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
Exploring Migration in Latin American Countries
In this project, you can explore publicly available datasets from IPUMS on individuals and families (households), with indicators measuring people’s education, income, migration and mobility. How many people move to cities every year? How does their life in cities compare to areas they came from? Do they children get more education in cities then those who stayed in rural areas?
Languages, Economics
The Mao Family as Ming-Dynastic Foreign Relations Specialists
The late Ming period Manual of Military Preparedness serves as one of our best sources today for information on late Ming and early Qing Chinese views of foreign lands and the maritime world. It was compiled by Mao Yuanyi, who served the late Ming as a specialist in these matters. Mao's cousin Ruizheng had a different but related specialty; he was a senior administrator in the college of translators and interpreters. He left us most of our records of how these official specialists were trained and their talents assessed. The Mao cousins' ancestor Mao Kun also worked in the field of foreign relations. In the Mongol Yuan dynasty Mao Kun worked on a map of the oceans surrounding China & Southeast Asia, conferring on this now-lost map the nickname 'Mao Kun Map.' The Mao Kun Map was reproduced in 15th century Korea, and also guided the Treasure Fleet of Zheng He, who in turn mapped their own travels, and the map that they produced appears in Mao Kun's descendant Mao Yuanyi's Manual of Military Preparedness. This article investigates the Mao lineage and the reasons for their longstanding specialty in foreign relations. How did this specialty develop in the first place? Did it continue after the late Ming cousins? Was it typical, in this period, for powerful families to pursue an epistemological or technical specialty in this manner?
Languages
Building Food Justice
This research will focus on the concept of food justice in a theoretical and practical sense. This could involve a gender or racial justice focus, for example. We could focus on a specific area or type of producer.and will then examine how different policy or political changes can improve the nutritional security of households.
History, Languages, Environmental Science, Social Science, Nutrition
High School Equity Case Study
Think about your high school and ask yourself the question: “Do/Would students from different backgrounds feel welcomed here?” In this project you will interview students and teachers to document how your school can better champion diversity and inclusion efforts. You will use primary and secondary sources to uncover themes and gaps in your school’s equity policies and practices.
Psychology, History, Literature, Languages
AI Ethics/Algorithmic Fairness Analysis
Algorithms, particularly those driven by AI, are increasingly affecting our daily lives. Unfortunately, these algorithms sometimes perpetuate existing discrimination. You don't need to look far for examples; in the last few years, there have been exposes on everything from racially discriminatory models used by courts to assign parole, to resume reading models that place a lower value on degrees earned at women's colleges. Are you interested in exposing and fighting against this new frontier of discrimination? In this project, you will conduct research in AI ethics. Depending on your interests, we can focus on a particular model that has shown up in the news, research new examples of algorithmic discrimination, build data visualizations, and research the philosophical underpinnings of AI ethics.
Languages, Economics, Social Science
Sustainable Farming in China, Brazil, Latin America
Learn about permaculture in a foreign country! Research best practices or public policy to see what could be adapted to your local community. This will teach you how to approach research materials from different fields of study (i.e. biology, chemistry, political science, history, sociology). Students will gain skills in writing, editing, navigating scientific literature, news publications, and will increase critical thinking skills to navigate diverse sources of information.
Languages
Create a Literature Blog
This project would be a great way to familiarize yourself with literary critique, and to push yourself to think both as a reader and as writer. By creating and running your own literary blog, you will gather and polish skills such as analytic writing, basic web design, and social media outreach and advertising. This project would also be highly customizable, as you may choose to write brief reviews or longer scholarly essays. Either way, it will allow you to craft your own online space as an emerging literary voice!
Philosophy, Literature, Languages
Robotics and Society
The student will investigate a topic in robotics such as home-care robotics. Research on the current obstacle and investigate/design solutions for it. Open to more discussion with the student and based on their interest with the topic.
Psychology, Languages, Social Science
Hercules: The Essence of a Hero
This project would look at film representations of the iconic Greco-Roman hero — including the Disney animated movie! — and compare these representations to the hero's origins in classical mythology and literature. The "essence" of the hero in myth would be framed against what is found in the cinematic Hercules, using both close reading of ancient texts and detailed film analysis. Differences might reflect the ways in which modern societies have redefined the concept of a hero, and show how classical literature can shape the modern world.
Literature, Languages, Creative Writing
Ever wondered how a summer internship can help students?
We can work together to design a research project that looks at how summer internships affect high school students. Do they experience increased aspirations to pursue a certain career? Are they more motivated to do well at school? Do they get better grades? This project will offer you the chance to learn how to design a survey, collect data, conduct interviews, analyze data, and improve your academic writing style. I am open to working on this topic, or any other economics topic(s) of your choosing! For a previous research project, I worked with my advisor on a similar topic. Here is what we found: Recently, policymakers and researchers have explored how time spent outside of the classroom, including early work experience, can affect educational outcomes and reduce inequality across racial and socioeconomic groups. Although research has demonstrated that high-intensity work-based learning programs improve high school graduation and post-secondary enrollment, little is known about the effects of stand-alone private sector employment experiences on student outcomes. We study a unique program that brokers employer-paid summer job internships for Boston public school youth across 150 private sector firms in a variety of industries such as healthcare, finance, biotechnology, higher education, and real estate. Using data from school administrative records, we employ both fixed effects and matching models to estimate the impact of receiving a private sector placement on both high-school and post-secondary outcomes. Both models show similar impacts on outcomes that can be measured repeatedly over time with significant improvements in high school attendance and course failures associated with having had a private sector placement during the summer. Furthermore, we use our matching model to explore outcomes that occur only once, finding that private sector job experience increases standardized test taking as well as the likelihood of on-time high school graduation and college enrollment. These results suggest that private sector employers have an important role to play in the “ecosystem” of summer jobs, beyond government sponsored programs, to support experiences that help prepare youth for both educational and career pathways into adulthood.
