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.

Check out some projects

Are Your Houseplants Happy?

A review or research paper (or another presentation format) examining growing conditions that common houseplants require. Would include focal points such as grouping plants together to create humid conditions and details on common pathogen infections, like root-rot.

Ethics

Claire

Cardiomyocytes: The Magic and the Mystery

In this project we will explore how cardiomyocytes work together to create a functional organ that contracts 100,000 times a day. We will learn about the mysteries that surround cardiac development and our barriers to developing healthy adult cardiac tissue in the lab. The end product will be a research paper or presentation detailing cardiomyocyte biology and development and an understanding of the current barriers in the field.

Ethics

Nikhith

Literature Review and Research Proposal

This project is applicable to any topic. An essential part of Science is forming a solid plan. In order to do that, we need to first educate ourselves on what is currently known. There are many online resources for finding the most up-to-date facts and cutting edge research. During this phase, the student will also learn the basics of major laboratory techniques and how to apply them to the topic. After we've familiarize ourselves with the topic, we then start the hard work: thinking of the next steps. During this phase the student will form scientific hypothesizes and describe the experiments they would do in order to address those hypothesizes. This project emcompasses two foundational aspects of doing scientific research and is a great exercise for future STEM graduates, as documents like this are routine in all fields of research.

Cancer, Ethics

Jordan

Propose a Health Policy Solution

Have an idea to improve health outcomes through policy? In this project, you would identify a problem you want to address, propose a solution, and research how it would work and feasibly be implemented. By the end of the project, you will produce a paper explaining why you think your solution would be effective and defend it against potential counterarguments.

Ethics, Public Health

Lars

Environmental Science through Historical Archives

Archives provide a wealth of information showing how human populations treated and interacted with the environment in the past. This project could use archival resources to investigate a particular issue within a region over time, or it could explore multiple environmental issues within a particular era. Through research, students may analyze the social and political pressures that impacted environmental attitudes in the past while also making connections to the decisions that are being made by communities today. The research gathered through this project could be disseminated through a podcast, op-ed, or research article.

Ethics, Environmental Science

Carrie

Scientific Literature Review

The project focuses on writing a literature review paper that focuses on the role of centronuclear myopathy-linked genes in regulating nuclear movement and positioning using Drosophila melanogaster as the model organism. Writing a concise review includes choosing specific subtopics of interest within the larger subject and consolidating data from several papers to propose an idea. The subtopics for this review will include studies that look at the effects of disrupting proteins that regulate T-tubule structures in the skeletal muscle, how CNM-linked genes interact with other regulators of nuclear movement, such as microtubule- and actin-associated proteins, and understanding how the entire process is coordinated specifically during embryonic development.

Biology, Ethics

Riya

How to Conduct Great Research

This project will familiarize students with the tools to create a great research project in medicine. Once the basics of research are established, these principles can be applied to create a prototype project that will investigate a niche in medicine.

Ethics, Public Health

Blake

Do you decide with your brain, or does your brain decide for you?

In this project, you will write a philosophy essay on how our brains either determine, relate to, support, or aren't involved with our thinking. This paper will introduce you to some of the philosophical literature on the philosophy of neuroscience, action, and thought. More importantly, you'll learn how to construct, explicate, and defend an argument. This project will sharpen your thinking and writing skills so you can communicate your ideas clearly and persuasively.

Ethics

Grace

GM-wOah

A science communication endeavor (podcast, blog, etc) to educate the public about genetically modified organisms (plants!) (GMOs). Focal point on one crop/organism (like apples or potatoes) and then going into detail about the process of generation/regulation/public acceptance.

Ethics

Claire

A Review of Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence in Genetic Counseling

Multiple groups have investigated using chatbots to expand genetic counseling services. A review is needed to summarize how research groups are implementing artificial intelligence in genetic counseling and patient perspectives of receiving genetic services through chatbots.

Ethics, Psychology, Public Health

Veronica

The Ethics of Gene Editing

Advocates of gene editing using CRISPR/Cas9 technology promise the end of genetic diseases. There are serious ethical concerns involved in testing and implementation. But there are deeper questions possible: should we seek to eradicate every genetic disease? How should we think about suffering and what it is to be human? These questions concern ethical philosophy more generally but also timely and challenging questions in medical ethics. In this project, you will learn to read closely, think carefully about arguments, and try to come to some answers for yourself about what it is to be human. You will also learn critical research skills in finding sources for complex inter-disciplinary questions and also practice writing and editing skills that will help you to become a convicted and clear communicator.

