Research skill building with Sokratis
Sokratis is a student-led research project that allows students to pursue a line of inquiry of their own interest, with a teacher or Year 12 student as a mentor. The program has recently been re-launched and is open to all students in Years 7 to 11. These students have identified a topic and are now developing their own research question. Groups of Year 3 to Year 6 students are also participating using the topic, What matters to me.
Conde Library was abuzz with excitement at the opening of the program, the Meet and Mix event, as students across Years 7 to 11 dropped in to chat to other students and teachers about their research ideas.
110 Secondary students have submitted research questions and 50 staff have signed up a mentors. Years 7 to 11 students have generated an incredible breadth and depth of questions, including:
“How do black holes interact with the causal structure of spacetime?”
“What are the negative psychological impacts of single-sex education after high school?”
“To what extent does multilingualism affect cognitive abilities and on a wider scale, influence our personality and experiences in society?”
“How can global economies benefit from investment methods to assuage inflation?
“How does the machine learning process of AI cause it to take on human bias?”
“Stock Market returns of COVID-19 vaccine companies”
60 Sokratis Junior students (Year 3 to 6) have commenced researching a dynamic range of topic areas, including:
“What matters to me is rubbish pollution, find out ways how to reduce it”
“Review the school system, that it is ability based not aged based and flexible school hours”
“Cooking matters to me – creation of a cookery book”
“Scientists in the olden days. They did not have technology so I want to learn how they researched and made inventions. Because of no technology, how would they take a closer look?”
“Nature – how important is it to humans? How much do humans need nature?”
The program has generated much interest among Kindergarten to Year 12 teachers, allowing them to step outside their learning area and syllabi. In addition, it has also attracted operational staff who are keen to contribute their skills and engage in inquiry along with the students.
The Pymble Institute and Pymble Libraries (Years 3 to 6 and Years 7 to12) are combining to lead the program. The program runs from February until October where it concludes with a research poster display and an optional Three Minute Sokratis Competition.
There is help along the way with checkpoints and research skills workshops such as refining research questions, finding sources and organising results.
Students will have the opportunity to present at the Student Research Conference on 16 May or publish later at the Student Research Journal Perspectives.
We are excited to join the students in their research journeys – watch this space!