Languages, Economics, Math, Business, Statistics
Studying Peace and Violence
For this project, we'd read and discuss topics about peace and violence from a theoretical standpoint, lived experiences of conflict from different parts of the world, and why do different types of conflicts continue to happen? Depending on your individual interests, this could culminate in traditional research paper or Op-ed, or alternatively in a more creative endeavor like an educational video or a podcast.
History, Literature, Languages, Social Science
Prevalence of anxiety in a high school population
My field of expertise involves mental health, mentorship, and internal medicine and I am proficient in SPSS. Students will gain knowledge of recruiting participants, utilizing accredited surveys, collecting survey data using qualtrics and excel, analyzing the data using excel and/or SPSS, and writing a manuscript. This will include reaching out to high schools to obtain consent to spread the survey, gathering answers from high school students anonymously, and exporting it from qualtrics to excel, replacing answers with numeric symbols to compute to SPSS. The potential student outcomes may include writing a scientific research paper, creating a survey, and/or creating an oral or poster presentation.
Biology, Psychology, Arts, Languages, Chemistry
Digital Humanities: New Directions in Media
What does the future hold for the humanities? The student will explore current trends in the growing field of the “Digital Humanities,” research its history, and envision its next steps. How might reading, writing, and analysis change with the times, and what possibilities open?
Arts, History, Literature, Languages
The Tower of Babel: Languages of the World
We will explore the key topics in global linguistic diversity, enabling students to contextualize the language(s), region(s), or culture(s) in which they are interested. The student can pick one of the following themes to explore: a) the relationships between the world’s languages and language families; b) how languages vary in different social and cultural contexts; c) how the sounds and structures of the world’s languages may vary in general.
Literature, Languages, Creative Writing, Linguistics, Social Science
Pharmacogenomics 101
Doctors prescribe drugs to treat a variety of health conditions. However, people can vary in how well they respond to the drug, and whether they experience adverse side effects from taking it. In some cases, this is due to genetic variation - i.e., differences in individuals' DNA sequence - and this is called Pharmacogenomics. In this project, you will use the database PharmGKB to identify genetic variants that impact response to commonly prescribed drugs, and evaluate how they impact the drug's biological actions at the molecular level. Through examining biochemical pathways involved in the drug's metabolism, you will gain a deeper understanding of the field of pharmacogenomics, and how genetic knowledge can help inform medical care.
Biology, Surgery, History, Literature, Languages
Sustainability strategy: business plan
Choose a company sector of your choice (fashion, food, entertainment,...others) and identify direct actions the company can take to increase its environmental sustainability. Comment on actions the company is currently taking (if they are taking any actions) and evaluate the effectiveness of their sustainability strategy. Provide new ideas to improve the company's sustinability, drawing on academic journal articles and high quality sources. This process will include a literature review and developing a research outline. Results can be presented as a paper or in the form of a presentation.
Arts, Languages, Business
Historical Overview on American Schools
Did you know that America’s education system is not an accident? It was purposefully structured to succeed specific groups of people. In this project you will research the origins of US schools leading to its current situation. Drawing upon politics including landmark court cases and foreign policy, you will investigate how education has changed throughout history and what inequalities persist. You will read academic articles and journals to assess how education today is set in place by structures and systems.
Psychology, History, Literature, Languages
Research Proposal
Looking to get approval or even some funding towards a project you're passionate about? Together, we will work through the steps to developing a strong proposal, including researching existing literature, developing research questions or project goals, and devising a timeline and/or budget. We will also discuss persuasive writing strategies and adapting writing to institutional contexts.
Languages, Linguistics
The Qur'ān and Literary Narrative
This project would engage how the semiotics (meaning-making narrative) of the Qur'ān is structured. The Qur'ān is often thought to be a disconnected and 'non-linear' text. This project would engage how, while discursive, the Qur'ān displays coherent thematic connectivity (i.e ring composition) and rhetorical structure. The learning outcomes would be applicable to different literacy genres in general, not simply sacred scripture, and could highlight how semantic shifts, pronominal shifts, shifts in narrator voice, and other features of 'post-modern' literature can still create a thematically connected 'text'.
Philosophy, Languages
Learn How to Do a Scientific Presentation
Being able to clearly communicate technical information, especially to non-experts (i.e. people in different fields), is one of the most important skills employers in academia and industry look for. Choose a topic within the fields of forensic science, linguistics, computer science, or cognitive science and get lost learning all about it. You will gain experience finding and reading scientific literature as well as comparing different research approaches. Not only will you deepen your knowledge in this area, but you will also learn how to effectively communicate this knowledge to others in a scientific presentation.
Languages, Linguistics, Cognitive
