North Carolina HS Graduation Project

[gymfan4ever95]

For my high school, we have to do what is called the NC graduation project...which will take up our whole junior and senior years. We have to give a presentation to the community as a senior about our project. I am only a freshman, but my english teacher is making us come up with what we want to do it on by tomorrow I really want to do mine on gymnastics...I just don't know what i want about gymnastics to do it on! For the project, we have to have a product. The only gymnastics related things i could think of was choreography (For my product I would choreograph a routine, I guess?) but I don't really like to make routines up myself...at all! Others in the past have done things like the history of the sport, ect. But i can't think about how doing the history of gymnastics could lead to any sort of a product! Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Sorry...I don't really understand a lot about this project yet (it was designed for a senior's mind...not a freshman's!)

 

[NYgymfan]

Well I Googled it just to see what it was and it looks like something that is pretty new in NC.

I would think about what you really want to do. If you really want to do something with gymnastics, you should, because if you enjoy it so much the project will be easier. I don't think you need to worry about picking your exact topic just yet though. A lot can happen between now and when you graduate. If you pick a topic that is too hard, then you can change it. That's why it is better to start now instead of waiting until your junior year, because if you pick a bad topic then, there is no time to change it! Why don't you talk to your teacher and tell her that you are having trouble. I'm sure if you are having trouble and you already have your heart set on gymnastics that other people who don't even have a clue what they want to do are having trouble too.

And just because you can't choreograph a gym routine now doesn't mean you won't be able to when you are a senior! If its something you really want to learn and something you really want to do, why not challenge yourself and try to learn how? That would probably be more fun then picking a really easy topic, and you can actually help the girls in your gym come up with their routines!

But okay, here is a random idea. Why don't you organize a gym meet? Thats a big project, the meet will be a "product", and you can do the meet for charity or something. I'm not sure how exactly it would work but maybe you donate part of the meet fees to the homeless or to a food bank or something like that. Maybe you could do the meet for disadvantaged people, like nursing home patients, veterans, people with cancer, poor people.....fill in the blank.

 

[Kayleigh]

^Love NYGymfan's meet idea! That would be a great project, and you could absolutely donate the profits to the charity of your choice. If you can get your gym to donate the time and equipment, that's half the battle. You could do like a mock meet, for the class kids... that way, you don't have to get real judges, you could just get some of the higher level gymnasts to judge! That's what we do with our pre team meet... it works very well.

Good luck... what an awesome idea! I wish I would have thought of that!

 

[NYgymfan]

Yeah, I like Kayleigh's ideas too! Here's another idea that you could use as part of a mock meet that could get the whole community involved. America is becoming an overweight country. Overweight = bad. Fitness = good. You could have like a conditioning-fest or something, since we all know gymnasts are very experienced with that, haha! Let people in the community enter and see who can do the most....whatever you can think of. But it would get the community involved in something that is good for everyone...staying in shape. I'd say let them do gym skills but thats probably not a good idea to have people that don't know gym and how to do it safely doing flips and stuff. Oh well!

 

[gymjoy]

I love the idea of a graduation project much more than all the exit exams so many states require. Oh look, we can regurgitate more useless info on a bubble test!! Whoopie! If you pick the right project you will be applying your learning in a real life way, as well as learning new, valuable skills.

The meet project would be awesome. It would cover all your basic "school subjects" and teach you about organizing, community planning and outreach, advertising, finances, and on and on. If it was successful your gym might keep doing it annually. And, look, you have all these folks here at CB to bounce questions and ideas off of...

 

[I-Heart-Beam]

We do something like this too, except its called Community Service

I think the meet would be a great idea! Why not get try to get two competing teams, sell tickets and food and give the profits to charity/ school funds?

Our year have charity football matches every year, what we had was pupils from different towns, the different school houses and pupils versus the teachers. You could make the routines really simple - like run along the beam, jump, wave their arms, jump off- and I'm sure a lot of people would want to see the teachers make complete fools on themselves

Also a group of people could combine their projects together if it was allowed, like one person making t-shirts, one doing the accounts, one selling food etc.

 

[gymfan4ever95]

I LOVE the idea of a meet! But my gym can't host meets because our floor isn't springy enoughh and our vault runway is like, a few feet too short . But I thought of a new idea...what about gymnastics injury's? For my product, I could show how to prevent injuries or something like that? I want be a sports medician physican when i am older (maybe!) because I LOVE learning about injury's...but mainly gymnastics injuries. Do you think this would work?

 

[NYgymfan]

I think that's a good idea, but I think you might want to make it for all sports injuries and not just gym. I know gym is the best sport out there, but remember that most athletes don't do gym. If you talk about just gym injuries, it seems like a very narrow topic that only applies to a few people. But sports injuries in general, thats a good idea.

Most injuries in other sports are the same as gym injuries, so its not like you have to talk about more injuries but just make it seem like it applies to more people and it would be a better project.

Good luck!!!

 

[Tams Mom]

We are also in NC and our DD's school doesn't even start with the project until the spring of their JR year. They get it approved then, and can do their community service over the summer and have the fall to do their papers and projects, then they present it the spring of their SR year. She is also thinking of a gymnastics related project, and if the timing is right is going to see if she can train a girl for the Special Olympics in our area (the community service). The product could be designing the leo, and a video presentation of the performance. The paper would be about special Olympics. Not sure if the product is enough, but could be amended to add ideas.

 

[gymfan4ever95]

We are also in NC and our DD's school doesn't even start with the project until the spring of their JR year. They get it approved then, and can do their community service over the summer and have the fall to do their papers and projects, then they present it the spring of their SR year. She is also thinking of a gymnastics related project, and if the timing is right is going to see if she can train a girl for the Special Olympics in our area (the community service). The product could be designing the leo, and a video presentation of the performance. The paper would be about special Olympics. Not sure if the product is enough, but could be amended to add ideas.

that is a really good idea! And we don't start until Jr year either, but my teacher wants us to just choose a topic and find sources about it already.

 

[gracefulone]

Our school does something similar, but it's only senior year. We write a paper and then have to do some kind of project, logging at least 20( I ended up with over 150!) hours on it and keeping a journal. I actually did my project before the paper because I scored a crazy awesome internship. In the past, kids have done things with sports and held clinics, coached teams, helped make someone's recruiting video, and organized community ball games, etc. I like the ideas that have come out so far as well!