As part of the capstone project 10th-graders complete in their final year of the Middle Years Programme, students have the opportunity to utilize their critical thinking skills in a unique way.
Each year, the 10th-graders are challenged to develop a personal project that focuses on a topic they find meaningful and encourages them to research and learn something new. Students write essays to reflect on their journey throughout the process and showcase their final product during an exhibition held at the end of the school year.
"Critical thinking is such an important skill for students to gain because, in the real world, they will have to know how to think for themselves and come up with an answer that might not be easily known," Upper School teacher Collin Libassi, who leads the project, shared.
The project is a chance to put their classwork into a tangible outcome. One tenth-grader in Libassi's class used the assignment as a chance to grow vegetables for his pet rabbit. The tenth-grade student learned how to build and maintain a greenhouse in his backyard through the undertaking.
"The student didn't know anything about greenhouses but wanted to learn, and he accomplished that using an inquiry cycle," Libassi said. "Whether its in college or life after, using critical thinking skills is going to be the something students encounter daily and the personal project helps prepare them for that situation."