2,893 Inspirational Passion Project Ideas
Turn inspirations into your passion project.
This collection of project ideas, shared by Polygence mentors, is meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.
- AI/ML
- Animation
- Arts
- Biology
- Biotech
- Business
- Cancer
- Chemistry
- Cognitive
- Computer Science
- Creative Writing
- Dance
- Dentistry
- Economics
- Engineering
- Entomology
- Environmental Science
- Ethics
- Fashion
- Finance
- Game Design
- Healthcare
- History
- Illustration
- Languages
- Linguistics
- Literature
- Math
- Medicine
- Music
- Neuroscience
- Nutrition
- Organizational Leadership
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Photography
- Physics
- Psychiatry
- Psychology
- Public Health
- Quantitative
- Social
- Social Science
- Sports Analytics
- Statistics
- Surgery
Microscopic friends for food
Our bodies carry one (!) bacterial cell for every human cell in our body. These little bugs support all kinds of essential processes, and it turns out, the soils we grow our food on are no different. In this project, we investigate how the native microbiome of different soils helps support happy and productive plants.
Biotech, Environmental Science
Potential Solutions to Reduce the Environmental Footprint of My High School
Most of what we do as humans causes some effect on the environment. With the way we live now, our greenhouse-gas-emissions, water-use, and waste-creation (just to name a few) put an unhealthy strain on our environment. Fortunately, there are ways to calculate these metrics for a given place or process and later identify hotspot issues. From there, we can come up with action plans and more sustainable solutions. For this project, it is advised that the student start by identifying common streams of inputs and outputs at their school. For example, a student can note inputs like supplies, food, water and even energy sources like the gas for heating or school buses. Outputs like food waste, flushing toilets, and all those old homework papers can be noted, too. The student will attempt to quantify and analyze all these streams… especially focusing on potential hotspots like energy/CO2 emissions. Data may be available (monthly fuel for buses, building heating bills) or some data could be collected by the student (average portion of lunch food thrown away). The student should practice creating data tables and graphs, and most importantly, interpreting these results. Finally, the student should do thorough research to discover and present innovative solutions to reduce the environmental strain of their school. Most likely, there would be a written deliverable for this project; but, it could also be a great opportunity for the student to visually present this project to a principal, teachers, or school board. In summary, the student will gain knowledge about issues and solutions relating to environmental sustainability. In addition, the student will gain tangible skills in calculating environmental metrics, collecting data, and creating descriptive visuals like advanced graphs. The project can be altered to fit a student’s needs and interests.
Dance, Creative Writing, Environmental Science, Business
Real World Applications - Mathematics
"When will I ever use this?" Many students ask this question when learning mathematics. Math makes up the world around us and is used every day in ways many people don't realize and projects can help students realize how math is used in the real world. This project will involve picking concept(s) and creating a project that uses those concepts in a real-world application. The parts of the project that should be included are the directions to the project, standards the project applies to, a rubric, and an example of a completed project.
Math, Environmental Science
A Literature Review on Consumer-Mediated Nutrient Cycling
Animals are often ignored when learning about the cycling of nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, despite the fact that they play an important role in these cycles. In recent years, scientists have spent more time researching the role of animals as they release nutrients through excretion and egesta, as well as during decomposition. In many cases, these are significant contributions of nutrients to the ecosystem. This review article would contribute to the field by synthesizing current knowledge and summarizing results from investigations into the impact of consumer-mediated nutrient cycling within a particular ecosystem; the project would also identify gaps in the literature and recommend future research priorities.
Ethics, Environmental Science
Research Paper
A scientific paper with a defendable hypothesis in the Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Discussion, and Conclusion format. This then can be submitted to a highschool journal, which can be published, making it a stellar showcase for any college application.
Environmental Science, Public Health
Do protected areas work? Exploring long term species abundence before and after the implementation of a protected area.
Using fish data from the Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment Program, calculate biodiversity in an area of the Caribbean where a marine protected area was established. Does biodiversity increase after the implementation of the protected area?
Quantitative, Environmental Science, Social Science
Morphological Trends in Marine Organisms with Natural History Collections
In partnership with your local natural history museum, study morphological trends over time using any robustly represented species or group in order to understand how factors such as climate change, habitat loss/gain, conservation efforts, and more may have impacted the morphologies of your chosen organisms. (Image Credit: Marc Campos, Occidental College)
Biology, Environmental Science
Sexual Health Literacy among Low-income Minority Populations
There is a lack of sexual health education among low-income, minority populations, especially those with backgrounds of immigration or have a high prevalence of non-English speakers. How can we address this discrepancy and bridge that gap in sexual health knowledge, so that these communities can have equitable access to sexual health care?
Biology, Environmental Science, Public Health
Clean Water Access in a Changing Climate
Earth is experiencing a climate crisis that is influencing clean water access globally. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, which can lead to excess water or severe droughts. When an extreme event (or a natural disaster) occurs, what are the best ways to provide clean water in a short period of time without relying on plastic water bottles?
Engineering, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Social Science
Exploring marine microbe protein trends in the global ocean
In this project, you will learn how marine microbes accomplish tasks with proteins such as metabolizing. Then you will use online databases to see how many and which microbes use a particular protein you are interested in, where they are using this protein, and which environmental factors affect abundance of this protein. For example, if temperature or light affect the abundance of a particular protein, this may mean there could be changes in how microbes use this protein in the future due to climate change.
Environmental Science
Battles in the Biodiversity Arena: Wasps vs. Beetles
Beetles (Coleoptera) are known in entomology for their astounding diversity (approximately 1 in 4 animals species is a beetle!). However, some entomologists argue that because there are so many species-specific parasitic wasps, wasps (Hymenoptera: Apocrita) may actually be more diverse. What do you think?
