8th Grade Community Projects: Extraordinary Times, Extraordinary Efforts

Trying to organize well-planned Community Projects for 8th grade IB students is a feat in a regular school year. Finding a subject of interest, identifying a mentor and monitoring the timely completion of project milestones is a time intensive undertaking. Introduce COVID19 considerations into the equation and it gets complicated.

“COVID caused many of last year’s graduates to fall short of completion which was really disappointing, but understandable given the circumstances,” reflects Mrs. Lavallee, our current IB MYP Design lead. “Thankfully, Mrs. Tuskey worked with me to create a digital project outline for this year’s students once Mrs. Forkey decided we could move forward with the Community Projects in late December.”

The January start date meant an abbreviated time period for completion, but many students tapped into their IB learner traits, rose to the challenge and completed all aspects of their capstone project which included a recorded online presentation. Ranging from environmental conservation efforts to building a community book exchange, the Class of 2021 is already making an impact. They certainly don’t need superlative labels to know how likely they are to make our world a better a place.

Check out some of their impressive Community Project highlights below!

Joe H. (pictured top left) – Joe and his dad built a wood duck nesting box to promote the local wood duck population and it worked! His presentation shows a new generation of wood duck nesting in a swamp area near his home.

Ella J. (pictured top right) – EJ received approval from Mr. Hess and Father Mike to place a Little Free Library on the SMCS playground. It is already built, and will be installed near our playground soon. The Little Library is dedicated to EJ’s late grandmother, Christie McCarthy Stier.

Joshua S. (pictured bottom left) – Josh researched and investigated the impacts of virtual learning on students’ social-emotional well-being. He researched a variety of studies and interviewed multiple students about their experiences in learning from home.

Daniel C. (pictured bottom right) – Daniel and his dad investigated and designed an efficient, low-cost solution to providing solar power to low-income households. They built a prototype of their solar tower design in their garage.