THE MYP PERSONAL PROJECT IN REVIEW IB MAKES IT PERSONAL:

The Personal Project is assigned to 10th grade students following the IB program and consists in writing a report on a topic of interest and creating a final product, visual or digital, to represent the topic. Throughout the 8 month process, students are required to keep track of the progress and changes made to their project through journaling. Every student needs to include 4 main components overall: a report, a product, a process journal, and a written or oral explanation of the product. Students have the opportunity to choose something they’re passionate about while dealing with deadlines, improving their writing and developing self management skills. This project is not directly related to our daily schoolwork. Rather, the Personal Project is PERSONAL! It should be based on goals and interests of you as an individual.

The IB program is about more than just knowledge as it encourages students to have hobbies and cultivate them through deeper research into the field. The IB rewards students who have a passion, which, at the end of the year earns recognition in a more holistic way than a dull essay. Some students even show more interest the Personal Project than their regular academics, as it’s an act of creation that goes beyond traditional grading.

The Personal Project may be your first opportunity to have complete freedom to choose an assignment. This is your chance to be creative, develop old skills and learn new ones, and take action in your community. At WINS, this year’s Grade 10 Personal Projects were all fascinating. For this issue, I picked 5 to focus on:

Angeli Giorgieva: create a dress made completely out of plastic to bring innovation to the fashion industry, while recycling used plastic bags.

Gaetano Comito: create a 3D model of a city and add all the details the city should have, from swimming pools to skyscrapers and gardens filled with trees.

Alessandra Russo: create a radio style podcast episode about Marylin Monroe, her story, why she is still considered an icon to this day and how she changed the world.

by Marta Settanni

Elisa Zhou: research and present the history and meaning of Chinese lanterns while recreating some of these lanterns by hand.

Carlotta Banchi: produce energy from exercise machines by creating a frame with a wheel that will produce kinetic energy that can be stored and transformed into electrical energy thanks to a dynamo that will end up lighting up a lamp.

Sounds like we have some brilliant minds out there… thanks to this project, students can expose them!