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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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Kinetic Coasters

Students melded art, physics, math, and elements of design and engineering to build a rolling ball structure called Kinetic Coasters.

The Blood Bank Project

Students worked in groups to research and define an aspect of blood physiology, blood banking, or blood-related diseases before creating multimedia art pieces using what they had learned.

Projectile Motion

Students created an art and music exhibition which explained the math concepts behind the trajectory of objects.

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.

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.

Operation Story Cushion

Students interviewed younger children and parents in a school next to military housing in order to create a “story cushion” -- a pillow with voice recorded chips so children could listen to their parent’s voice whenever they wanted.

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.

Model United Nations Trade War

Students played a game called MUN Trade War, where they used math to model economic and military avenues of international engagement.

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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