I will be leading a research based project course for 8th graders (7 students total) this semester, revolving around the "Foundations of Genetics" Module. They have just recently taken a data science course where they learned basic statistics. My goals for us as a class are to

1)  Develop independent questions and experimental designs related to plant growth and genetics

2) Build content knowledge in plant genetics

3) Practice sharing their research and ideas, receiving feedback on their ideas

4) Practice using basic statistical analyses such as SD, SE, chi-square, t-tests to analysis phenotype data.

5) Work towards creating a final poster presentation of their experiment, results and analyses.

8th Grade Project Class -Collaboration and Research

These students have just taken a data science course where they developed their own experiments and applied basic statistical methods to analyze their data. They will be introduced to mendelian inheritance at the start of the project. We are a small private school. 

Our school is currently hybrid, with some students in class and some joining virtually. We meet two days a week T/TH. I plan to introduce the module in late January so that when we start our talks with mentors, students will already have an initial research question to discuss and review with mentors.