There are also others who plan to learn a new skill in the next two months for their projects. “I’m planning on learning how to play the guitar,” sophomore Kyke Ho said. “It’s probably going to be difficult, but I think it’ll also be fun to try learning how to play.”

This project will be a long term project and students have about two months to complete it.  The start date was at the beginning of Nov and will be due on Jan 9, 2020.

During the process, students will also have to keep process journals where they document their project process and findings. “They are designed to help students learn how to reflect on their own learning and create this longer growth experience,” Padgette said.

In January, each student will be showcasing their projects in their English classes. Some students will also get a chance to present in front of the whole sophomore class during a big showcase after the project is due.