2,893 Inspirational Passion Project Ideas
Turn inspirations into your passion project.
This collection of project ideas, shared by Polygence mentors, is meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.
- AI/ML
- Animation
- Arts
- Biology
- Biotech
- Business
- Cancer
- Chemistry
- Cognitive
- Computer Science
- Creative Writing
- Dance
- Dentistry
- Economics
- Engineering
- Entomology
- Environmental Science
- Ethics
- Fashion
- Finance
- Game Design
- Healthcare
- History
- Illustration
- Languages
- Linguistics
- Literature
- Math
- Medicine
- Music
- Neuroscience
- Nutrition
- Organizational Leadership
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Photography
- Physics
- Psychiatry
- Psychology
- Public Health
- Quantitative
- Social
- Social Science
- Sports Analytics
- Statistics
- Surgery
Presentation
A PowerPoint, google slides, canva, vengage, or another platform to cohesively display a project.
Environmental Science, Public Health
Studying the beginning of the solar system through meteorites
How do scientists classify meteorites? What are Calcium-Aluminum-Rich inclusions in meteorites and why are they so important to scientists? Can we calculate the age of the Solar System using meteorites? What type of research equipment is used to study meteorites? Use chemistry, geology, and other sciences to answer these questions! You can write a research paper based on your findings.
Computer Science, Chemistry, Environmental Science
Social Media Campaign for the International Society for the Study of Harmful Algae (ISSHA)
This project would be great for a student interested in science communication and international research. The student would design a social media and/or website campaign for the International Society for the Study of Harmful Algae (ISSHA.org; @issharmfulalgae). The student would have access to interviewing members of the ISSHA council (https://issha.org/members-community/issha-council/council-members/) to learn more about their research and career paths. The overall goals of this project would be to (1) increase the general public's awareness of HABs and HAB research and (2) increase social media and #sciencetwitter engagement on HAB topics and research.
Environmental Science
Coral Reefs: Multiple Stressors in a Changing Ocean
While coral reefs make up less than 1% of ocean real estate, they are home to over a quarter of marine biodiversity in the ocean. Despite their importance to marine ecosystem functions and the tremendous ecosystem services they provide, coral reefs are severely threatened by climate change and other human activities. What stressors do coral reefs face today? Which studies or research offer glimmers of hope for the resilience of coral reefs? What is being done to protect coral reefs and the communities that rely on these ecosystems?
Environmental Science
Climate Change - Something Strange?
Ecologists rely on general patterns in nature to make predictions about species interactions. What will change - if anything - about these general patterns as climate change progresses?
Biology, Environmental Science
Exploring the drivers of regional carbon fluxes in North American forests
Using a variety of model output and observations this project will aim to explore the main drivers of regional carbon exchange in North American forests.
Environmental Science, AI/ML
Real World Applications - Mathematics
"When will I ever use this?" Many students ask this question when learning mathematics. Math makes up the world around us and is used every day in ways many people don't realize and projects can help students realize how math is used in the real world. This project will involve picking concept(s) and creating a project that uses those concepts in a real-world application. The parts of the project that should be included are the directions to the project, standards the project applies to, a rubric, and an example of a completed project.
Math, Environmental Science
Not all soils are created equally
Some soils are rich in nutrients, some allow water to be retained, and some have thriving invertebrate communities. Different features (such as bedrock, tree cover, and more) can influence these soil characteristics. In this project, you can compare soils found in different locations to determine how various landscape features influence soil biogeochemistry.
Environmental Science
Examining the effects of climate change on marine species distributions
My master's thesis examined the effects of cold tolerance on a tropical species of marine plant, where my research concluded that certain species of plants have local adaptations to survive in stressful environments. As a result of my past research, I am interested in asking questions related to how different organisms respond to changing or stressful environmental conditions, specifically related to temperature stress and climate change. Climate change is currently affecting sea surface temperatures, which is in turn impacting the species distributions for certain organisms. For example, increases in sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Maine has significantly impacted the lobster fishery due to the northward migration of the American Lobster. The main goal of this project is to examine similar distribution range shifts (e.g., like that of the American Lobster) in marine species that have been affected by climate change. This project will identify at least 3 groups of marine invertebrates, marine plants, fish, and marine mammals that have shifted distributions as a result of warming sea surface temperatures. Information on these organisms will be gathered from scientific research papers and will be organized into a Microsoft Excel sheet. The main deliverable of this project will be a scientific research paper in the form of a literature review. The student and myself will work together to choose which high school scientific journal to publish our final results in.
Biology, Environmental Science
The History of Race and Food in America
This project would examine the racial dynamics of food throughout American history. This research will delve into history to help answer our modern question: who owns land in this country and why, where is food unaffordable, and who is producing our food?
