More than sixty students across all three grade levels are engaged in a practice called Genius Hour–a time during which they conduct independent research toward what is often called a Passion Project.  The projects are done as an enrichment opportunity in addition to the students’ other work. Projects represent a wide range of topics and likely go far beyond what a student or teacher might picture when he or she imagines a school project.

The process starts off with students generating an idea–spurred by a question they would like to answer. They spend a great deal of time brainstorming a plan and conducting research.  Students are expected to track their project using a paper journal, blog, or video journal.  Many students are working with mentors in the community and are thus gaining knowledge about not only their topic but professions or careers. Some of the projects are geared toward helping others in the community as well.

Sixth-grade All Star student Molly Decker is starting her own charity as a part of her project.  The mission of her charity, called SucSEED, is “to make a better eco-friendly future for generations to come.” She set up face painting at home basketball games to raise funds to donate to The Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees project and has other fundraising events planned as well.

Seventh grader Ilana Miller is researching how photography can be used as a tool for stress relief. She is working alongside mentor Tim Arai, a semi-professional photographer.

Eighth grader Leah Daher is studying the chemistry involved in baking. She is doing a series of experiments to determine how the ratios of different ingredients interact, and her aim is to determine how substitutions of traditional ingredients impact the final product’s taste and texture. Her next step is to share the recipes she’s created with tasters and record their reactions.

Danielle Musi, Hailey Nelson, and Lauren Isabella, all seventh graders, have designed their project around helping disabled dogs. Mentored by Craig Schmidt at the Innovation Center, their plan involves the design of a prosthetic limb.

Other topics include researching the science of beehives, designing a Pointe shoe that won’t hurt dancers’ feet, creating a collapsible snowboard, programming for Minecraft, and building drones and remote control cars.

At Mayfield Middle School, Mrs. (Sandra) Bean, Gifted Intervention Specialist, supervises and monitors Genius Hour and the Passion Projects. She is happy about bringing the concept of Passion Projects to MMS and hopes that she can continue the process next year as well. She believes that the atmosphere of learning should not focus solely on getting good grades and improving one’s academic self. She feels that students should also think about the future  and how to be great community members.  Therefore, the emphasis of the students’ Passion Projects is not to earn a grade but rather to assess their own impact and learning.

When asked what working on a Passion Project meant to her, eighth grader Gianna Somrak replied, “The term passion project to me expresses the idea of something a person desires to do, Simply, it’s a project that someone’s passionate about.” But eighth grader Jonathan Caryl described it as “More work to eat away at my free time.” Evident from the varied responses, students have mixed feelings on these new projects.  While many expressed excitement about the opportunity to work independently on a subject of personal interest, many also expressed that balancing their projects with their other classes has been a challenge.  But, the overall reaction is positive: of those asked to give a rating with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best, the average was 8.

Students will be working on these diverse and creative projects for the remainder of the school year and will share their findings, products, and passions as the culmination of their work.