Ethics

Grace

Isolating pigments using 3D Printed Microfluidics

In this project, you will use basic 3D printing techniques to build microfluidic devices which can separate the base pigments that make up multi-component dyes. In the course of this project, I expect that you will expand your engineering expertise with hands-on work, as well as learn about 3D modeling, chemical separations, and fluid dynamics. Photo by ZMorph All-in-One 3D Printers on Unsplash.com

Ethics, Statistics, Medicine

Jack

History of Hip Hop Dance

This project will be a combination of studying the history of different hip hop dance styles and active hip hop dance instruction. The student will use dance as a vector for learning more about cultural expression. After delving into the meaning behind different hip hop practices, the student will create a dance routine that combines many styles, and in turn celebrates many cultures.

Dance, Ethics

Sarah

Going FAR: Uterine Fibroids and Reproduction

The purpose of this study was to assess how women who have undergone treatment for UF view the experience, whether they prioritize experimental approaches to remedy any impacts on their fertility, and the psychosocial and socio-economic factors most important to them in considering the preservation or restoration of fertility.

Ethics, Social Science, Public Health, Statistics

Karen

Identifying Cancer Drivers

In this project, you will use existing datasets and scientific papers to identify genes that may drive or cause cancer. By delving into primary scientific literature, you will suggest potential ways these genes may cause cancer and propose ways to test that hypothesis.

Cancer, Ethics

Abrar

Analyzing the Impact of Communicating Science to Non-Experts

In today's world, scientists are increasingly sharing their expertise with those outside of sciences with an aim of educating the broader public. This is done through books, podcasts, magazine articles and other print and electronic media. You will consider how scientists, in a field of your choosing (i.e., engineering, public health, environmental science, etc.), are communicating to non-expert audiences. You will learn who the scientists aim to reach through each medium, why they’re targeting these particular groups, and assess the success of these modes of communication. As your final product, you can publish a science paper reviewing the communication being done by scientists and make recommendations for the future.

Ethics, Environmental Science

Carrie

Exploration of Ethics surrounding use of CRISPR Gene Editing

Since its formal discovery in 2012, CRISPR gene editing has become part of main stream media, however constant controversy surrounds its intended use. What laws exist about this type of technology? What has been approved for CRISPR use and what hasn't and how is this determined? How does this differ by country? A hot topic for much debate, and a blurred line that forms between science and proper ethics, this could be a fun research project to explore with lots of online resources to investigate!

Ethics

Erin

What are games good for?

``Common sense'' wisdom alleges that games are a waste of time, if not a social ill. Playing games allegedly weakens our character and stymies our goals. Social media platforms allegedly ruined political discourse by turning them into games. In contrast, some sciences and their associated philosophies value games as vehicles for exploring and explaining their subject matter. Economists and ecologists often ``model'' certain behaviors as optimal strategies for winning games with certain pay-off structures. Linguists often ``model'' types of conversations as ``language games'' with distinctive goals, rules, and scoreboards. But are games good for their own sake? Is there a characteristic good or value to ``just playing a game''? Together we'll look at discussions by artists, game designers, and philosophers about how games comprise a distinctive artform valuable for their own sake. From there, we'll branch out in accord with your interests. Whichever way we go, we'll strive for a deeper philosophical understanding of just what it is games are good for. Pre-requisites: A curiosity for what makes games, arts, or scientific explanations special is all that's required. We will start with thoughtful columns, podcasts, or videos authored by science communicators and public philosophers and engage with recent research where needed.

Linguistics, Cognitive

Arnel Blake

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

Carrie

Finding Algorithmic Success on TikTok

TikTok has grown exponentially in popularity, but how do you become popular on the platform? What are the ethics of promoting one creator over another? This project can take many directions depending on the student's interests. - Students interested in social justice may write an exposé on discriminatory factors that promote creators with certain characteristics or privileges. - Students interested in computer science may explore basic code that underlies social media platforms. - Students interested in law&policy may write a report on how social media platforms should be governed.

Social, AI/ML

Kimi