To mark the end of many tenth grade students IB MYP journey, a personal project is completed. The personal project is one part of obtaining a MYP certificate and graduation cord, along with completing 40 hours of community service. Starting in sixth grade, all students in the district are automatically IB MYP scholars. Once entering high school, it’s the student’s choice to keep up with MYP, and they get to choose whether they would like to complete the program.
Personal project is encouraged for all tenth graders. There are many steps to completing the project. Starting in September, a kickoff assembly occurs to introduce the project. The chosen project is completely up to the student’s interest. They may do anything they would like to do, as long as it takes at least 20 hours to complete. The three main focuses of the personal project, were to inquire, act, and reflect. Every week during advisement, video lessons were given leading up to the end of the project, showing step by step what was required to complete the project and each lesson. By March, the project should have been completed. A final report was also required, expected to be at least six pages and completed in the beginning of April.
After all of the work is completed, a showcase, held on April 15th, occurred to display student’s personal projects. For those who participated in the showcase, a trifold poster, or a slideshow presentation was used to briefly explain their projects. Starting in third period, students in different classes were allowed to quickly visit those projects, and learn more about the people who completed them. Students who participated in the showcase were rewarded with two additional excused absences for college visits and Kona Ice.
Students have explained their journey’s completing the project, explaining the long process. Tessa Chalfant, a sophomore, completed her project based on sewing.
“My personal project was all about sewing,” Tessa Chalfant (10) said. “I took old clothes and turned them into new things such as stuffed animals.”
She explained her passion of wanting to better help the environment and reduce waste, which sparked her idea of creating this project. She created stuffed animals such as sock monkeys, by using old clothes and upcycling. She also taught people about upcycling, adding a personal element to her project.
“Did you know that the average American throws away 85 pounds worth of old clothes a year,” Chalfant said. “Through upcycling, it keeps out waste and creates something new with something old.”
She said she enjoyed creating her project and sewing her product. Writing was her least favorite part about completing the project.
“I learned that I have to set a big schedule for myself or else I won’t want to do it,” Chalfant said.
Demi Fadase based her project based on her arts and crafts.
“My project was about making my scrapbook for my freshman year of high school and it took three to four months to complete,” Demi Fadase (10) said. “It taught me a lot about graphic design.
To her, she believes she will use the skills she learned in the future. She also learned more about herself while completing her scrapbook.
“I learned that I am kind of a perfectionist because I did a lot of pages and made a lot of drafts.” Fadase said.
Similar to Chalfant, she liked creating her product, however didn’t like the timeframe she had to complete the project.
“I feel like I could’ve taken more time designing and making it a lot better if I had more time beyond March.” Fadase said.
The personal project resulted in the end of the middle years program for all sophomores, for those who completed it or did not. To some students, the rewards at the end compensated for the hard work put in, as well as the process of learning about themselves throughout the months.