History, Languages, Environmental Science, Social Science, Nutrition
Writing a literature review
In this project, you will write a literature review on a topic of your choice. Topics could be anything related to food systems or food policy, from “the history of community gardens” to “how will we feed an ever expanding population?”. This process will teach you how to find, access, and critically analyze existing literature to identify gaps and overarching themes. You will gain skills in writing and editing, as well as an in-depth knowledge of your chosen research topic.
Environmental Science
What triggers phytoplankton blooms off the Southern California coast?
In this project, you will learn what environmental conditions stimulate microscopic algae (aka phytoplankton) blooms off the coast of Southern California. Specifically, you will search through publicly available datasets of environmental physical, chemical, and biological data (such as temperature, nutrient concentrations, algae abundance) collected by scientists and use statistics to identify factors affecting phytoplankton blooms. Data could be presented and discussed in a conference poster or journal publication.
Environmental Science
Disaster Resilience and Your Area
A project focused on local community resilience in your home, this research will map out community vulnerability, assets, and help to build a disaster preparedness plan that can help make my community more prepared for climate change hazards.
History, Languages, Environmental Science, Social Science, Nutrition
Successful Businesses and Neurotic Leaders
This project could include research of case studies on the most successful businesses in the world and their leaders. Are there personality similarities among the world's most successful leaders? Are successful leaders more likely to demonstrate neurotic traits compared to the general population? Once again, I am open to different ideas around this subject and any way of presenting this information.
Environmental Science
The Power of Public Data
In the age of next-generation sequencing (NGS) there is more publicly available sequencing data than there are scientists to study it. I would love to help you identify an aspect of the broad field of microbiology that has yet to be investigated, develop an scientific question, and then leverage publicly available NGS data to try and answer it! For example - what is the global distribution of an ecologically important group of marine microbe? It doesn’t have to be marine related - let your imagination go wild! I can help you find the right data for your project, show you how to access it, and even teach you how to use bioinformatics to analyze it.
Environmental Science
Health Benefits of Renewable Energy Transition
Review your state's energy portfolio. Assess various health benefits if they were to transition to cleaner energy sources.
Environmental Science, Healthcare, Public Health
Dams and Disease: An Ecological Solution to Schistosomiasis in Senegal
This case study is about the effects dam building and land use change have had on schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease, in the Senegal River Basin in West Africa. Construction of the Diama Dam at the mouth of the Senegal River was intended to bring various human health and economic benefits. While there were some positive impacts, the dam also had unintended consequences. For one, it affected the life cycle of a native river prawn, hindering its essential migration to the mixed fresh and saltwater estuary near the Atlantic Ocean. An important predator in the river ecosystem, the local extinction of prawns led to an upstream explosion in the snail species that serve as a reservoir for schistosomiasis. Disease rates spiked and schistosomiasis has been endemic in Senegal since the dam was completed in 1986. As similar human infrastructure projects are proposed worldwide, it is key to understand the effect these developments could have not only on the environment but also on human health. Past interventions addressing schistosomiasis have focused on the distribution of therapeutic drugs. These campaigns have been unsuccessful in countries like Senegal. One reason is because they fail to consider how social, ecological, economic, cultural, and health access factors affect the transmission of disease. We will work to figure out how we can be mindful of these complexities and the original ecosystem balance that kept snail populations in check. We will propose a method for reintroduction of the native prawn species as an ecological intervention to complement drug therapy. This intervention has been found to reduce schistosomiasis rates and, if successful and sustainable, could provide food and livelihood security for people living in the Senegal River Basin.
Environmental Science, AI/ML, Statistics
Are Parenting and Attachment Styles Predictive of Mood Disorders?
In the field of psychology, there are four primary parenting styles and four attachment styles. Some possible research questions could include: Are children of authoritarian parents more likely to experience depression and anxiety compared to children of permissive parents? How do attachment styles influence our interpersonal relationship success? This project could take on a multitude of different forms or research questions.
Environmental Science
Will cockroaches really outlive us all?
Cockroaches (Blattodea) are known for their resilience. Based on known conservation concerns - climate change, habitat fragmentation, etc. - just how resilient will cockroaches be?
Biology, Environmental Science
Relative Habitat Use of Captive Animals
Captive animal behavior may be different from behavior of a counterpart in the wild. If the student researcher would like hands-on experience they can go to the zoo several times and record behavior and locations of the animals in the enclosure. Examining this data could reveal if the animals are using particular areas of the enclosure more or for specific activities (sleeping, feeding, etc.). The student can create a heatmap of areas utilized and learn about recording data on animal behavior. End products could include an essay, poster, or blog post.
Biology, Environmental Science, Entomology
