International Academy's MIT Inspire Essay Contest Winners!

As always, our students are amazing!  Out of the 105 finalists (from the entire nation), 12 are from Michigan (3 DCDS, 1 east coast private school - MI resident, 1 Troy High and 7 IA Student entries). Two of our entries are collaborative, so they count as 1 entry, but really we have 9 student finalists).

Alexis Yan (Rochester Hills, MI) - 11th - How Cities Contribute to Innovative Success

Jake Li (Bloomfield Hills, MI) & Sinan Abdulhak (West Bloomfield, MI) - 10th (partner entry) - The "Airpocalypse" in Cities Around the World

Anushka Dalvi - (Troy) 9th - Designer Babies: A Revolutionary Advancement or an Ethical Disaster!

 Sarah Bdeir (Bloomfield Hills, MI) - 12th - School lunches in the United States compared to England and Canada

Lenna Kanehara (Lake Orion) - 11th - Koreans Living in Japan: Chongryon’s Fight Against Assimilation

The official list

https://getinspired.mit.edu/sites/default/files/documents/INSPIRE%202017%20finalists.pdf

These students will be presenting their projects April 10, 11 and 12 at MIT in Cambridge, MA.  This is an amazing opportunity for them.  

This is the 3rd year of the competition and the 3rd year we have IA students presenting.  I have volunteered to be these students' mentor for the last 3 years. My profession as a school librarian is to be the research expert. I believe it is a critical skill for students to leave high school with the knowledge of how to find quality information. It is my strong belief that when schools cut their library programs, their students will not have the foundational knowledge to accomplish what these students have accomplished. They do most of the work, but we do discuss their arguments, where they are getting their research from, who are the experts in the field, and I sign off on their entry forms.  Because of their access to a school library, they know how to use our Gale Databases and have come to rely on QuestiaSchool for the bulk of their research.

Please congratulate them :)  This is a very prestigious national competition.  I'm not sure that we have given them the recognition they deserve for this accomplishment.  This is an incredible amount of university-level work and I am super proud of them for accomplishing such a task in high school.  Even during the panicked emails during Christmas break 😊  They win because of what they learn in their classrooms, because of their research and writing skills and because of the "IB way". 

Most of these students write their papers during Winter Break.  This is about a 4000-word investigative essay.  They present an argument in their chosen topic and show evidence that leads to a conclusion.  The strong essays will acknowledge the different perspectives within their topic.  They also tend to provide a source analysis on 1 or 2 of their best sources.  This is not a typical report that lists facts from secondary sources.  Conducting an investigation makes use of inquiry and higher-level thinking skills.

INSPIRE stands for “Inspiring the Nation's Students to Pursue Innovative Research” in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.  For more information, click here.

These students make the International Academy proud!