Family, friends, staff members and students gathered at Fridley High School on January 29 to celebrate 10th grade students as they presented a personal project they each worked on throughout the school year.

The personal project is the culminating milestone of the Middle Years Programme for the International Baccalaureate curriculum. Each 10th grade student begins working on the assignment at the start of the school year. It allows them to pick a topic they are passionate about, set an achievable goal related to their topic, and then use their Approaches-to-Learning skills – communication, thinking skills, self-management, social skills, and research – in creating and presenting the project.

Students chose a variety of project ideas to research and present, from baking cakes and cookies to designing nail art, making a robot to creating animations. A few examples are below:

Drew Nelson focused his project on the 12 principles of animation and why they are important. He created animations to show the right and wrong way to animate objects so the animation looks flawless.

Shaden Castro tested her patience by learning how to create nail art designs. Her goal was to build upon previous knowledge to hone her craft.

Eljay Schmidt baked a variety of cookies honoring his grandmother who loved to bake. He researched a variety of recipes before he settled on three different cookies to make.

Remi Anderson built a robot from scratch and challenged her self-management skills in the process. She still hopes to build upon her robot and add more tricks.

“The Personal Project Celebration Night is only a glimpse of the hard work that our students put forth to complete their projects. There are weeks of research, planning, goal setting, preparation, and reflection that all lead up to this one evening,” said District IB Coordinator Katie Sneider. “Each 10th grader showed immense commitment to learning a new skill or challenging their own viewpoints, and even reflected on the learning skills they used most to meet their goals. They will continue their projects by writing an essay about their experience. I am so proud of all that they accomplished and will continue to accomplish this school year as they conclude their journey in the IB MYP.”