Seniors, Left to Right: Morgan Kockelman, Niles Genzler, Josh Myhre (not pictured: Jared Josephson).
 Juniors, Left to Right: Madison Scholten, Anna Gruenes, Nolan Boerboom, Ali DeVlaeminck (not pictured: Rachel Vlaminck).Seventh Grade, Left to Right: Samara Sumerfelt, Kylie Sterzinger, Maxwell Rost, Samuel Skorczewski, Ryan Dalager and David Carrasco.

‘Sky was the limit’ for ‘Passion Project’

Minneota teacher Jessica Rosa tackled a challenge head on. And then she challenged her students to do the same. After reading a book that challenges teachers to find innovative ways to make education applicable to students in the 21st century, Rosa turned the tables on her students in grades 7, 11 and 12.

Rosa wanted to assign a project that would allow her students to feel ownership of everything they do for a grade.

“As a history teacher, I do find my biggest challenge is to make kids understand why something that happened in our country 150 years ago has had a profound impact on our lives today,” Rosa said.

“I like to challenge preconceived notions of history being ‘boring’ or something that only adults find interesting.”

Rosa named the assignment “Passion Project”. Students found out about the project on the second day of school and usually had one day a week to work on it. They had an entire semester to work on the project, although the harsh winter that forced school to be late or cancelled many days slowed their progress.

“Every time we talked about it, I threw the word passion into the mix like crazy to get them to think about that feeling deep within that they must bring forth,” explained Rosa, who has taught history at Minneota for nine years.

“So the assignment was to find their passion, connect it to history in some way, and throw as much passion into it as possible.”

Rosa gave the students several various examples of formats, from newspaper to monuments, to museums, cookbooks, and websites of actual products.

“The sky was the limit,” she said. “The only thing I could lose from this would be a unit or two that may have to be rushed or cut. What I had to gain were kids feeling connected to history and becoming life-long learners of history by finding the value in it.”

The project involved Rosa’s history students in grades 7, 11 and 12; 130 students in all. Students could tackle the project on their own, with a partner, or in a small group. The students were the final judge of the three winners in each class.

The following are the three winners in each class as chosen by their classmates. There was no first, second or third place; just three winners.

Each student was asked to explain how they chose their topic, what type of research they did, and what they learned from it. Not all the students responded.

Seniors

JARED JOSEPHSON/ MORGAN KOCKELMAN

Project: “Leaving our Legacy” Why we chose this topic: “I wanted to show how our senior class has left an impact on our school and community” – Josephson … “We both really care about what people think about us in a way that we don’t want to be rude to other. We also want people in this school to remember us.” – Kockelman.

What I learned from this project: “How much we have already impacted our community. Every class leaves their on mark on the community and it is interesting to see what ours is.” – Josephson. “One thing I learned was how much our class actually accomplished in our school. We focused on academics and athletics, and we have accomplished a lot in both.” – Kockelman.

Project assessment: “I enjoy our project. The whole process was a fun experience.” – Josephson. “I enjoyed it quite a bit because it was an enjoyable subject. I basically got to design a power point about our accomplishments during our senior year so far.”

NILES GENZLER

Project: Marine Corps Passion Project. It includes a brief history of some of the events and information about the Marine Corps.

Why I chose this topic: “Because I am going into the Marines. I leave for boot camp this summer. I also find the Marines interesting and enjoy learning more about them.”

What I learned from this project: “I did not know how much history the Marine Corps has. There is a vast amount of history and battled that the Marine Corps have been in. I learned about the Continental Mariners and how the Marines were formed.”

Project assessment: “I very much enjoyed working on my project. I have high respect for the Marines and all branches of service. I can’t wait to be a part of ‘The Few, The Proud, The Marines’.”

JOSH MYHRE

Project: Mythical creatures of North America, including the hoops snake.

Juniors

NOLAN BOERBOOM

Project: “Driving Away Our Identity.” Included were new trends of shopping online and out of town; as well as the fall of The Big Store.

Why I chose this topic: “I knew I wanted to do something based off of local history. And I came across a former debate team topic called ‘How are the principles of chain stores detrimental to the best interests of the American public.’”

What I learned from this project: “I learned so much about Minneota itself. After reading the Minneota Centennial book, I was shocked to know how much the town has changed throughout the years.”

Project assessment: “I really enjoyed working on this project. I think this project was much more enjoyable because we were able to choose our own topic that aligned with our interests.”