Biology, Environmental Science
Coral Species are complex
Coral reefs are undergoing tremendous amounts of decline, however, coral taxonomy is still largely understudied. Using genomic tools, in addition to corallite morphology data, we will identify cryptic coral species, which may likely occur in different environments, which has major implications on the conservation plans of coral reefs.
Environmental Science
Friend or foe? Local human-wildlife interactions
As human populations grow and increasingly overlap with wildlife, there are many potential interactions. This project could investigate the social and/or environmental aspects of human-wildlife interactions based on the student's local neighborhood, town, region, or country.
Environmental Science
Mapping a Wildlife Migration Research Problem
Animal migration and habitat corridors is an emerging field of study for conservation biologists and wildlife managers in the American West and around the world. The student will first conduct a robust in-depth literature review on the science of wildlife migration and then create a mapping tool to illustrate a specific research problem. This map can be designed using GIS or other software applications, and from publicly available data sources identified by the student. Skills will be learned in project design, independent research, review of scientific literature, and synthesizing complex issues into concrete management tools.
Philanthropy, Environmental Science
Remotely Monitoring Visitation Behavior at Bird Feeders
Broadly, my students identify a question that excites them, explore published literature on that topic, design their own study to address a specific hypothesis, perform data collection and statistical analysis, and finally tell their story in a poster or slideshow presentation, and/or written essay. My ‘bread-and-butter’ is recording animal behavior at feeding stations using low-cost and accessible remote monitoring techniques. A high school student that I mentor recently completed a project which is a perfect example of an interdisciplinary STEAM project. She engineered a realistic-looking hummingbird feeder, tested and analyzed it’s efficacy compared to a control, secured a patent for and marketed her design, and is now in the process of preparing a manuscript for submission to a scientific journal. There are hundreds of possible variations of such a project, and I would be thrilled to guide your first research experience in any topic that you are passionate about! Question: Do hummingbirds prefer a classic artificial sugar-water feeder or a hyper-realistic feeder? Hypothesis: Hummingbirds prefer and exhibit more natural feeding behaviors at a hyper-realistic feeder because it mimics a natural flower. Methodology: 1. Set up two hummingbird feeders: one classic feeder (control), one custom engineered realistic-looking feeder (treatment). 2. Record video with remote monitoring IP camera for 2 hours at peak visitation times (sunset), for 5 days. 3. Score video with an ethogram (a behavior key) to determine average visitation frequency and average length of visitation. 4. Visualize data and perform appropriate statistical analyses in R or Excel to assess hypotheses. (for more information on this project please see ebertser.wixsite.com/erich-eberts/research) Similar bird feeder/ remote monitoring questions: -How does visitation at bird feeders change throughout the day, or in different seasons? -Do hummingbirds prefer feeders with floral scent? -How does the diversity of visitors at bird feeders in two distinct locations (i.e. one in an open yard vs on the edge of the yard, or two different geographical locations)? -How does an artificial decoy alter visitor behavior at a bird feeder?
Biology, Creative Writing, Environmental Science
What triggers phytoplankton blooms off the Southern California coast?
In this project, you will learn what environmental conditions stimulate microscopic algae (aka phytoplankton) blooms off the coast of Southern California. Specifically, you will search through publicly available datasets of environmental physical, chemical, and biological data (such as temperature, nutrient concentrations, algae abundance) collected by scientists and use statistics to identify factors affecting phytoplankton blooms. Data could be presented and discussed in a conference poster or journal publication.
Environmental Science
Coral Reef Health
Formulating your own research ideas can seem like a daunting task from afar but is a lot more manageable once you start brainstorming. A project idea we could work on can involve using existing datasets to tackle an ecological question. For example, using a dataset to analyze coral reef health over time and assess impacts (i.e., bleaching events, disturbances, high temperatures, etc.) by doing basic statistical analysis. This project will involve learning to use excel and potentially R to run statistics. But don’t be scared about having to use math if you're interested in marine science. There are many resources that can help explain statistics, or we could look at the social dimensions of reefs, management, and conservation by analyzing environmental policy instead. There’s so many approaches that you can take to focus on your own strengths or what you hope to learn and improve on.
Computer Science, Chemistry, Environmental Science
Citizen Science
Citizen science is a way to crowdsource data collection about the natural world and is also a form of community outreach. This project would allow the mentee to set up a citizen science project in their community, where they use community members to help them collect data. These types of projects are great for area-wide surveys of biodiversity and ecological phenomena.
Environmental Science
Technologies for Sustainable Agriculture
Agriculture accounts for up to 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Simultaneously, population growth and climate change strain agricultural systems. New technologies and approaches to agriculture are rapidly under development to address these challenges. Keeping track of new agricultural technologies such as genetically modified crops, nano-fertilizers/pesticides, plant vaccines, and big data is challenging. Furthermore, the agricultural policy and regulatory landscape is ever changing. A Review of these technologies would be valuable to help policy makers and stake-holder understand the most promising and impactful agricultural technologies and methodologies. Working on this project would result in a Review paper for submission to scientific or policy journal as well as a presentation at a conference.
Environmental Science
Ecological distribution of seaweed in the surrounding area
How does the surrounding environment effect the seaweed (or macroalgae) that grows there? Is the water saltier or muddier in one area than another? Is one area more susceptible to low tides and drying out? This project would involve visiting different sites in your area (bays, tide pools, rivers, ponds), and describing the algae that grow there. You would then make note about how each environmental habitat differs, and infer how that relates to an evolutionary advantage for each species.
Fashion, Environmental Science
