Personal project presentations take a long time. We devote three full mornings and an afternoon to watching student work. That could seem like a lot of instructional time – until you realize how much learning is going on in the audience. In the past week, the Herons have gotten a chance to learn about: bioluminescence, the history of U.S. money, rope, Krampus, glaciers in Minnesota, synesthesia, wolves, the future of space transportation, northern Minnesota, megalodons, human ectoparasites, women's rights, Anne Frank, Henry Ford, aurora borealis, Soviet propaganda, LGBTQ+ issues, water clocks, nuclear energy and the history of sports trading cards. (And those are just the topics the Herons covered — we also got to learn from the Robins and Kestrels!)
The students are engaged and curious. They ask great questions and they get excited about what they're learning. I know that I learn something new at every presentation and some of the students are learning about the very existence of some of these topics. What an amazing world we live in that has so many things to learn about. The project process gives students agency to pursue their own interests. The presentations cement students' sense of themselves as teachers as well as learners. The audience has an opportunity to wonder and imagine, too. I know that the seeds of future projects and themes are being planted.
In a school that doesn't use extrinsic rewards or grades, curiosity propels learning. The honors presentations and fourth grade presentations are catalysts for that curiosity — not just for our grades but for the whole school all of whom come to some of the presentations. It is, indeed, time well spent.
(not every Heron is pictured…some of the pictures taken by others are in a format that doesn't work on our blog…I'm working on it!)
The Rookery 
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