2026-2027 Passion Project

Dear Parents/Guardians of 8th Graders,

It is time for your child to begin thinking about the Passion Project (IB MYP Community Project) this year! What is the Passion Project, you may ask? It is the community project that the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme requires of all Year 3 (8th grade) students.

All work for the project will be turned in on the IB World at TMSM: 8th Grade Passion Project Schoology course.

A TIMELINE of due dates is provided at the bottom of this newsletter and is posted in the Schoology course.

Students will find the handbook on the course as well as all due dates, the proposal assignment, the planning sheet assignment, and the journal entry assignments. The students are formulating their ideas for the project right now. Through explicit instruction, the goal is to help students discover a passion that can lead them to make an impact in their school, local, or global communities. We will ask the questions:

• What am I interested in?
• What sets your heart on fire?
• How can that passion make a difference in my community?
• What type of service connects to my interests/passions?
• How can I take that from the classroom to the community?

Please ask your student about their ideas and how they would like to impact their community through this project.

The handbook (attached to this newsletter/ also loaded on Schoology) includes:

• all objectives/assessment criteria for grading the project
• a timeline/due dates
• a proposal template/form
• a planning sheet template
• link to the Reflection Journal

Thank you in advance for your support. This will be the 13th year we have completed these projects, and we hope these will be the most rewarding projects yet!

All projects will be planned and completed by March 31, 2027.

Over the course of this school year, a proposal, a planning sheet, and a reflection journal will lead them to the creation of a final product or initiative as well as a presentation (website and short speech explaining the project).

We will have a showcase of the projects in late April/early May). Stay tuned for an announcement of this date and location.

A final reflection on the project will be due on their websites by April 21st, 2027.

Please review the handbook with your child and discuss their ideas and plans for the project. We encourage the students to work in groups, but in special circumstances, they may work alone. Keep in mind that parents may have to provide transportation for some of the projects.

Students will write proposals for the projects in the next several weeks. They are due on October 9th; our goal is to have proposals approved by Dr. Pewee-Childs and Mrs. Bechtel by October 30th.