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

Intertextuality: When Books Read Each Other

Some novels inspire other novels. Others make reference to older books and critique them outright. When this happens, there are many kinds of reading going on. The student will select a set of literary works in conversation with each other and “listen in.” How does one book read another, and what happens when we read both? The aim of the project is to immerse ourselves in a literary tradition, perhaps across continents and languages, and emerge having spoken.

Arts, History, Literature, Languages

Hector

A Comparative Analysis of LGBTQ+ Media Representation

This research project examines LGBTQ+ media representation across different cultures and time periods to not only understand how people in the LGBTQ+ community have been represented in the media, but also how they are perceived and even perceive themselves based on their portrayal. To carry out this project, the student will strengthen their skills in critical media analysis; acquaint themselves with theories of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, and disability; and learn how to find materials through various databases and archives. Some methodological approaches the student can choose from that Shio can mentor them in include media and literary analysis, literature review, interviews, surveys, and/or statistical analysis. For the final outcome, the student can choose to write a research paper demonstrating their findings or create a video providing commentary on LGBTQ+ media representation.

History, Literature

Christine

Capital Punishment in America

Examining the legislation and case law surrounding capital punishment in various jurisdictions across America.

History

Rebecca

Learning to Write a Policy Memo

For this project, I will teach students how to write a policy memo arguing for or against a specific policy implementation. We will learn how to properly address and format a professional document that will be sent to lawmakers. In addition, we will do research on various Supreme Court cases to understand our nation's history. Students will learn how to properly write a professional memo.

Psychology, History, Literature, Environmental Science

Katie

Building Food Justice

This research will focus on the concept of food justice in a theoretical and practical sense. This could involve a gender or racial justice focus, for example. We could focus on a specific area or type of producer.and will then examine how different policy or political changes can improve the nutritional security of households.

History, Languages, Environmental Science, Social Science, Nutrition

Claire

Welcome to my Ted Talk

Identify a social issue, a cultural phenomenon, an education policy, or come up with your own topic and learn to present like an expert Ted Talker. You'll not only research something you are passionate about but you'll learn important public speaking skills for life.

Arts, History, Languages, Social Science

Rose

Keeping Dementia Patients Safe from Financial Exploitation

Challenge: Often, patients suffering in the early stages of dementia (as well as Alzheimer's and mild cognitive decline) have unfettered access to their finances and can be persuaded by predatory scammers into giving money away. Potential research and design process: We could start with a competitive/comparative review. What are the solutions today that already exist and target the same or similar challenge? What works? What doesn't work? What can we learn from their work? Output: We could create a mobile/web app that helps families monitor their loved ones' financial activity to keep them safe. Or, this could be a pitch deck for a startup company that focuses on this problem space.

History, Business

Melissa

Improving the Pet Adoption Experience

Challenge: The application process for prospective pet adopters is difficult and lengthy today. Each animal shelter tends to have its own process, application, and sometimes arbitrary criteria to be selected. Example research and design process: We could start with trying to understand why things are they way they are today and where exactly the biggest issues are in the end-to-end adoption process. Focusing on two key user groups (shelters and potential adopters), we could conduct interviews and run workshops to prototype changes to the process and test it with those users. Output: Maybe this looks like a research paper with specific actionable recommendations for shelters, or maybe this becomes a common application that is stored in a website and shared with shelters.

History, Business

Melissa

1. Writing a literature review

In this project, you will research and write a literature review on a topic of your choice. Topics could range from anything within environmental science history (the history of polar exploration), to contemporary art history (the history of art and environmental activism). This project will teach you how to find, organize, and synthesize important writing on your chosen topic, as well as help you identify a place where you could do more research in the future. Literature reviews are projects that give you skills in editing, writing, best practices in finding organizing primary literature, and will help you gain in-depth knowledge on your research topic.

Arts, History, Literature, Creative Writing

Clarissa

Historical Overview on American Schools

Did you know that America’s education system is not an accident? It was purposefully structured to succeed specific groups of people. In this project you will research the origins of US schools leading to its current situation. Drawing upon politics including landmark court cases and foreign policy, you will investigate how education has changed throughout history and what inequalities persist. You will read academic articles and journals to assess how education today is set in place by structures and systems.

Psychology, History, Literature, Languages

Lydia

What is food justice and how can we build it?

This research will focus on the concept of food justice in a theoretical and practical sense, and will then examine how different policy or political changes can improve the nutritional security of households?

History, Social Science

Claire

Literature review or research paper on an environmental topic of your choice!

Say you were interested in how climate change impacts amphibians in the Northeast US. We could then work together to review and summarize the major findings in the scientific literature, paying attention to scientific writing skills.

