Documentation Templates: Projects & Science Experiments, Experiences, Personal Growth Experiences and Research

Description

These templates are perfect for documenting your student’s:

• school projects
• science experiments
• educational or life experiences
• personal growth experiences
• and research projects.

These templates can be used in conjunction with our Goal Setting and Planning Exercises, or separately to document your student’s activities. Documenting their activities may be useful as a way to help your student structure their thoughts, to do a year in review to remember just how many enriching projects and experiences they have done, or as a way to document your student’s educational progress during the school year.

This 35-page instantly downloadable PDF includes four templates: Project/Science Experiment; Experience; Personal Growth; and Research. It includes versions with colorful backgrounds, and no background color, with lines for writers, and without lines for pre-writers.

Project Template

The scientific method is critical to investigating the world around us in an unbiased, rigorous way, but it also can be the basis for structuring how we plan for, and understand, everyday life, from fun projects to big endeavors. This template is designed for Preschool through Elementary School students. It can be used to structure any project, whether it’s a subscription box kit, a sewing project, a school research assignment, or even cleaning their room. At younger ages, talking through each question or drawing a picture will build familiarity with a rigorous approach to problem solving, and repeatedly applying this template to all sorts of every day situations will reinforce that problems and goals are less intimidating if we know exactly what we want to achieve, and what steps we can take to get there. Older students can include more detail, especially in the methods section, which is the core component of any successful project. Identifying a project’s steps to predict what tools or resources are needed is a skill that requires a lot of practice.

Experience Template

We have inherited a society that praises the virtues of a hard work ethic and the accumulation of material goods as a sign of success and accomplishment. Early signs hopefully point to a societal shift away from this mentality, as younger generations embrace the importance of quality work-life balance, the impact to our environment of consumerism, and improving mental health by valuing our diverse contributions to society (separate from what we produce). Unfortunately, it is difficult to completely divorce ourselves from the production-oriented lifestyle when in reality, that is how society is structured for putting food on the table and roofs over our heads. But we can at least reinforce for the next generation that the experiences we have, and the memories we make, are as valuable or more valuable, than being hyper focused on productivity. We are worth more than what we produce. This template reinforces that experiences are just as worthy of thought and planning by being intentional and acknowledging the value of intangible things.

Personal Growth

Growth is about taking on something totally new. It could be learning a new skill, finding balance and a healthier lifestyle, or doing something altruistic for others. It may be part of your bigger plan to reach a lifetime goal (graduate from
school), or maybe purely to try something out you’ve never done before (blacksmithing classes anyone?). Whether your area of growth is intentional or incidental, chances are it will come in handy in unexpected ways sometime down the road. Our cumulative experiences are what make us unique. It is that uniqueness of experience and perspective which makes every single one of our voices and contributions valuable. This template focuses on being intentional about the value of our growth. Even when unsuccessful, we learn valuable lessons about what to try next time, and that we are resilient.

Research

This template is ancillary to the other three. Nearly every project, experience, or personal growth goal will require some research to accomplish it. It provides a framework for organizing, citing, and evaluating sources.

Organization
We use different skills when we find, evaluate, and cite different kinds of sources, whether they are books, journals, magazines, websites, databases, etc. It’s handy to think about each type of source separately.

Citation
Similarly, standards for citing sources differ depending on which kind of source it is. This template includes just a few high-level citation attributes for each source, until you evaluate which ones you will use. At that point, we recommend using an online citation tool:

https://www.easybib.com
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/resources.html

Evaluation
It is clear in our current environment how critical it is to be able to evaluate sources for their credibility, objectivity, accuracy and relevance. This template prompts us with some basic questions to ask ourselves about our sources, before we rely on them to conduct analysis, build an opinion, or make decisions.