In AP Research, students pick a topic to study the whole school year and dive in deep. They write extensive research papers and prepare a presentation on the findings. This gives them the opportunity to learn how to conduct their own research and manage their time at a semi-professional level.
“I wanted to give the students creative freedom for their research,” AP Research teacher Christina Varvel said.
Students in the class have started sending out surveys and conducting data collection for their studies this semester. Students are also free to interview anyone and ask as many questions as long as it contributes to their subject, and this helps students find key evidence they cannot just find online. The surveys are also a way to solve real-world problems, and find out current events.
“My survey will be asking teachers on their opinion and concerns on the potential implementation of school vouchers in Texas,” junior Kylie McCranie said.
AP Research also helps researchers get a better understanding of a career or topic like they could in a college or university environment.
“I’m looking forward to finalizing my information and putting together my final product of this month’s research and my personal historical/educational interest,” McCranie said.
Some students are taking their project to another level by building physical demonstrations or models to help with the visual aspect from the research they have taken throughout the span of this year. A couple of examples of these are machine/language learning models, creating advertisements, and interviews.
“I do have a couple of students that are building AI models,” Varvel said. “As far as the time required to get that done, I am interested to see how that is going to play out.”
