61 Future Forwards: Exploring Frontiers in Education
• There is a definite need to meet more frequently than once per week,
progress during the prototyping period has been a little slow. As a
result, beginning next academic year, formal meetings will be held bi-
weekly, and the lab will be opened up to students who wish to continue
with data collection before school and during lunch times.
• Having participants at vastly different stages of project completion has
been somewhat of a challenge to manage and facilitate, as such sign-ups to the club during the next academic year will be bi-annually with
an intake in August and another intake in January.
• Many projects under the Science Club umbrella are outside of my areas
of expertise, mainly in design, tech and coding. Given that students
need support in these domains, partnerships need to be developed
in some way with experts in various fields. I’m considering the idea
of assigning a mentor from the school community based on their
expertise. This could include parents and community members as well
as interested high school science students.
• The biggest challenge for students developing an investigation that
is truly unique and innovative is in the ideation process. Across the
board, finding something worth investigating was the most challenging
part of developing each project. Continuing to search for and refining
strategies for problem finding exploration still need to be developed.
•Projects require deadlines to keep them moving at a consistent
pace. Interim deadlines and check-ins will support students through
different components of the project design, the data collection, and
the process of concluding and evaluating. This will ensure that projects
don’t stagnate.
• In Ron Berger’s books Beautiful Work and An Ethic of Excellence, he
discusses the importance of showcasing outstanding work and having
it publicly recognized and critiqued by an authentic audience. Moving
