What is Project Showcase?

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What is Project Showcase?

May 23, 2024

Dear Maria,

What is Project Showcase?

Sincerely,

Still a New(ish) Parent!

Dear New(ish) Parent,

This entire school year, children have been working on projects! Cascadia schedules a Project Showcase one morning during one of the last weeks of the school year, and invites families to walk through. If a parent can't attend, they are welcome to send a friend or other relative in their place. Although only Upper Elementary and Cedar Middle School will display projects, Lower El students will also walk through and see the projects.

For Upper Elementary, you will see a range of different types of research projects. Some may be follow up work based on a theme this year. For example, this year there's a World History focus in the UE classrooms. Lessons in the Montessori environment are given with the hope that they spark an interest in students, who then will go on to find out more. Research projects are a perfect way to answer some of their "Why..." questions. Others projects may be on a topic they individually decided on. Students generally set time lines and due dates for themselves, so research becomes a way of practicing self-directed learning and time management. Guides give a multitude of lessons that help students get better at researching and presenting their findings, such as lessons on choosing sources, summarizing, writing paragraphs, adding visuals, taking notes, and more.

For the Middle School Cedar classroom, students will display their Individual Research Projects (IRPs). This project has an open-ended topic choice with deadlines throughout the year, and is another way students practice clear writing, editing drafts, choosing sources, etc.

Project Showcase gives students a real reason to finish and create a final draft of a project. It's one form of "publishing". However, not all research that is started is finished, just as not all questions are answered, and this is ok - if we answered all the questions children had, what motivation would they have to find out for themselves, and what might they miss along that journey to find out?

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