Students Participate in 20% Project

In David Beck’s English 4 classes, students were assigned the “20% project” in which they were to dedicate 20% of their class time to work on it.

“[You] pick something that impacts you or others and that challenges you to try something different,” senior Lauren Sanders explained. “Twenty percent of the semester classes are devoted towards it and we present to the class [at the end of the semester.]”

As the transition from middle school to high school is a difficult one, students felt the need to be able to prepare the middle school students for the change. Seniors Canesha Roy, Tyler Sowell, and Travis Sowell, decided to do their 20% project at Parkway Northeast Middle School.

“[We went to Northeast Middle School] and talked to 30 students about the transition from NEMS to North and allowed them to ask questions and informed them about high school things, from a student’s point of view,” said Roy. “[We had] a good impact [on the kids]. They seemed very interested in what we talked about and most said that they would now get involved in sports and activities.”

While pursuing the various topics, students were also required to keep a blog through nicenet.org to keep track of their progress.

“[I also think] we answered many unanswered question for them [that teachers couldn’t answer.] We are going back again next semester, and I [will] have them do a hands-on activity rather than us talking most of the time because I want them to really take in what we’re talking about as much as possible,” Roy said.

 Since the entire point of the project was for students to gain an experience from it, the project was not worth points; every student took something different from each project.

“It was a good opportunity to teach kids that your education is important and you should take as many activities as you can so colleges can look at you and I didn’t have that guidance so I just wanted to help them out,” said senior Tyler Sowell. “The experience made me want to do it again and it showed me I can be a leader.”