After six weeks of working on research projects, fourth graders in Middle Gate Elementary School teacher Linda Baron’s class shared the results of their efforts with their classmates on February 7.

All fourth grade elementary school students in the district work on creating personalized exploration projects throughout the school year. At Middle Gate, the fourth grade classes are taking turns working on the projects. At each school, the projects are a teaching collaboration between the school’s library/media specialist, teacher of the gifted, and class teachers.

“They are wonderful. They are very enthusiastic,” said teacher of the gifted Eric Myhill about the students.

Mr Myhill and Middle Gate library/media specialist Suzanne Hurley welcomed the students to the class on February 7 and described how the students would break into groups to present their projects.

For the personalized exploration projects, students are given example topics, and they choose a topic to study. Projects completed by students in Ms Baron’s class ranged from the components of a computer to understanding the concept of poaching animals.

Fourth grader Ty Jorgenson said he was inspired to study car engines because his father and brother like cars and are good at “fixing things.”

“It’s fun to learn about things that are literally out of this world,” said fourth grader Celia Plaue while presenting her project on the planet Saturn to her fellow students.

Over the course of completing the personalized exploration projects, students learned how to research their subjects, and they were encouraged to visit their school’s library and C.H. Booth Library, Mr Myhill said.

According to Ms Hurley, the projects were put on display in the school’s library following the presentations, so students could browse to learn more about each topic.