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Changing the Subject

Welcome

Of the thousands of projects High Tech High teachers and students have undertaken since the first school opened in 2000, the fifty documented in this book and website are a mere sampling; we hope they provide inspiration and a starting place for many more creative iterations.  We curated them by asking current and former teachers (now numbering in the hundreds) to nominate work that was both inspiring and replicable.

Our purpose is to share highlights from High Tech High’s first twenty years.  In doing so, we aim to describe, not prescribe.  “This isn’t how to do it, it’s how we did it.” 

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the relentless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”(Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, page 53)

Chapter 1: Invention and reinvention

In these projects students and teachers are creating something new in the physical world.

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ComplexCity

Teachers devised a project to stimulate students to think critically about their communities. They created conceptual maps of the city to communicate a message they cared about.

A Fight With Gravity

For this gravity science project, students documented their own physics experiments in order to fight gravity using kites, balloons, and other flying objects of their own creation.

Calculicious

Calculicious was a cross-curricular project at High Tech High, where seniors were engaged in using calculus to make and describe art.

Chapter 2: In the world, with the world

In these projects, students are understanding the need for change in their world and making that change, through service or community action.

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Logs of the San Diego Bay

Students wrote pieces of poetry and conducted interviews to be included in different field guides about the San Diego bay.

Voices of Justice

Students ran a political campaign simulation and conducted extensive interviews with people from the community about societal issues so students could learn about these topics both on a macro-level and through personal experiences.

Growing Beyond Earth

Students learned biology concepts and scientific methods through a real world challenge -- growing food with no natural light, no gravity, and hardly any space.

Chapter 3: With each other

In these projects, students are investigating their beliefs and relationships and changing them.

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Dribble and Rebel

Fourth grade teachers designed a project for students to look at history through the lens of sports and to explore how sports build and shape communities.

Imagine Mural

Students worked to created a mural in memory of a student that passed away, Sean Fuchs.

Ampersand: The Student Journal of School & Work

Students came together after working at their internships to create a yearbook of their experiences, so they could be shared with their peers.
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