8th Grade Personal Projects
On Friday, April 23rd, the 8th Grade students presented their year-long personal projects from Bennett Hall virtually to families, mentors, friends, our MDS community, and the 3rd-7th grade classes. These students spent between 20 and 73 hours engaging in self-selected projects as diverse as illustrating a comic book, developing wilderness first aid skills, and deepening understanding of the stock market.
Personal Projects allow students to become more involved in something they already enjoy or to try something for the first time. Students are asked to establish and work toward challenging yet achievable goals that demonstrate initiative and forethought in one of these three areas: Voluntary Community Service, Personal Development, or Physical Fitness. They identify a Global Context bringing significance and direction to their project and base both the research and action phases of this project on conceptual understandings. Students must deeply research their topic and write a research paper. They then spend time throughout the year engaging with a mentor, working independently to accomplish their goal, and creating a website to demonstrate learning. Students journal and reflect throughout the process so that they can present their learning, challenges, and successes. They are given the opportunity to exhibit high levels of responsibility and to demonstrate personal commitment, perseverance, organizational and time-management skills, and communication skills.
Our MDS students set forth their purpose and achieved their goals. This year's projects included:
La-Mel - Building a Computer. 20 hours
Henry - Studying the effects on the stock market after Covid 19 - charting predictions and outcomes - 26 hours
Bryson - Southern Cooking and creating a new barbeque sauce - 22 hours
Kiley - Massage Therapy - 20.5 hours
Alyson - Baking and Cake Decorating - 22 hours
Eleanor - Creating an original comic book - 34 hours
Jackson - Learning Taekwondo - 49 hours
Kendall Bike - Repair and Donation - 23 hours
JD - Mountain Biking 30 MIles - 25 hours
Phifer - Photography - 20. 5 hours
Eli - Wilderness First Aid - 73 hours
Morgan - Entrepreneurship and creating a Pop Up Shop - 36 hours
Holden - Music Production and Learning to play multiple instruments (Guitar, Ukelele, Piano) - 65 hours
