PIP Presentations

PIP Presentations

personal interest projects

It’s that time of year again: time to do the awesomely awesome Omega PIP presentations!

Each student in the Omega classroom did a research project on something that was of interest to them – hence the name, Personal Interest Project, or PIP.

And what a variety of interests, indeed! Projects included research on magic, dreaming, dungeons and dragons, forensics, mythology, Dr. Who, historical impact of pottery, the Northern Lights, the Clash, the Bermuda Triangle, the Irish Independence Wars and more. Since each student had to present his or her research, you can imagine the varied and wonderful learning that was going on!

Students had three rubrics for which they needed to fulfill requirements: the paper portion, the presentation portion and the PowerPoint portion.

personal interest projects

The paper portion of the presentation had nine main categories in the rubric, each with a list of requirements. These included organization, amount and quality of information, paragraph construction, conventions (i.e. spelling errors), sources, no plagiarism, works cited, title page, and inclusion of rough drafts.  This portion of the project was worth up to 200 points.

The second part of the project, of course, was the presentation portion. Omega teachers evaluated the kiddos on their verbal presentational ability, creativity, relevant questions for students to ask and how well students listened to the presentation.

personal interest project

Still, the PowerPoint presentation was another integral part of the project. They requirements fell into 7 categories in which students needed to create professional-looking slideshows that enhanced their presentations. Many students chose to work with a new and exciting web-based application: Prezi.

During the presentations, each student created an activity for the rest of the class to try. Everything from Jeopardy-like games to relay races of sorts, these allowed students to demonstrate their understanding of whatever topic was presented.

You wouldn’t believe how each and every student came through and not only completed the requirements, but really sparkled and radiated their interests through their presentations.

One student, Alex, let us film a part of his presentation on fishing. He was clear, and thoroughly understood the complexities behind why people are overfishing, but also conveyed what we all can do to curb this global problem:

These students are rock stars! They’re already talking about doing their own version of TED Talks for their PIPs for next year!

Personal Interest Projects

Personal Interest Projects

personal interest project

In Omega, students are responsible for a Personal Interest Project or PIP.

A PIP involves research on a topic of the student’s choosing but also includes three main components: a written paper 5-7 pages in length, a PowerPoint presentation, and a Creative Portion along with a written paragraph about what the student created to accompany his or her project.  Written papers also needed to include bibliographies, citations and good writing. Students used a rubric to guide them as they worked.

Students created multiple edited drafts of their projects before completing their final drafts. To be sure, these projects were a great way to teach students about the process of writing, editing, presenting to peers, and using their creative abilities to finish this milestone project.

The following video is one presentation of a student’s PIP project:

Zoe completed her project on the concept of time. She researched the history of time itself, when humans began to use calendars, all the way until humans began to use exact time as an integral part of civilization. She included the different kinds of clocks various societies have used, including sun and water clocks.

Did you know that if you take a Cesium atom (the kind they use in atomic clocks) in the here and now, it has the exact same resonance as a Cesium atom one billion light years away, one billion years from now?

That is one spectacular fact that Zoe found when she did the research for this project. She also related what could be complex physics in a very straightforward way!

We are proud of each and every one of our Omega students – they have tackled a challenging task and performed remarkably!