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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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Spaceship Earth

Students built weather balloons and rockets in order to learn more about Astro-photography and Earth Science in an attempt to start their own HTH NASA.

The Chocolate Project

First grade students learned about rainforests, ecosystems, agriculture, history, the economics of trade, and cooking by studying the history of chocolate.

The Backyard Ecosystem Project

The core purpose of this project was for students to develop a connection to the natural world, and examine the role of pollinators, and re-plant a school garden.

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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The Mad Props Podcast Project

Tenth grade students created podcasts related to California state ballot propositions.

Beyond the Crossfire

Students ran and organized a Kickstarter campaign to write and film a documentary that covered the topic of gun violence and its effects in the United States.

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.

Chapter 3: With each other

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

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Light of Kindness

Students learned about properties of light and the effect it has on certain materials via experiments before writing shadow puppet plays.

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.

Reading Buddies: the Children’s Literature Project

11th graders were each partnered with an elementary student as a "reading buddy" to help them grow as a reader and write their own stories.
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