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.

Arts, History, Literature

Christine

How should we live the Good Life?

Outside of religion, ethicists often draw upon philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Mill for prescriptions on how to live a good life. However, can we still use their frameworks on how to live morally in a society where we have limited choice whether it be when dealing with transportation, school systems, or agriculture? As consumers, how responsible are we for the infractions of companies that often dominate the market? (If you liked watching the Good Place, think of Doug Forcett.) This would involve an analysis of 2-3 philosophers and their applicability to modern day as well as the potential for coming up with your own philosophical doctrine!

Philosophy, History, Economics, Creative Writing, Social Science

Hala

Disaster Resilience and My Area

A project focused on local community resilience in your home, this research will map out community vulnerability, assets, and help to build a disaster preparedness plan that can help make my community more prepared for climate change hazards.

History, Social Science

Claire

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

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Op-Ed

What does it mean to have an opinion worthy of an audience? We will learn how to critique, evaluate, and produce original and hard-hitting opinion pieces designed for publication in different media outlets. By reading across different genres of opinion pieces, you will learn to appreciate the nuance of communicating complex data and information in concise yet refined prose. Then, by practicing the art of writing about scientific policy, foreign military intervention, or the need to shore up public education, you will be better equipped to produce an original op-ed tailored for a targeted media outlet of your choosing. In this way, you too can shape public opinion.

History

Hunter

Exploring Intergenerational Perceptions and Experiences of Gender and Sexuality

This project encourages students to interview individuals across generations on topics of gender and sexuality. Some research questions the student can tackle are: - How do individuals of older generations perceive contemporary gender and sexual culture? - How have individuals of older generations resisted normative constructions of gender and sexuality? How do they compare to those of younger generations? - In what ways can conversations between older and younger generations around gender and sexuality contribute to our current understanding on the topic? What are some barriers to having these conversations? Guided by these questions and with Shio's mentorship and research background, the student will not only be able to gain knowledge on the history of gender and sexuality through primary and secondary sources, but also acquire research skills in oral history and interviews. Specifically, the student will learn how to write a research proposal and determine the scope of the project, learn how to write an interview schedule, and figure out how to access different tools to record and transcribe interviews. Depending on the student’s capacity and preference, this research can result in an oral history project, podcast, research paper, and/or presentation.

Arts, History, Literature

Christine

2. Creating a podcast

As someone who loves the conversational tone of podcasts and their ability to tell an interesting story, I am always looking for entertaining and informative podcasts! In this project, you can identify an overlooked or surprising history in your area of choice, research it, and then present the story in an informative, engaging, and accessible way to a general audience! You will also learn how to edit podcast audio, how to create a narrative arc, and how to captivate audiences. Topics can range from an unexpected history of a scientific discovery, to an interview with an artist that you love! You will gain skills in researching a historical topic, drafting a script, communicating with an interviewee, and editing your podcast.

Arts, History, Literature, Creative Writing

Clarissa

Money or Happiness?: How to Measure Economic Prosperity

One of the biggest arguments for supporting a politician or party is the belief that the economy performs better under their stewardship. The media frames economic prosperity in the context of the stock market, unemployment, and gross domestic product (GDP). I would work with the student to think about what we are trying to capture when we talk about economic prosperity, and to learn about these indicators, as well as some alternative indicators like the Gross National Happiness Index. From these considerations, the student can develop a research paper or other media project that explains how the indicators we use to talk about the economy can change the perception of growth and prosperity to the political advantage of various groups and actors.

History

Amanda

Podcasting About the Not-So-Dark Ages

Medieval history often gets short shrift: it happened a long time ago, in dead languages, and peoples' lives appeared solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. In shedding new light about the deep past for a public audience, you will conduct research to develop a narrative that can serve as the basis of a podcast series. By familiarizing yourself with recent scholarship, popular literature, or foundational primary sources, you will clean out the cobwebs from the dimly lit corners of the past by drawing our attention to overlooked subjects, characters, and events that speak to our current predicaments and help us come to terms with our present circumstance.

History

Hunter

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

Disaster Resilience and Your Area

History, Languages, Environmental Science, Social Science, Nutrition

Claire

The Anthropology of Time and COVID-19

This project examines the experience of time during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this project, students will write a research paper or visual essay that asks how the pandemic altered our perceptions of time? Students will select a group to focus on (nurses, doctors, delivery workers, High School students, parents), and consider this question from their perspective by drawing on newspaper articles, social media posts, and/or personal experience ("autoethnography"). We will consider: Who or what gets to "slow down"? Who or what must continue apace? How has COVID changed or introduced new cultures of time?

History, Social Science

Kristen

Cultural Musician Profile

Using profiles like Doreen St. Felix's article on Missy Elliott as examples, a student would create a multimedia article on an artist of their choice that touched on how that artist's music has been culturally significant, not only to the general public, but also to their culture of origin. Students would be asked to do the following: 1) Choose an artist with a cultural background significant to their music 2) Research that artist's cultural background, their relationship to it, and how that cultural background influences their music. What are some of the cultural conversations happening, and how does that artist navigate those conversations? We would be looking news articles, as well as some entry-level academic texts that covered these issues. 3) Choose a short selection of songs that show how those conversations come up. Using close reading methods, a student would look at the lyrics or musical production of a song to see how some of these larger issues are being tackled musically. This project would teach students to do media analysis that is cognizant of the cultural influences present in said media. I would be using my expertise in ethnic and gender studies as well as media studies to guide students through this project and help them develop questions they might have concerning how to do research. The composition seminar I taught focused heavily on black music, and I would use that experience teaching students how to write about musicians and their cultural backgrounds to help students create an exciting and rigorous final article.

History, Literature, Languages

Semilore

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"

Tell People They're Wrong!

What issues do you care about that you think most people don't completely get? Prepare an op-ed and submit it to the publications where you think it'll make a difference.

History

Daniel

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

Street Art in Northern Ireland: The Past Lives On

This project will explore how Unionists and Nationalists in the Northern Ireland conflict have both used street art and graffiti as a way to convey their beliefs and histories—and sometimes as intimidation. Murals depicting a variety of subjects—from political figures to memorials to messages of solidarity—are painted all over working-class neighborhoods. This project will delve into the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland along with larger ideas of memorialization and conflict transformation.

History

Amelia

Meet & Interview Students Abroad!

As a global citizen, I am fascinated by the world's many cultures. In this project, you will choose three high school students from one country to interview. Topics could range from "Day in the life" to "what are their hopes for the future?". This process will teach you how to find and access interview candidates, develop interview questions and summarize your findings in a final journal article/blog post for a school publication. You will gain skills in writing, communication, editing, cultural awareness, comparative learning as well as how to make new connections around the world.

History, Literature, Languages, Public Health

Rachel

Auto-theory Comic

In this project, a student will take high-level theoretical concepts from foundational social theorists (such as Judith Butler) and explain them in accessible terms using their own life experience. In doing so, the student will write a story about their own life to explain these concepts and draw their own imagery to match!

Music, History, Literature

Sam