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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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Toy Story

Students created their own toy alongside local pre-schoolers and write a story about what that toy does when no one is around.

Kinetic Coasters

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

Economics Illustrated

Students created an illustrated book that accessibly explained different economic concepts.

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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Stars in the Parks

Students explored how people use parks to connect to themselves, each other, and to nature while also learning about the stars on trips to these parks.

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.

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.

Chapter 3: With each other

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

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Imagine Mural

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

In Sickness and in Health

Through interviews with family members, scientists, and medical professionals, students homed in answers to the question, "What am I most likely to die of?"

The Syrian Refugee Simulation

In this student-created and student-run simulation, participants took on the roles of Syrian citizens forced to leave and seek refuge in another country.
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