RACHEL VLAMINCK/ ALI DEVLAEMINCK

Project: 1980’s Project. A rap song and video that had an 80’s theme and highlighted many of the important aspects of the 80’s. Why we chose this topic: “I have been really interested in all aspects of the 80s. I’m really interested in the fashion, news, politics, etc. I knew it was a big project, so we decided to choose something creative.” – Vlaminck. “We thought it would be fun to do a rap about the 80s.” – DeVlaemnick. What I learned from this project: “I learned a lot about this decade. I had heard of some of the things, but honestly, a lot of the things that happened in the 80s had never crossed my mind. We learn a lot of stuff in history class. However, we rarely get to a time period that is recent.” – Vlaminck. “I learned a lot about the 80s and how important it was back then.” – DeVlaeminck. Project assessment: “I chose a project that I knew would be interesting to me. I liked what we were studying, and the way we chose to display it in a music video was a fun twist. I have never liked doing a project as much as this one.” – Vlaminck. “I enjoyed working on this project because I learned interesting things about the different events that happened in the 80s.” – DeVlaeminck. ANNA GRUENES/MADISON SCHOLTEN Project: “Sex Trafficking Website.” The website included facts and interviews. Also included was a GoFundMe page to raise money for sex trafficking victims. Why we chose this project: “Madison proposed this idea because she had given an informational speech about this topic on our speech class. She was telling me all the horrible things she read about and that is when I got on board. I knew I wanted to help make people more aware of the awful things happening.” – Gruenes. What I learned from this project: “The thing that surprised me the most is after reading countless articles about the statistics of sex trafficking, was realizing how common it is. I never thought it before because it is not as common here in southwest Minnesota, although it is happening here, too. I started thinking about how the people in Third World countries must be terrified.” – Gruenes. Project assessment: “Our goal for our GoFundMe page is $500, but we hope to raise more than that. I made the page so that all the money goes directly to UNICEF, USA, which works in 190 countries to help save children’s lives. When this project was first assigned, I was thinking about how much work it was going to be and I would not enjoy it at all and I would never be able to finish it. But I was wrong. While the project was a lot of work, I had fun doing it and I learned so much about sex trafficking that I never knew before.” – Gruenes.

Seventh Grade

MAXWELL ROST

Project: “Why Haven’t the Minnesota Vikings Won a Super Bowl?” The presentation included coaches and their winning percentages, the top players, salaries, summaries and other facts.

Why I chose this project: “Because I really love the Minnesota Vikings and I have been watching them since I was able to watch TV.”

What I learned from this project: “One thing that I never knew that the Vikings have made it to the playoffs 27 times and the Super Bowl four times, but have never won it.”

Project assessment: “It took me a lot of time to finish all my research. I went on all kinds of websites, wrote down numbers and made graphs. I enjoyed working on the project because I love learning more facts about the Vikings.”

SAMARA SUMERFELT/ KYLIE STERZINGER

Project: “Gun laws and Alice training.” It was a video broadcast on gun violence and how it affects teachers and students.

Why we chose this project: “It was the most interesting topic for us, and also it was the topic that stood out the most to us.” – Sumerfelt. “It is a big problem in our country that we wanted to address.” – Sterzinger.

What we learned from this project: “I learned some of the gun laws in other states and also learned that it is fastest to work together rather than apart.” – Sumerfelt. “We learned much more about the topics and how working together is the best thing to do.” – Sterzinger.

Project assessment: “I enjoyed the experience that it gave me. It was fun to learn new laws and the state that our world is in.” – Sumerfelt. “I really liked learning about these topics and working with friends. It was overall a great experience.” – Sterzinger.

RYAN DALAGER/ SAM SKORCZEWSKI/DAVID CARRASCO

Project: “The Future.” The trio predicted what they thought the future would look like. Included were different types of weapons, cars, houses, etc.

Why we chose this project: “We chose the future because we thought that it was going to be fun to do. And we were right.” – Dalager. “We wanted to do something different.” – Carrasco. “It was unique and we doubted anyone else was doing that.” – Skorczewski.

What we learned from this project: “I did not think that researching the future would be so interesting.” – Dalager. “The ocean gets bigger every day by about 1.33 millimeters.” – Carrasco. “That in the past century, the ocean grew about 17 centimeters.” – Skorczewski.

Project assessment: “I enjoyed working alongside my friends and predicting the future.” – Dalager. “I really enjoyed it a lot because of the different things I learned.” – Carrasco. “I loved working on this. It was really interesting and I loved learning about the future.”

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