Student Research

Exploring Topics of Interest through Student Research

For some Pine Crest School students, engaging in research provides an enriched, high-impact experience beyond the classroom, stage, or field. Beginning in fifth grade, Pine Crest students are presented with opportunities to conduct individual and group research on a variety of topics that interest them.

The value of engaging in research at the Lower, Middle, or Upper School level is more than an end result or earning recognition - the value often comes from the failures they experience along the way.

"The lessons learned from not getting it right the first time are often the most valuable," says Pine Crest President Dr. Dana Markham. "Skills like tenacity and adaptability develop from failing and having to go back to the drawing board. Research is just one avenue at Pine Crest that gives students an opportunity to learn these valuable skills."

Pine Crest School Student Research Opportunities

List of 7 items.

  • Kids' Inquiry Conference

    Fifth graders on Pine Crest's Fort Lauderdale campus focus on the process of science by first being grouped according to their interests. Together, research teams develop investigations, protocols, experiments, and prototypes to answer their own, real-life questions. Using evidence-based research, data analysis, and external resources, students support or disprove their findings. Their work culminates in a one-day Kids' Inquiry Conference where the students present their scientific contribution and defend their research.

  • Technology Student Association

    Middle School students from Pine Crest's Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton campuses are welcome to participate on a Technology Student Association (TSA) team and compete at state and national conferences. For the first time in school history, Pine Crest joined over 2,750 students who share the same appreciation for science, engineering, design, and technology in February 2016. Team projects ranged from Challenging Tech Issues Debate and Mass Production to Microcontroller Design and Video Game Design. Nine Pine Crest teams qualified to move on to the national TSA competition in June 2016.

  • Discovery Education Young Scientists Challenge

    Innovation specialists in the Mintz Family iLab on our Boca Raton campus guide five Middle School students in this video competition. Students are encouraged to use their imagination as a means for science exploration, innovation, and communication. To compete, students identify a solution to an everyday problem that directly impacts them, their families, their communities, and/or the global population. The idea must be a new innovation or solution, and cannot simply be a behavioral change or a new use for an existing product.

  • Spaceflight-Based Research Team

    Under the guidance of Pine Crest innovation specialists, sixth and seventh grade students meet in the Mintz Family iLab on our Boca Raton campus to work on projects and competitions related to spaceflight and space-related research. Members work on research projects related to rocketry, microgravity, and low Earth orbit sensor systems. Students aim to compete in CELERE2106, the Team America Rocketry Challenge, and ELaNa.

  • Independent Science Project Elective

    Middle School students on Pine Crest's Fort Lauderdale campus may choose to take the Independent Science Project elective. Led by an experienced science research instructor, students spend the school year pursuing answers to a particular research question. Projects for 2015-16 included detection of nut allergies, physical therapy for disabled teenagers, and word recognition in pre-primary students. The elective culminates in a final presentation to Middle and Upper School science faculty and Upper School science research students.

  • Three-Year Science Research Course

    Pine Crest School's Science Research program offers 24 Upper School students an opportunity to pursue group and independent science research projects over the course of three years. Science research students spend one dedicated class period daily being guided by Pine Crest's Science Department Chair, which is often supplemented with university-based laboratory work and summer science research programs. Over the past several years, students have focused their research on a variety of topics, including biology, chemistry, engineering, math, medicine, psychology, and more.

  • Media in America Seminar

    In this Advanced Placement (AP) Capstone course, Upper School juniors explore how media and journalism have played an active role in American life since this country's beginnings. Students research the growth of the news media from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War; from Yellow Journalism in the late 1800s to the role of radio during WW II and television during the Vietnam War; from Watergate in the 1960s to the growth and influence of social media today. Students discuss and write about the influence of media, how it can affect both positive and negative change, and become educated consumers of media.