Biology, History, Environmental Science

Emily

International Development and Aid

From Sub-Saharan Africa to Patagonia, from the United States Virgin Islands to the jungles of Southeast Asia, government organisations and non-profit groups support initiatives from disaster relief to gender equality. With many intriguing aspects of international development to consider, students may study the various types of infrastructure that sustain these projects, explore the reasons that motivate and demand differing strategies or analyze the benefits and disadvantages to the effected populations. By examining this topic, students can develop research and writing skills while expanding their communication and critical thinking capacities.

History, Literature, Social Science

Alexander "Hutch"

Histories of the Early Republic

From the perspective of the 2020s, the early United States can sometimes seem otherworldly: usually strange, sometimes inspiring, often disturbing, and always a source of endless historical intrigue: What role did enslaved people play in the Revolutionary War? Why did the Haudenosaunee call George Washington "Conotocarious," or "town destroyer"? How did early Americans understand and respond to natural disasters, like epidemics and earthquakes? Where did material goods and resources—like coal, livestock, or textiles—come from and what were the conditions of their production? How did revolutions elsewhere—such as in Haiti or France—shape the course of U.S. politics? For this project, students will have the opportunity to explore a question or topic related to the early United States, and develop a manageable research and writing plan.

Philosophy, History

Gustave

Inside a Strike

Strikes happen all over the world, all the time, for tons of different reasons, but in many cases the only records of them appear in local newspapers and corporate records. Let's find a strike in your local area--be it a teachers union, healthcare workers, grocery store employees, whatever interests you--and write an oral history of it. Combining newspaper research with a handful of interviews of union members and community members, you'll produce a bottom-up portrait of labor organizing that also records an important piece of local history.

History

Benjamin

Formula 1

Formula 1 is one of the most highly watched sports in the world. Extreme precision, high accuracy and excellent teamwork are the key constituents for a team to participate and win the grand prix. The moment anyone decides to act on their own, the team can either lose position or straight away get out of the competition. All the major teams like Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, Redbull, Alpine, Aston Martin, Haas, Alfa Romeo and Alpha Tauri are the world championship contenders. As a data enthusiast and a former Formula 1 prospect driver, I thought why not create a simple project to analyze an F1 dataset with data attributes like drivers, races, lap times, seasons data, pitstop status and other related attributes.

History, Engineering, Computer Science, Business

Thomas

The Impacts of COVID-19 on Adolescents' Mental and Social Health

This research project explores the impacts the pandemic has had on young people's mental health and interpersonal relationships. Shio is a health and sexuality educator in different schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, so they have been able to witness firsthand how students have been shaped by the pandemic and thus will be able to provide guidance on the research project. The student can investigate issues such as alternative avenues through which young people have sought social engagement and relationships (e.g. online platforms, video games, pets), changes in mental health before and during the pandemic, and how the pandemic has affected students’ academic performance and outlook on the future. Depending on what approach, theme, and population the student wants to focus on, they will be able to learn research skills, including survey design, best practices in outreach and recruitment, and facilitation in focus groups with their peers. This research project can lead to a personal essay that a student can consider publishing to magazines, newspapers, and websites; a scientific research paper; a podcast, video, and/or blog; or a letter to the student's school district to advocate for better resources and support for students based on research findings.

History, Literature

Christine

Understanding how colleges address crime on campus

The reality is that criminal activity can occur anywhere, even on college and university campuses. In this project, you will seek to understand the similarities and differences in how various colleges/universities 1) inform students, staff, and faculty about criminal activity, 2) perceive crime as being a concern, and 3) approach solving and preventing campus-based crime. To answer these questions, you may seek to interview members of colleges' leadership and campus police/safety personnel, analyze data that the institutions collect on criminal activity, and/or review campus-based reports and news coverage related to crime.

History, Social Science

Lionel

Classical Reception in Modern Media

Are you interested in the ways in which Classical mythology and iconography are used within modern media? What can the Ancient Greek text and imagery within Lil Nas X's "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" video tell us about the queer experience in America? What purpose does the Orpheus myth serve within Portrait of a Lady On Fire (2019)? If this type of project interests you, I'd love to work together. We would begin by reading and discussing important works on Classical reception, and then shift our focus to the media of your choice to produce a research paper, journal article, or oral presentation.

History

Mikaela (Mik)

Using Human Centered Design to Develop an Implicit Bias Intervention

Implicit Bias is a well documented source that reinforces and encourages systemic biases in positions of power. Using principles of human centered design, including empathy, strategy, and building for scalability and sustainability, we can develop targeted interventions for people with positions of power to address their potential biases and learn how to mitigate or overcome them.

Neuroscience, Psychology, Arts, History

Jasmine