Investigative Journalist
Go undercover at your school and discover the facts on an issue where there’s a gap between the viewpoints of adults and students. Do your peers feel stretched too thin? Tired all the time? Or confused about the future? Get the data, and then present it to your community.
Technology gives us lots of opportunities to uncover information about what’s going on in our communities. Often, there’s a disconnect between the viewpoints of adults and kids. This presents an opportunity for certain enterprising and motivated kids to act as bridge people and translators. It’s a great opportunity to increase adult awareness of an important issue and to make a big change in the process.
How do I get started?
Think of an issue that’s important to you, and that you’d like to know more about. For example, stress and anxiety, substance abuse or social media’s uses and abuses
Create a poll through an online resource (for example, crowdsignal.com or survey monkey.com) and distribute it to your friends, grade or school. Follow up with interviews of individual students
Create a report on what you found. You can publish your findings in the school newspaper or another forum. Even better, you can use the results to start a constructive conversation in your school or community about what’s going on with your peers.
How long will this take? The Investigative Journalist project is estimated to take between 15-20 hours, although the more you put in, the more you’ll get out of it.
How do I expand this narrative arc?
Host a speaker at your school who can address the issue that you’ve been investigating
Create a Quiet Room in your school where teens can escape from the stresses and chaos of the school day
Start a Courageous Conversations group where students come together to have tough talks about issues that are bothering them
HOT TIP: This is a great complement to a narrative arc that includes strong interests in writing and English or psychology. Do you write for the school newspaper? Here’s an amazing way to enhance your contribution, and to go beyond what’s standard and expected. There are so many directions you could take this project, and even more enhancements that you can bring in (think: speaker series, peer counseling). There’s really no limit!